Putting the House in Order: Part II: The Israeli Model

Looking Back, December 2024
By Mark Albertson

Putting the House in Order
Part II: The Israeli Model

Lieutenant General Hamilton H. Howze, in his book, A Cavalryman’s Story, chapter 22, related his experiences in a visit to Israel in 1967.  He offered that he learned a lot about the Six-Day War, June 5-10, 1967:

“I would, with my background also mention the use of maybe a dozen Israeli Air Force light two-seater Bell OH-13 helicopters, made available to the Army.  The Middle East desert, almost everywhere has a roll to it.  Flying only a few feet off the ground these little choppers, with tank commanders aboard, allowed the Israelis to scout the location and formations of opposing Arab tanks, and then path find for the Israeli tanks across the wadis, (deep, dry ditches) and other terrain so that Israelis could catch their Arab opponents by surprise and from an unexpected direction—the flank or rear.  The Arabs had no helos,[1] and without them suffered a towering disadvantage; their tank formations were largely blind.  Israeli tank units knew Arab strength; dispositions, and in what direction they were faced, and therefore could (and did) first surprise them, in directions, timing and clobber them.”[2] Yet the Israeli Ministry of Defense offers further clarification of the IDF’s reliance on the helicopter performing a variety of tasks:

“Helicopters were used to extricate pilots shot down scores of kilometers behind enemy lines, wounded were evacuated from front line dressing stations and parachutists were landed in the very heart of an enemy strongpoint at the height of the battle.

“In several battles, paratroopers were landed in the thick of the fighting by helicopter.  The first time was in the capture of the large Egyptian system of fortifications at Umm-Gataf, on the Nitzana axis.  The paratroopers’ objective was to silence the artillery batteries shelling the armor trying to break through the perimeter.  At Sharm el-Sheikh an advance party of paratroopers was landed by helicopter to see whether it was defended and to prepare the ground for the eventual capture of the camp by an airborne unit.  The next day, a paratroop unit landed by helicopter on Ras Sudr and took possession of the Egyptian positions.

“Helicopter-borne paratroopers were also used in an assault on the southern sector of the Golan Heights.

“From the first day of the fighting, helicopters were active in rescuing pilots who either had to bail out or forced to land planes damaged in action.  One of the pilots was picked up near the Canal 15 hours after he had been shot down and after he had walked 15 kilometers from where he had bailed out.  One pilot who hit the silk near the Mitla Pass, in the heart of the Peninsula, was accorded a personal air cover to keep off the Bedouins who infested the area until a helicopter could reach him.  In all, 13 downed pilots were rescued during the war, seven of them from enemy territory.

“The helicopter crews, at considerable risk, repeatedly landed in the very thick of the fighting to speed wounded to the nearest field hospital.  Outstanding examples, though far from unique, were in the battle of Rafah, the tank battle north of Jerusalem and the Golan breakthrough.[3]

The Israelis, then, were on the upside of the learning curve with their use of the helicopter.  This education process had commenced in May 1951, when the Israelis began using the helicopter for such tasks as observation and reconnaissance, obtaining intelligence, a rotary wing taxi for brass.

During the War of Attrition, that period of unease between the conclusion of the 1967 war to the outbreak of the Yom Kippur or, if you will, the Ramadan War October 1973, the Israelis seemed to follow the American model in Vietnam.  Lift helicopters shuttling Israeli Air Cav troop on raids against the Egyptians, Jordanians or Syrians, were being escorted by Bell 205s mounting 7.62 mm machine guns, 30 mm cannon and rockets.[4]  The War of Attrition, then, could be construed as being that “anticipatory counterattack” or a continuation of the preemptive attack that had commenced the 1967 war.  Almost certainly this form of keeping potential enemies off balance caused Washington to frown on “Israeli Belligerence.”

That said, the 1967 preemptive strike by Israel was not allowed to be repeated in 1973.[5]  Especially with the political pressure applied by Washington, faced as it was with defeat in Vietnam and a broken and demoralized army to fix.  Yet the warning signs of an Egyptian continuation of war abounded.  For instance, the CIA’s “Growing Risk of Egyptian Resumption of Hostilities with Israel,” authored by Ray S. Cline,[6] May 31, 1973, in which he wrote:

“A recent National Intelligence Estimate 30-73, May 17, 1973, (copy attached) concludes that ‘substantial Egyptian-Israeli hostilities appear unlikely in the next few weeks,’ but that the danger of resumption of hostilities ‘probably will rise if the UN debates and the summit pass without any results judged useful by Cairo.’

“INR is inclined to state the case on the risk of hostilities for a political purpose with a little more urgency.  If the UN debates of the next week produces no convincing movement in the Israeli-Egyptian impasse, our view is that the resumption of hostilities by autumn will become better than even . . . , and that there is even a slight chance that Cairo may precipitate events before or during the June 10 Nixon-Brezhnev summit.”[7]

Among the steps taken by the Egyptians were those highlighted again by the CIA in a 1975 postwar report:

“Long before the war, the Egyptians had built a series of earth mounds overlooking the Israeli side of the canal (Suez Canal).  They were thought to be no more than observation posts.  On the outbreak of war, however, these mounds sprouted tanks and anti-tank units, the latter armed with Sagger missiles carried by men or BRDM vehicles.  By these means the Egyptians added still more antitank and covering fire to their crossing force.  At the same time, Egyptian artillery spotters on the mounds could look over the 40-to-50 foot sand wall the Israelis had built and call in artillery fire on Israeli installations and reinforcements as much as five kilometers from the canal.

“The Egyptians also built one of the densest and most diversified air defense systems ever erected to provide protection against the Israeli Air Force.  This system consisted of dozens of SA-2, SA-3, SA-6 and SA-7 SAM units, radar-guided anti-aircraft artillery, and conventional AAA heavy machine guns.”[8] The Egyptians commenced the war thus:

“At H-Hour on 6 October, 240 Egyptian aircraft crossed the Canal.  Their mission was to strike three airfields in the Sinai, to hit the Israeli Hawk surface-to-air missile batteries, to bomb three Israeli command posts, plus radar stations, medium artillery positions, the administration centers and the Israeli strongpoint known as “Budapest” on the sandbank east of Port Fouad.  Simultaneously, 2.000 guns opened up along the entire front: field artillery, medium and heavy artillery and medium and heavy mortars.  In the first minute of the attack, 10,500 shells fell on the Israeli positions at a rate of 175 shells per second.  A brigade of FROG surface-to-air missiles launched its weapons, and tanks moved up to the ramps prepared on the same ramparts, depressed their guns and fired point-blank at the Israeli strongpoints.  Over 3,000 tons of concentrated destruction were launched against a handful of Israeli fortifications in a barrage that turned the entire east bank of the Suez Canal into an inferno for 53 minutes.”[9]

On the Northern Front, the Golan, the Syrian attack was announced by heavy aircraft attacks and the liberal use of artillery.  The Syrian host vastly outnumbered Israeli units attempting to block numerically superior forces; to which the Syrians were bolstered by Jordanians, Iraqis and Moroccan contingents.  For instance, at the Rafid Opening, the Israeli 188th Brigade with 57 tanks, had to face a torrent of Syrian armor, some 600 tanks, in addition to the Syrian 5^th and 9^th Infantry Divisions.  But since the reader already knows (or should know) the eventual outcome, the narrative will focus briefly on the pivotal battle for Mount Harmon.

The commanding height known as Mount Harmon provided the occupant with a panoramic view, of not only the entire battlefield, but the roads leading in and out of Damascus.  The Israeli defenses atop this strategically significant peak, had been constructed to withstand aerial bombing and artillery bombardment.  The chink in the armor, though, was the accompanying trench system for the defending garrison, it had not yet been completed.

The Syrian attack on the crest was spearheaded by Air Cav troops lifted by four helicopters.  One crashed.  The remaining three dropped off their charges a mile from the crest.  These Syrian commandos overwhelmed the Israeli defenders and took the summit.

“For the Soviet advisors of the Syrians, who arrived shortly after the fall of the position, the electronic equipment captured there was of singular value.”[10]

“The Syrian 82^nd Commando Battalion took the position on 6 October, killing 25 to 50 Israeli troops.  On 8 October, troops of the Israeli Golan Infantry Brigade tried to recapture the position but failed, losing 50 killed in the attempt.[11]  But on October 11, the Israelis commenced a counteroffensive.

The assault to reassert Israeli control of Mount Harmon began on the night of October 20.  The Golani Brigade was to assault the lower elevations, leaving Israeli paratroopers to be concerned with the heights.  The latter were hoisted by helicopter, together with fighter escort.  A Lieutenant Colonel Hezi and his battalion secured a landing zone, perhaps a half mile from their objective.  Syrian artillery and aircraft attempted to intervene.  The Israeli Air Force neutralized the latter.  And three Syrian helicopters on their way to the slopes were lost.

Lieutenant Colonel Hezi’s paratroopers launched their assault, and by the early morning hours of the 22^nd of October, the Israelis were back in control of the dominating heights.  And, in turn, the strategically significant Golan Heights remained in Israeli hands.[12]  Yet . . .

. . . at its low point in the war, Israel’s material losses generated glum faces, including here in the United States.  But political problems existed in Washington:  President Nixon was under siege from the Watergate investigation; his vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, had had to resign, in addition to the quandary the United States found itself in with an embarrassing political defeat in Southeast Asia; the need to fend off the growing military power of the Soviet competitor in the superpower standoff; and, of course, the growing unpredictability of the Arab states and oil.  But following the pleas of Golda Meir, the decision was made to resupply Israel.  Hence, Operation:  NICKEL GRASS.

Concerned with an oil embargo by the Arab-producing states, many American allies forbid landing rights for aircraft participating in this 1973 version of the Berlin Airlift.  And so Military Airlift Command went to work.  Some 268 C-141s and 77 C-5As were committed.  Between October 12 and November 14, the USAF airlifted “22,395 tons of cargo—145 missions by C-5 Galaxys and 422 missions by C-141 Starlifters.  The C-5s delivered 48 percent of the tonnage but consumed 24 percent less fuel than the C-141s.  Included in the gross cargo tonnage was a total of 2,264.5 tons of ‘outsize’ material equipment that could be delivered only by a C-5.  Among these were M-60 tanks, 155 mm howitzers, ground radar systems, mobile tractor units, CH-53 helicopters and A-4E components.

 

 

“The airlift had been a key to victory.  It had not only brought about the timely resupply of the flagging Israeli force but also provided a series of deadly new weapons put to good use in the latter part of the war.  These included Maverick and TOW anti-tank weapons and extensive new electronic countermeasures equipment that warded off successful attacks on Israeli fighters.  Reflecting on the operation’s vital contribution to the war effort, Reader’s Digest would call it, ‘The Airlift That Saved Israel.’

“Both U.S. transport types distinguished themselves by performing reliably and economically.  The C-5A had an 81 percent reliability while the C-141 registered a 93 percent reliability.  No accidents occurred.  The abort rate of all planned flights came in under 2 percent.

“The airlift taught the Air Force many lessons, large and small.  One was that Lajes was a godsend—one that the U.S. best not take for granted in a future emergency.  The Air Force established an immediate requirement for aerial refueling to become standard practice in MAC so that its airlifters could operate without forward bases, if necessary.  Another lesson was that commercial airlines, on their own, could not be expected to volunteer their services and aircraft.  This meant that access to commercial lift in the future would have to be met by activating the Civil Reserve Fleet, as in fact it was doing during the Gulf War.  Nickle Grass also led to the consolidation of all airlift aircraft under Military Airlift Command and its designation as a specified command, February 1, 1977.

“Finally, the C-5 proved to be the finest military airlift aircraft in history, not the expensive military mistake as it had been portrayed in the media.  Its ability to carry huge amounts of cargo economically, carry outsized pieces of equipment, and refuel in flight justified the expense of the program.”[13]

Operation:  NICKLE GRASS did show something else of a positive nature; that despite the aforementioned myriad of political and military problems facing the United States in 1973, the Republic could galvanize itself with the proper personnel and ample resources to perform in fine fashion.  And not only perform in fine fashion, but make a decisive contribution to the result.  In other words, it was something to build on for the future.

* * * * *

The Future is Now!

Indeed, for the United States, in 1973, the future is now!  For instance, the Egyptians and Syrians, which had jealously husbanded their forces, in addition to learning from their mistakes of the past, sought to profit from this soul-searching by delivering that grievous knockout blow to their antagonist, Israel, and return Palestine to the Arab fold; while at the same time, eliminating what they perceived as that hateful abscess of Western colonialism, Israel, from the Arab realms.  And by resorting to mass conventional mobile war of the Western variety to accomplish same.  In this resulting arena of High-Intensity Conventional Warfare was a wake-up call for the United States.  For the Soviet Union was that Western opponent schooling their Arab clients on the Western way of war.  And since this was so, it was that Soviet Army and their Warsaw Pact[14] allies, which enjoyed the luxury of superior numbers, that was to be faced in Europe by the United States and its NATO allies.

And so after twelve years of fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia during the Second Indochina War, and against an enemy that could hardly be considered a major industrial power, an enemy that did successfully wage a protracted campaign designed to wear out its economically superior foe, by waging a campaign of attrition intended to erode its will to continue the struggle, therefore relegating to irrelevance such advantages of money, resources, technology, industrial production . . . a pattern repeated starting in 1979, when the Soviets blundered into Afghanistan.

Both countries, the United States and the Soviet Union, reputed to be the superpowers of the world, seemed to be emblematic of societies that no longer had the intestinal fortitude for war.  In the American case, 1968-1973 was not 1941-1945.  “Remember Pearl Harbor!” and this is “Our War!” or “Remember the Bataan Death March!” became “Hell No We Won’t Go!” and this is “The President’s War!”  For victory on the battlefield is based on three fronts:  The Political Front, the Battle Front and the Home Front.  Competent politicians and diplomats are required to staff the Political Front; talented, skilled and trained officers and soldiers are necessary to successfully wage the conflict on the Battle Front.  But the backbone is the Home Front.  Because it is from the Home Front that the political class and army emerge.  And from the Home Front comes the weaponry, equipment, supplies, goods, services and labor to be able to wage a conflict.  Take away any of these cogs, especially the latter, and chances for victory wane.[15]

However years of antiwar sentiments and backlash on the Home Front eventually caused the military to rethink conscription.  Instead, the opposition to the military was not only from large blocks of the citizenry, but from the ranks as well.

Following the TET offensive, January-February 1968, the downward slide of discipline, order and cohesiveness set in as the uniforms in-theater faced and dealt with the ineptitude of the suits stateside.  As offered by Richard W. Stewart, in Chapter 11 of his American Military History, published by the Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.

“Operations on the coastal plain brought uncertain outcomes as well.  Here, the Americal Division fought in an area where the population had long been sympathetic to the Viet Cong.  As in other areas, pacification in Southern I Corps seemed to improve after the 1968 TET offensive, though enemy units still dominated the piedmont and continued to challenge American and South Vietnamese forces on the coast.  Operations against them proved to be slow, frustrating exercises in warding off North Vietnamese and Viet Cong main force units while enduring harassment from local guerrillas and the hostile population.  Except during spasms of intense combat, as in the summer of 1969 when the Americal Division confronted the 1st PAVN Regiment,[16] most U.S. casualties were from snipers, mines and booby traps.  Villages populated by old men, women and children were as dangerous as the elusive enemy main force units.  Operating in such conditions day after day included a climate of fear and hatred among Americans.  The already thin line between civilian and combatant was easily blurred and violated.  In the hamlet of My Lai, elements of the Americal Division killed about two hundred civilians in March 1968.  Although only one member of the division was tried and found guilty of war crimes, the atrocity reverberated throughout the Army. However rare, such acts undid the benefits of countless hours of civic action by Army units and individual soldiers and raised unsettling questions about the conduct of the war.

“War crimes such as My Lai were born of a sense of frustration that also contributed to a host of morale and discipline problems among enlisted men and officers alike.  As American forces were withdrawn by a government eager to escape the war, the lack of a clear military objective contributed to a weakened sense of mission and a slackening of discipline.  The short-timer syndrome, the reluctance to take risks in combat towards the end of a soldier’s one-year tour, was compounded by the last casualty syndrome.  Knowing that all U.S. troops would soon leave Vietnam, no soldier wanted to be the last to die.  Meanwhile, in the United States, harsh criticism of the war, the military, and traditional military values had become widespread.  Heightened individualism, growing permissiveness, and a weakening of traditional bonds of authority pervaded American society and affected the Army’s rank and file.  The Army grappled with problems of drug abuse, racial tensions, weakened discipline, lapses of leadership.  While out right refusals to fight were few in number, incidents of ‘fragging’ (murderous attacks on officers and noncoms)[17] occurred frequently enough to compel commands to institute a host of new security measures within their cantonments.  All these problems were symptoms of larger social and political force and underlines a growing disenchantment with the war among soldiers in the field.[18]

“As the Army prepared to exit Vietnam, lassitude and war weariness at times resulted in tragedy, such as at Firebase MARY ANN in 1971.  There, soldiers of the Americal Division, soon to go home, relaxed their security and were overrun by a North Vietnamese force.  Such incidents reflected a decline in the quality of leadership among both commissioned and noncommissioned officers.  Lowered standards, abbreviated training, and accelerated promotions to meet the high demand for noncommissioned and junior officers often resulted in the assignment of squad, platoon, and company leaders with less combat experience than the troops they led.  Careerism and ticket-punching in officer assignments, false reporting and inflated body counts, and revelations of scandal and corruption all raise disquieting questions about the professional ethics of Army leadership.  Critics indicted the tactics and techniques the Army used in Vietnam, noting that airmobility, for example, tended to distance troops from the population they were sent to protect and that commanders aloft in their command and control helicopters were at psychological and physical distance from the soldiers they were supposed to lead.”[19]

Criticisms proffered above as to Airmobility certainly need to be addressed before moving on.  Depending on the source(s) of such challenges, the concept in question enables conventional troops to move like insurgents, so as to appear at the enemy’s front, rear or flanks.  Indeed, to appear then disappear, then suddenly turn up in another quarter.  This can only be done with the helicopter, which certainly presents obvious advantages over the limitations of competing forms of ground transportation.  In addition to the fact, that the Air Cav commander can be as mobile as his troops.  For instance, Lieutenant Colonel Harold Moore accompanied his command into Landing Zone X-Ray and shared the trials and tribulations of his men.

The disparagement of Airmobility from the perspective that it distanced the troops from the people they were sent to protect is not really a discussion worth entertaining when one understands the political situation.  The reality being that American troops were sent to Vietnam to shore up a government meant to keep that nation out of the Communist orbit and into that of the West.  And that meant defending a government that engendered a widespread unpopularity.  Instead, the only hearts and minds Washington should have endeavored to capture were those that really mattered, the millions on the Home Front.  But following the TET debacle that, too, became an exercise in futility.  Yet, as usual with history, lessons abound here,[20] lessons that will be addressed in Part III.     

Endnotes

[1]  Contrary to General Howze’s observation as to the Arabs having no helicopters, “The combined air forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, together with the two Iraqi squadrons which joined the fray, numbered about 600 aircraft on the fifth of June.  About 450 were jet bombers and fighters, and the rest, transports and helicopters.”  See page 30, “The Air Force at War:  The Destruction of the Arab Air Forces,” The Six Days War, Israeli Ministry of Defense, 1967.  In addition to the results of the initial Israeli Air Force attack against the Egyptian aerial threat:

“In less than three hours, nearly 300 Egyptian planes were destroyed.  A breakdown of the types of aircraft knocked out gives some idea of what was in store for Israel if the Egyptians had been able to get them into action against the I.D.F. and the Israeli population.  ‘Confirmed kills’ included 30 Tupolev-16s, 27 Illyushin-28 medium bombers, 12 Sukhoi-7 fighter-bombers (which Egypt had only just received), some 90 Mig-21 interceptors, 20 Mig-19s, Mig-17s and another 32 transports and big MI-6 helicopters.”  See page 32, The Six Days’ War.

[2]  See pages 38 and 39, “The Air Force at War,” The Six Days’ War, Chief Education Officer, Israeli Defense Forces.

[3]  See pages 38 and 39, “The Air Force at War,” The Six Days’ War, Chief Education officer, Israeli Defense Forces.

[4]  See page 3, “The Use of Helicopters Against Guerrillas:  The Israeli Model,” by Dr. Tal Tovy.

[5]   “In the main attack, nineteen Egyptian air bases in the Sinai, in the Nile Delta, the Nile valley and Cairo area were attacked in some 500 sorties, destroying 309 out of 340 serviceable combat aircraft including all 30 long-range Tu-16 bombers, 27 medium-range Illyushin Il-28 bombers, 12 Sukhoi Su-7 fighter-bombers, some 90 Mig-21 fighters, 20 Mig-19 fighters, 25 Mig-17 fighters and a further 32 transport aircraft and helicopters.” See page 161, Book III, The Six Day War, 1967, “Prologue,” The Arab-Israeli Wars, by Chaim Herzog.  Meaning, Mr. Herzog coincides with the Education Officer, Israeli Defense Forces.  Refer to endnote no. 1.

[6]  At the time, Ray S. Cline was INR or Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research for the Department of State.  He was a long-time member of the intelligence community.

[7]  See page 1, “Growing Risk of Egyptian Resumption of Hostilities with Israel,” INR Ray S. Cline, May 31, 1973, CIA Memo.

[8]  See page 13, “Growing Risk of Egyptian Resumption of Hostilities with Israel,” Intelligence Report:  The 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA, September 1975.

Chaim Herzog offers some depth to the Egyptian threat, just prior to October 6, 1973:  “The total strength of the Egyptian Army (one of the largest standing armies in the world) included some 800,000 troops, 2,200 tanks, 2,300 artillery pieces, 150 anti-aircraft missile batteries and 550 frontline aircraft.  Deployed along the Canal were five infantry divisions and a number of independent brigades (infantry and armor) backed by three mechanized divisions and two armored divisions.  Each infantry division included a battalion of tanks for every one of the three brigades, making a total of 120 tanks in every infantry division.  The three mechanized divisions included two mechanized brigades and one armored brigade, a total of 160 tanks per division.  The two armored divisions were composed of two armored brigades and one mechanized brigade, out of a total of 250 tanks per division.  There were also independent tank brigades, two paratroop brigades, some 28 battalions of commandos and a marine brigade.”  See page 262, BOOK V, The Yom Kippur War, 1973, Prologue, Chapter 1, “The Southern Front,” The Arab-Israeli Wars, by Chaim Herzog.

[9]  See page 262, Chaim Herzog.

[10]  See pages 318 and 319, Chaim Herzog.

[11]  See page 67, “Intelligence Report:  The 1973 Arab-Israeli War:  Overview and Analysis of the Conflict,” Secret, SR IR 75-16, September 1975.

[12]  See page 340, Chaim Herzog.

The highest point of the Mount Harmon complex of heights is Mitzpe Shlaggim (Snow Lookout), which rises to some 7,336 feet.  It is the home of the Israeli armed forces, security service elements and police units which monitor Syria and Lebanon.

December 14, 1981, the Israeli Knesset, by a majority of 63 to 21 in favor of, adopted the Golan Heights Law; by which the State of Israel would “extend Israeli Law, December 14, 1981,” Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Of particular interest in the Golan Heights for Israel is fresh water.  “Syria is systematically violating water agreements with Lebanon and Turkey (Orontes River), Jordan (Yarmuk River), and Iraq (Euphrates River).  Israel’s average annual water potential is 280 cubic meters per capita, compared to 2,000 cubic meters for Syria and 1,400 cubic meters for the Middle East at large.

“70% percent of Israel’s water resources will not be under its control if it withdraws from the Golan (30%), Judea and Samaria (40%).  There is no precedent for a country giving away water sources . . . “  See page 1, “The Golan Heights, Syria and Water Sources,” Think Israel, by Yoram Ettinger, August 8, 2009.

[13]  See page 59, “Nickel Grass,” Air Force Magazine, by Walter Boyne.

[14]  Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953, marking the end of the iron hand of totalitarianism.  Just over two years later, though, and in response to the formation of NATO, May 14, 1955, the pact of Mutual Assistance and Unified Command was signed by representatives of the Soviet Union, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany.  More than a military association, the Warsaw Pact was an actual mechanism to solidify the Soviet Empire in Eastern and Central Europe.  See page 200, Chapter Six, “Military District, Fleets, Border Guards, and MVD Troops,” The Armed Forces of the USSR, by Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott.

[15}  “A stranger to our politics, who tried to read our newspapers, at the present juncture, without having previously inspected the plan reported by the Convention, would be naturally led to one of two conclusions:  either that it contained a positive injunction that standing armies should be kept up in time of peace, or that it vested in the EXECUTIVE the whole power of levying troops subjecting his discretion in any shape to the control of the legislature.

“If he came afterwards to peruse the plan itself, he would be surprised to discover that neither the one nor the other as the case—that this legislature was to be a popular body, consisting of the representatives of the people, periodically elected; and that instead of the provision he has supposed in favor of standing armies, there was to be found, in respect to this object, an important qualification even of the legislative discretion, in that clause which forbids the appropriation of money for the support of the army for any longer period of two years; a precaution, which, upon a nearer view of it, will appear to be a great and real security against the keeping of troops without evident necessity.”  See pages 152 and 153, “The Federalist No. 24, December 19, 1787,” by Alexander Hamilton.

Again, the importance of the Home Front is emblematic with Hamilton’s accent on the Legislative Branch, dully elected by the people, to raise armies and the funds for same, as opposed to providing such power in the Chief Executive.  Leading, too, that Congress has the power to Declare War, not the President.  Such speaks volumes as to why the Second Indochina War was an immense political setback for the United States.

[16]  PAVN or People’s Army of Vietnam was the armed wing of the Communist Party in Vietnam.  It was inclusive of the armed forces, People’s Army, People’s Navy and People’s Air Force.  See “People’s Army of Vietnam,” GlobalSecurity.org, www.globalsecurity.org/…/world/vietnam.htm

[17]  “One of the more disturbing aspects of the unpopular war in Vietnam was the practice known as fragging.  Disenchanted soldiers in Vietnam sometimes used fragmentation grenades, popularly known as frags, or other explosives to threaten or kill officers and NCOs they disliked.  The full extent of the problem will never be known; but increased sharply in 1969, 1970 and 1971, when the morale of the troops declined in step with the American role in the fighting.  A total of 370 well-documented cases involving 83 deaths have come to light.  There were doubtless others and probably some instances of fragging that were privately motivated acts of anger that had nothing to do with the war.  Nonetheless, fragging was symptomatic of an Army in turmoil.”  See page 349, Chapter 11, “The U.S. Army in Vietnam:  From TET to the Final Withdrawal, 1968-1975,” American Military History, Vol. II, by Richard W. Stewart.

[18]  The trials and tribulations that had beset the United States Army as a result of Vietnam was certainly not unusual in history.  In 1916, the Czarist Russian Army launched a huge summer offensive on the Eastern Front, inflicting 600,000 casualties on the Austro-Hungarian forces and crippling that army for the balance of World War I.  At the same time, 1,000,000 Russian casualties had been incurred; to which, peasant soldiers had had enough.  Several years of excessive losses, inept military leadership in addition to an ambivalent and incompetent Czar Nikolas II, caused the Russian soldiers to begin to walk off the battlefields and back to the farms.  Revolution was in the wind.  See page 304, Chapter 8, “The Year of the Battles,” The First World War, by John Keegan.  And page 136, Chapter 6, “The Land War in Europe:  Strategy,” Cataclysm, by David Stevenson.

1918, the vaunted German Army launched five major offensives on the Western Front, designed to bring the Allies to their knees and win the war.  At the cost of 500,000 casualties, the Germans failed to reach their objectives.  With American help, the British and French had withstood the Teutonic onslaught.  But German soldiers had had enough.  Like two summers before, German soldiers, like the Russians before them, began to call it quits.  Discipline fractured and unit cohesiveness split and cracked.

1917, fifty-four divisions of the French Army mutinied in the trenches.  They, too had had their fill of subpar food, inept leadership, disregard of their plight by the high command. . .   Courts-martial found 23,000 men guilty, of which 432 were sentenced to death, with 55 actually shot.  General Henri Petain shuttled busily among French divisions to quell the disenchanted Polius.  Still another 400 were consigned to incarceration, some of whom wound up in penal colonies like Devil’s Island in French Guiana.  See pages 279 and 280, Chapter II, “The Spring Battles in the West,” The Great War, by Cyril Falls.

1780 to March 15, 1783, mutinies and revolts plagued the Continental Army, due to lack of food, lack of new uniforms, pay, indeed, the officers had been promised a half-pay pension for life.  With the colonies some $40 million in debt, where was that money coming from?  For instance, 1781, elements of a New Jersey regiment rose up.  General George Washington not only had quelled the unpleasantness, but ordered the malcontents to pick their ringleaders.  He then had two of them shot.  See pages 413 and 414, General George Washington’s order, “To Robert Howe,” commander of the West Point detachment, to march on the offending New Jersey regiment, and, execute a few of the most active and most incendiary leaders.  George Washington:  Writings.

[19]  See pages 349 and 350, Richard W. Stewart.

[20]  The unstated notion, and one that has a basis of historical substance and precedent, was that of the Domino Theory.  It was started here in the United States with Korea, then Vietnam; that if either fell to the Communists, Southeast Asia, perhaps the Philippines and even Japan might eventually fall to the Reds.  But most important was Indonesia, owing to its more than ample reserves of crude.  And the precedent was 1941-1942.

The primary target for Japan, December 1941, was not Pearl Harbor but the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), since in 1941 this cluster of islands was the globe’s fourth largest producer of crude.  In addition to the fact that as of July 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, by Presidential Executive Order, cut off Japan from American oil exports.  This left the Imperial Japanese Navy with 18 months of oil.

The Domino Theory here saw not only Pearl Harbor attacked, but the Dutch East Indies taken, Guam, Wake, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, the Philippines, New Guinea, the Solomons, . . .  All and more fell like dominos to the rampaging Japanese.    

Bibliography

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