Looking Back, November 2024
By Mark Albertson
Putting the House in Order
Part I: Less is More
To establish a tradition, therefore, which will prove effective, if only a threat of what is to follow afterwards is displayed, the Air Force must, if called upon to administer punishment, do it with all its might and in the proper manner. One objective must be selected—preferably the most accessible village of the most prominent tribe which it is desired to punish. All available aircraft must be collected. . . . The attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and unremitting and carried on continuously by day and night, on houses, inhabitants, crops and cattle. . . . This sounds brutal, I know, but it must be made brutal to start with. The threat alone in the future will prove efficacious if the lesson is once properly learnt. . . .[1]
* * * * *
After January 1973, with the American chapter in the Second Indochina War drawing to a close, Army Aviation found itself in a situation not too unlike that faced by the fledgling RAF after the Versailles Treaty of 1919:Establish justification for its continued existence.Though by 1973, Army Aviation was on surer political footing, perhaps, when compared to the RAF in 1919.This is significant from the perspective that airpower itself had, by 1973, masses of adherents as opposed to 1919, when the practitioners of this developing weapons system known as the heavier-than-aircraft had to compete for a seat at the postwar budget table with the Establishment . . . in this case, the British Army and the Royal Navy.Yet, the historical comparison can still be applied and with some merit.
For instance, Sir Hugh “Boom” Trenchard[2] was deeply concerned that with the conclusion of the 1914-1918 conflict, from the perspective that well-trained RAF personnel would be mustered out and much of its aircraft would be scrapped.But of overriding concern was that much of what had been gleaned from combat experience might be consigned to the shelves to collect dust; and therefore, disregarded or even forgotten.[3]For budgets in the postwar era are going to be slashed, leaving the newly-minted RAF to vie with the established services for a financially secure future.A future that was going to have to be created to justify the future existence of the RAF, especially as a standalone service.
Trenchard certainly understood Britain’s growing economic dilemma.For as a result of the 1914-1918 industrialized war, Britain, like France, needed to retain access to those resources and manpower pools that had been supplied from their empires.Yet at the same time, Revolutionary Nationalism was given a decided boost as a result of the internecine conflict among the colonial overseers; indeed, the 1914-1918 struggle accelerated the precipitous decline of European colonial domination, the demise of which can be seen in 1945 with the victory in a war that did not start in 1939, but rather 1914:And those victors were the United States and the Soviet Union.A new political-strategic course had been charted: Hence, the Cold War.
Trenchard understood that as a result of the 1914-1918 war the adverse economic changes wrought made it costly to station troops throughout the empire; in addition to the fact, that after four years of horrendous bloodletting, loved ones wanted their fathers and sons to come home.[4]
To the British Government, Trenchard pitched the idea of troop reductions in some of the colonies.Air squadrons, then, would take up the slack, especially since the indigenous populations in question did not have aircraft and lacked the sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry with which to defend themselves.And Trenchard offered an example to bolster his case . . . Somaliland.
“Since the 1890s, Mohamad bin Abdullah Hassan, a charismatic tribal leader known as ‘the Mad Mullah,’ had caused trouble in the British protectorate by raiding tribes friendly to the British.From 1900 to 1904, the British mounted several punitive expeditions against him and took fairly heavy losses.In 1904 they finally brought the Mad Mullah’s main force to battle, defeated it, and drove him out of British territory.However the trouble did not end.In 1909, Abdullah started raiding again, and in 1913 his forces shot up a unit of British constabulary.During World War I, the British ignored the problems in Somaliland, but after the war, the British government decided to reinforce the protectorate with an RAF squadron of DH-9 reconnaissance/light bomber aircraft.Eight aircraft arrived by January 1920, and the British set to work with surprise bombing raids on Abdullah Hassan’s forts.The army field force—consisting of detachments from the King’s African Rifles, Somaliland Camel Corps and Indian Army—moved in pursuit of the Mullah’s force.Over the next three weeks, the RAF reverted to supporting the ground force by reconnaissance and bombing.The Mullah escaped and took his remaining forces over the border into Ethiopia, where he died the next year.For the astoundingly low price of 80,000 pounds, airpower had played a central role in defeating a force that had irritated the colony for many years.”[5]
In March 1921, at the Cairo Conference on Mideast Affairs, Winston Churchill, chairman of the proceedings, fielded Trenchard’s application of allowing the RAF to take control of military efforts in subduing the rambunctious Iraqis; this, of course, in the wake of the bargain basement approach to the use of airpower in Somaliland.And “on October 22, 1922, the Air Ministry officially took control of the country.[6]Over the next ten years, the punitive use of airpower helped to subdue recalcitrant tribesmen, such as the autonomous-minded Kurds, marsh Arabs, bombed raiding Wahhabis causing disturbances in southern Iraq.And in other policing efforts, bombed an illegal dam erected by a sheikh who cut off his neighbors from badly needed water and who refused to pay his taxes.By the end of the decade, at a fraction of the cost of committing large numbers of troops, the RAF, together with colonial ground detachments, had largely subdued Iraq, at a human cost to itself of 14 killed and 84 wounded.[7]
But man has a tendency to acclimate himself to a given situation; and the indigenous on the receiving end of British bombs and machine gun fire attempted to cope.One such were the rebellious Kurds.Kurds in the mountains upon hearing the drone of approaching British aircraft, would light fires, creating smoke which indicated to the villagers of the impending airborne threat.
Such air policing efforts throughout the empire by the RAF helped to stimulate that culture, already evolving on the Western Front by 1918; that of Douhet’s theory of bombing civilians behind the lines.Mussolini’s Regia Aeronautica would perform this function during the 1935-1937 Italo-Abyssinian War; German and Italian bombers in support of fellow Fascist, Francisco Franco, bombed Spanish cities during the tune up to 1939, the Spanish Civil War; as well as the Japanese bombing of Shanghai and other Chinese cities starting in 1937.Followed, of course, by British Bomber Command, joined later by the United States Eighth Army Air Forces, in a concerted strategic bombing campaign waged against Nazi Germany.
But air policing/counterinsurgency/disciplining recalcitrant populations, showcased the RAF’s ability to acclimate itself to the changing strategic as well as tactical states of affairs following 1918.Such is the situation Army Aviation found itself after January 1973.
* * * * *
Major General Allen M. Burdett, Jr., Director of Army Aviation in 1970, alluded to the post-Vietnam War course for Army Aviation during the decade of the 1970s.He outlined this path in a speech to the National Capitol Chapter of the Air Force Association, to which he said, “At the outset, I want to make clear that we seek no changes in service roles and missions, nor a grab for a disproportionate share of a relatively smaller defense budget.[8]All that we ‘Green Suiters’ want is to improve through innovation and technology our effectiveness in doing a better job for the Nation.Our job, our mission—as we all know—is to control, with coercion when necessary, the activities of people within a land area.’”[9] To which he added:
“This mission today is more challenging than ever before.Confronted by threats ranging from the nuclear through tank-intense, mechanized forces, to large numbers of small guerrilla bands—and even to domestic rioters,[10] somehow we must find ways to increase our capabilities even as personnel and dollar resources are being reduced.[11]
General Burdett’s references to limited access to money and manpower forecast the reality of the coming times . . . austerity.And his rationale of “increasing our capabilities” in an attempt to cope with the impeding reductions in money and manpower, underscores that the armed forces will have to operate from the mindset that less is more.However . . .
. . . the post-Vietnam period was marked, perhaps, by a thoughtful analysis put forth by Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, USN, with regards to airmobility, which he viewed as a concept that would be a requirement for an army that would shrink in size following the end of the war:
“This is a concept comparable in significance to the airborne and armor concepts which reached their maturity in World War II,” the admiral adding, “The Joint Chiefs of Staff were unanimous in accepting airmobility as a sound concept in the low-intensity environment of Vietnam.”
He added, “It is possible for some combination of airmobility and, for example, armor, may prove more suitable in certain future situations than either capability used alone.
“If so,” he said, “the Army might considerably increase its versatility by such a marriage of capabilities.This is the sort of thinking going on in the Army today to get more performance out of a smaller force.”[12]
* * * * *
Yet with the abundance of funds or the scarcity of funds, the reality of the world applies:Man cannot co-exist peacefully for an extended period of time.[13]For whether a “brushfire war” such as in Vietnam or potential large conventional war, the larger picture still existed.The global competition with the Soviet contender.Army Aviation, then, would be required to readjust; readjust, that is, back to what it was training for in the 1950s.
* * * * *
Limited War Rules
July 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon, as the growing reality of the Vietnam debacle was rapidly becoming apparent, announced this Nation’s commitment in keeping its treaty obligations with its Asian allies, such as SEATO.[14]This was sustained on February 18, 1970, when the President reiterated this Nation’s willingness to abide by its treaty obligations and to provide and maintain that nuclear shield to those nations allied to the United States.This became known as the Nixon Doctrine.[15]
Yet a situation developed in one of the most oil-soaked regions of the globe that could not be ignored despite America’s commitment to Southeast Asia.For in January 1968, growing financial constraints forced the Labor Government in Britain to formally announce the withdrawal of British forces from the Persian Gulf by the end of 1971.
“At the time of the announcement, the British presence involved about 6,000 ground troops, as well as naval forces and air support units, costing around 12 million pounds a year (about $29 million at the exchange rate of the time).The rulers of the Persian Gulf received the British announcement with dismay and offered to meet Britain’s expenses out of their mounting oil revenues.Defense Secretary Denis Healy poured scorn on the suggestion that the British become ‘mercenaries’ for people who like to have British troops around,’ and the Labor Government considered it politically unwise to maintain its military presence east of Suez.It signaled its retreat from empire by applying for membership in the European Economic Community.[16]
This posed an issue for Washington.For the British signified that token representation of Western colonial interests.For sure the United States could not perform such a strategic function, owing to its massive exposure in Southeast Asia, troop obligations on the Korean peninsula in the wake of the 1950-1953 war and, its manpower and equipment commitment to NATO in Europe.And, there was the anti-military backlash in the streets at home.Despite having the best military in the Middle East, Israel was not politically palatable.So the Shah of Iran, long a Western client, was chosen to be the caretaker of Western concerns in the Middle East; to which he was lavished with weapons and equipment, a proxy that would prove, like many of them do in the end, disastrous.[17]
At the same time, President Richard Nixon rendered political overtures to China.The split in the Communist world was evident and had been so for many years.And with the Soviets expanding their military capabilities, the Nixon/Kissenger effort sought to open relations with the gold standard of Peasant Revolution versus the practitioner of the Proletarian Revolution and broaden even further the political crevice within the Communist ranks; a difference of opinion evident with the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia to end the brutal Pol Pot regime, a client of Peking, with Moscow backing Hanoi.[18]
As alluded to in note 18, the Chinese, as a result of its costly campaign into the territory of its feisty neighbor to the south, will begin a progression of military modernization, and away from its peasant origins.The United States, too, was undergoing a transformation militarily.Yet both giants had violated Clausewitz’s cardinal rule of, “Accordingly, war can never be separated from political intercourse, and if, in the consideration of the matter, this is done in any way, all the threads of the different relations are, to a certain extent, broken, and we have before us a senseless thing without an object.”[19]
In both cases, Washington and Peking had limited war objectives, without recourse to Total Victory.Therefore their entries into conflict proved fruitless.Peking, of course, was not going to consult the average Chinaman as to his or her stakes in a war with its truculent neighbor.Washington, too, in the end, ostracized the American public from the Second Indochina War, setting up the country for a decisive political defeat.At the same time, though, Airmobility was proved, on the tactical battlefield, underscoring what Major General James M. Gavin wrote in 1947:
“The future of our armed forces is in the air.All fighting men and everything they need to fight with in the future and live on as they fight must be capable of movement by air.Only through flight can we wage a future war in accordance with the principles of surprise, mass and economy of means.Only by exploiting to its utmost the great potential of flight can we complete dispersion in the defense with the facility of rapidly massing for counterattack which today’s and tomorrow’s army must possess.Even without the power and use of atomic energy for war these things would be true.With the use of atomic energy they become axiomatic.”[20]
What General Gavin put forth in his book could be applied in either environment of limited or unlimited war.The U.S. Army proved this in Vietnam.Yet big power ineptness will continue; for the Soviets will blunder into Afghanistan, repeating America’s mistake of 1961.Again, a big power will go down to ignominious defeat to a nation, which by comparison, was backward, lacking an industrial and technological infrastructure and in the case of Afghanistan, was devoid of a functioning system of central government.Or as Roger Trinquier noted in his A French View of Counterinsurgency:
“Warfare is now an interlocking system of actions—political, economic, psychological, military—that aims at the overthrow of the established authority and its replacement by another regime.To achieve this end, the aggressor tries to exploit the internal tensions of the country attacked—ideological, social, religious, economic—any conflict liable to have profound influence on the population to be conquered.Moreover, in view of the present day interdependence of nations, any residual grievance within the population, no matter however localized and lacking in scope will surely be brought by determined adversaries into the framework of the greater world conflict.From a localized conflict of secondary origin and importance, they will always attempt sooner or later to bring about a generalized conflict.”[21]
For America, what Trinquier was expressing was tantamount to a cultural change.For up to November 25-26, 1950, the conventional or Total War doctrine of the United States was based on the destruction of the enemy’s army so as to bring the foe to the conference table or, unconditional surrender.The popular notion of same was effected towards the defeat of the Axis Powers.
January 1943, Casablanca Conference, featuring President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, where unconditional surrender was announced.Earlier in the war, Churchill had proclaimed, “Victory at all Costs!”At the same time, FDR, during a fireside chat, September 29, 1940, stated, “’A nation can have peace with the Nazis only at the price of total surrender . . . such a dictated peace would be no peace at all.It would only be another armistice, leading to the most devastating trade war in history.’Nevertheless he adopted this hypothetical Nazi policy, and, as we shall see, its results were identical to those he foretold.[22]But what about the American Civil War or, what it actually was, the Revolt of the Planters, since the Confederacy was a revolution from the Right.However whatever label is applied, it was the first war in which America engaged in industrialized, corporatized war.
Commander-in-Chief of the Union or United States Army, General Winfield Scott, showcased a basic understanding of economic warfare:Close off Southern ports; control the Mississippi River and cut off the eastern portion of the Confederacy from its western frontier.Despite this, the Confederacy was able to best, for the most part, the battlefield tactically; that is, of course, until the North got its wartime economy in gear, per Levee en Masse, then the South was doomed.An example of how a nation of farmers was not going to best a nation of wrench-turners in a conventional war during the age of the Industrial Revolution.
Of some of the leading Union generals after Gettysburg, such as Meade, Sheridan and Grant, the one who seemed to have the firmest grip on modern economic warfare was William Tecumseh Sherman.Total defeat of the Southern armies rested on attacking the economy.And during 1864-1865, hearkened back to the Mongol depredations of the 13th century.Destroy it, so that it would be not available to the enemy tomorrow.Indeed, Sherman acknowledged his policy of terror and destruction:“Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it; but utter destruction of the road, houses and people will cripple their military resources . . . I can make the march, and make Georgia howl . . . Should I be forced to assault . . . I shall then feel justified in resorting to the hardest measures, and shall make little effort to restrain my army . . . We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war . . . The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance on South Carolina.I almost tremble at her fate.”[23] Thus April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee will sign an armistice, which in reality, was an admission of utter defeat of that four-year experiment known as the Confederacy.At the same time, the Southerners of 1864-1865 must be acknowledged as those Americans, unlike any other generation in the history of this country, who understood the rudiments of modern, industrialized, conventional war . . . Total War, because they were on the receiving end of it and endured it.A lesson of stark significance that is seemingly ignored.Indeed, the blaze in bloody Kansas waged by the likes of John Brown became that firestorm of economic warfare by William Tecumseh Sherman.
1914, the European colonial powers bungled their way into another industrialized conflict; one more horrible and costly than the American tragedy some fifty years earlier.For Man’s talent for innovation, invention and production, financed by Capitalism, would bring on a struggle of global proportions not yet seen in the history of Man.A manmade cataclysm that will spam the years of 1914-1945.
For the United States, which in 1914 was the world’s ranking industrial power going on twenty years, the basic American military doctrine remained unchanged, as understood in the 1914 Field Service Regulations of the United States Army:
“Only by means of an energetic pursuit of the beaten army can the full fruits of victory and decisive results therefrom can be obtained.It is not mere defeat of the enemy’s army, but its destruction, that ends the campaign.[24]The task of the victorious army is less than half performed when it remains satisfied with the mere possession of the battlefield.Pursuit must immediately follow victory, and every effort be made to continue contact with the enemy, day and night, up to the absolute limit of physical endurance of the troops.”[25]
By the summer of 1918, the United States Army, together with the British and French armies, defeated the winded German armies, forcing imperial Germany to an armistice on November 11, 1918, followed by the Versailles Treaty, June 28, 1919.Such was the American approach to war in 1865, 1918 and 1945.
Such was the American military doctrine on June 25, 1950.Following the breakout from the Pusan perimeter, in conjunction with General Douglas MacArthur’s inspired amphibious effort at Inchon, once South Korea had been cleared of invading North Korean troops, President Harry Truman concurred with General MacArthur and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to push across the 38th parallel, invade North Korea, destroy the North Korean People’s Army and unify the peninsula under the banner of President Syngman Rhee.But as United Nation’s forces closed on the Chinese border, America’s Cold War use of military force would be changed.
Initial Chinese “encroachments” into North Korea served as warnings, indicating that Peking would not tolerate UN armies on the Chinese border.Such warnings were ignored.And so on the night of November 25-26, 1950, 300,000 Chinese “volunteers” from the People’s Liberation Army flooded across the Yalu River.From this date forward, America’s military doctrine was changed.
The Korean War would end where it began, the 38th parallel.The quest to destroy the North Korean People’s Army and unify the contested peninsula ended in failure.The destruction of the enemy’s army to bring him to the conference table failed.Stalemate brought both sides to the conference table, in a struggle that has come to be representative of every war America would fight from here on in, Limited War.
Limited War dominated the Second Indochina War, bolstered, in part, by concern of another Chinese intervention.Again, November 25-26, 1950 loomed large in the 1960s.Unlike the Korean conflict, which ended as a stalemate, Vietnam proved to be an unmitigated political defeat.The Persian Gulf War, again, a Limited War effort, which in the end, left Saddam in power.Iraq, Afghanistan, Limited War, with the former and the latter both ending in political defeat.
Such was the era the United States Army found itself in immediately following Korea.Yet it was the calamity of Vietnam that would cause a transformation of the ground forces.A period of limited budgets, limited manpower, limited assets, limited support and Limited War.Yet it was expected to prepare for large scale conventional war in Europe.
Airmobility, though, had been proven.The Army would be able to hold on to its tactical aerial assets as well as control of same.In turn, this will lead to Aviation joining the service masthead of branches.It now truly had a seat at the table.
Endnotes
[1]RAF Wing Commander, J.A. Chamier, 1921.See page 5, “The Myth of Air Control,” by Dr. James S. Corum.
[2]Sir High “Boom” Trenchard has come to be known as the noted British practitioner of the strategic use of airpower.And he is considered by the United States Air Force as the godfather of strategic bombing.American air commanders such as Henry “Hap” Arnold and Carl Spaatz saw Trenchard as the “Patron Saint of Airpower.”
[3]Along the lines, perhaps, of the fate of the Union Army Balloon Corps, 1863.
[4]This first chapter of Man’s greatest industrialized, corporatized conflict cost the British 908,371 dead to preserve their empire.Cost the French 1,357,800 to retain their colonial holdings.The big loser here was Germany, which lost 1,773,700 dead and lost her colonies.The competitor that came out of this conflict smelling like a rose was Japan.As an Allied power, Tokyo’s reward for being a dutiful Allied power was to receive many of Germany’s holdings in the Pacific . . . at a cost of only 300 to 400 dead.
[5]See page 2, James S. Corum.
[6]See page 4, “British Air Control,” by Captain Davis Willard Parsons, USAF.
[7]See page 5, Captain Davis Willard Parsons.
[8]Italics belong to the author.
[9]See page 9, “The Army Aviation Requirements for the ‘70s,” Army Aviation, by Major General Allen M. Burdett, Jr., March 31, 1970.
[10]The rambunctious nature of the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements is obvious here.Of course, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act renders the employment of regular troops on America streets, generally, as unlawful.Or as found in 6 USC 466:Sense of Congress reaffirming the continued importance of applicability of the Posse Comitatus Act,” text contains those laws in effect on October 18, 2024:
1)Section 1385, of title 18 (commonly known as the “Posse Comitatus Act”) prohibits the use of the Armed Forces as a posse comitatus to execute the laws except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.
2)Enacted in 1878, the Posse Comitatus Act was expressly intended to prevent United States Marshals, on their own initiative, from calling on the Army for assistance in enforcing Federal law.
4) Nevertheless, by its expressed terms, the Posse Comitatus Act is not a complete barrier to the use of the Armed Forces for a range of domestic purposes, including law enforcement functions, when the use of the Armed Forces is required to fulfill the President’s obligations under the Constitution to respond promptly in time of war, insurrection, or other serious emergency.In addition . . .
. . . Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Forces as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both . . . Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1385.
[11]Major General Burdett is warning of the similar situation faced by Air Marshal Trenchard in 1918-1919; as well as for the United States Army following 1945 and again after 1953.Italics are the author’s.
[12]See page 5, “How to do More Things Better With a Given Size Force,” Army Aviation, by Brigadier General William J. Maddox, February 15, 1971.
[13]“Unfortunately, we have not yet attained the idealistic goal wherein nations can live in harmony with each other with little likelihood of aggression.As Sir John Winthrop Hacket has stated:A society of men in which no resort to forces is possible, either for the common good or against it, is inconceivable, so long as man remains what he is.”See page 6, “Aviation in the ‘70s,” an address by Lieutenant General George I. Forsythe, August 1970.
[14]Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was founded in September 1954.Founding members were the United States, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan.Most of the signers were not of the region; though the agreement was an attempt to stop the spread of Communism in the area in question.“Beyond its activities, the SEATO charter was also vitally important to the American rationale for the Vietnam War.The United States used the organization as its justification for refusing to go forward with the 1956 elections intended to reunify Vietnam, instead maintaining the divide between Communist North Vietnam and South Vietnam at the 17th parallel.As the conflict in Vietnam unfolded, the inclusion of Vietnam as a territory under SEATO protection gave the United States the legal framework for its continued involvement there.”See Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 1954,” 2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/lw/88315.htm
[15]See pages 116 and 117, Chapter 5, “The Nixon Presidency,” American Presidents and the Middle East, by George Lenczowski.
[16]See page 35, Chapter 2, “Succeeding John Bull,” War and Peace in the Middle East, by Avi Shlaim.It must be understood that this period of 1968-1971 is a quarter century beyond the actual collapse of the British Empire, 1945.The changing of the guard was already in full-blown progression, with European dominance over and the new balance of power that had arisen from the ashes of history’s greatest industrialized, corporatized war, the Great War, 1914-1945; indeed, Levee en Masse personified:That is the United States and the Soviet Union.
[17]A fateful decision that would help lead to the Iranian Revolution in 1978.
[18]Hanoi completed the unification of Vietnam by April 30, 1975.The Vietnamese will invade Cambodia, December 25, 1978 to rid their neighbor of the murderous Khmer Rouge.It is important to understand that Pol Pot had evicted Vietnamese settlers from Cambodia and back into Vietnam as refugees; in addition, to Vietnamese concerns of the large Chinese minority (the Hoas) in South Vietnam, seen as potential fifth columnists, a realistic outlook when one understands, too, the 20th century relationship of enmity and discord between the Vietnamese and their huge neighbor to the north.
Chinese troops flooded across the Sino-Vietnamese border in the north so as to punish their fellow Communists.Some 250,000 Chinese troops were earmarked for this campaign.Hanoi arranged some 150,000 militia to engage the invaders, keeping in reserve, upwards of seven NVA regular divisions in defense of Hanoi.The Border Militia did most of the fighting and, were hardly second stringers.
The Vietnamese gave ground, acceding provincial capitals Lao Cai, Cao Bang, Dong Dang and Lang Son.But the short, sharp war cost the People’s Liberation Army dearly.“General Wu Xiuquan, the Chinese Deputy Chief of the General Staff told a delegation from the Institute of Higher Studies for National Defense, France (led by General Andre Marte) that the Chinese Army suffered 20,000 killed and wounded in this four-week war.”See page 7, “The Sino-Vietnam War-1979:Case Studies in Limited Wars,” Bharat Rakshak, Monitor, Vol. 3, November-December 2000, by Colonel G.D. Bakshi, VSM.
The 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War was seen by Deng Xiao Peng as justifying his concerns as to the modernization long necessary to bring the People’s Liberation Army up to contemporary standards of modern war.While at the same time, the United States committed itself to refurbish the American armed forces in the post-Vietnam War era.
Addendum:Reported, too, by intelligence sources of the Vietnamese use of chemical weapons to turn back the Chinese incursion, including the use of Botulin bacteria or toxin, supplied, of course, by the Soviet Union.Author Sterling Seagrave wrote in his book Yellow Rain, interviewing American diplomats who related that “a number of terse, cryptic Chinese army radio transmissions, from unit to unit, mentioning coming under chemical attack.”See page 214, Chapter 11, “Dig Tunnels Deep,” Yellow Rain, by Sterling Seagrave.
[19]See page 402, Book Four, “Plan of War,” Chapter VI, (A) “Influence of the Political Object on the Military Object,” On War, by Carl von Clausewitz.
[20See page 140, Chapter 6, “Airborne Armies of the Future,” Airborne Warfare, by Major General James M. Gavin.
[21]See page 5, “Modern World Defined,” A French View of Counterinsurgency, by Roger Trinquier.
[22]See page 278, Chapter XIII, “The Conduct of World War II,” The Conduct of War, 1789-1961, by J.F.C. Fuller.
[23]See pages 108 and 109, Chapter VI, “The American Civil War, 1861-1865,” The Conduct of War, 1789-1961, by J.F.C. Fuller.
[24]To be added here as well, to destroy the enemy’s capability to wage war . . . attack and destroy the enemy’s economy.
[25]See page 87, Article V, “Combat:The Pursuit,” Field Service Regulations, United States Army, 1914.
Bibliography
6 USC 466:Sense of Congress Reaffirming the Continued Importance and Applicability of the Posse Comitatus Act, Text Contains Those Laws in Effect on October 18, 2024, uscode.house.gov/view.xtmi?req=(title:6secton…
Baker, Bonnie, “The Origins of the Posse Comitatus,” www.airuniversity.af.edu/portals/10/ASPJ/joirnals/Chronicles/baker1.pdf
Bakshi, Colonel G.D., VSM, “The Sino-Vietnamese War—1979:Case Studies in Limited Wars,” Bharat Rakshak Monitor, Vol. 3 (3), November 2000.Republished with permission by Lancer Publications, Indian Defense Review, Vol. 14 (2), July-September 2000.
Burdett, Major General Allen M., Jr., “The Army Aviation Requirements for the ‘70s,” Army Aviation, Army Aviation Publications, Inc., Westport, Ct., March 31, 1970.
Clausewitz, Carl von, On War, Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1968.Originally published 1832, Vom Kriege.
Corum, Dr. James S., “The Myth of Air Control, Reassessing the History,” Aerospace Power Journal, Winter 2000.www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj00/win00/corum.htm
Forsythe, Lieutenant General George I., “Aviation in the ‘70s,” Army Aviation, Vol. 19, No. 8, Army Aviation Publications, Inc., Westport, Ct., August 1970.
Fuller, J.F.C., The Conduct of War, 1789-1961, Da Capo Press, New York, NY., 1961.
Gavin, Major General James M., Airborne Warfare, The Battery Press, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1980.
Lenczowski, George, American Presidents And the Middle East, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 1990.
Maddox, Brigadier General William J., Jr., Director of Army Aviation, OACSFOR, DA, Army Aviation, Vol. 20, No. 2, Army Aviation Publications, Inc., Westport, Ct., February 15, 1971.
Parsons, Captain David Willard, USAF, “British Air Control:A Model Application of Air Power in Low-Intensity Conflict?” Airpower Journal, Summer 1994.www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj94/sum94/parsons.html
Posse Comitatus Act, 1878, Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1385, liveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1878PosseComitatusAct.pdf
Seagrave, Sterling, Yellow Rain:A Journey Through the Terror of Chemical Warfare, M. Evans and Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1981.
Shlaim, Avi, War and Peace in the Middle East, Penguin Books, New York, New York, 1995.
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 1954, 2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/lw/88315.htm
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 1954, Milestones:1953-1960, Office of the Historian, Department of State, United States of America, history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960’seato
“The Pursuit,” Field Regulations, United States Army, 1914, Changes No. 7, The Collegiate Press, George Banta Publishing Company, Menasha, Wisconsin, August 18, 1917.
Trinquier, Roger, Modern Warfare:A French View of Counterinsurgency, Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1985.Originally published in Great Britain, 1964, Pall Mall Ltd., London, England.