About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

50 Foreign Aff. 459 (1971-1972)
The Essential Domino: American Politics and Vietman

handle is hein.journals/fora50 and id is 469 raw text is: THE ESSENTIAL DOMINO: AMERICAN POLITICS AND VIETNAM By Leslie H. Gelb Henry Kissinger has written, public support is the acid Atest of a foreign policy. For a President to be successful in maintaining his nation's security he needs to believe, and others need to believe, that he has solid support at home. It was President Johnson's judgment that if the United States permitted the fall of Vietnam to communism, American politics would turn ugly and inward and the world would be a less safe place in which to live. Later, President Nixon would declare: The right way out of Vietnam is crucial to our changing role in the world, and the peace in the world. In order to gain support for these judg- ments and the objectives in Vietnam which flowed from them, our Presidents have had to weave together the steel-of-war strategy with the strands of domestic politics. Neither the Americans nor the Vietnamese communists had good odds for a traditional military victory in Vietnam. Given the mutual will to continue the war and self-imposed American restraint in the use of force, stalemate was the most likely out- come. This common perception had a critical impact on the strategies of both sides. It meant that the winner would be the one whose will to persist gave out first. Hanoi's will, because of the nature of its government, society and economy, and because the North Vietnamese were fighting in and for their country, was firmer by far than Washington's. Washington's will, because of the vagaries of American politics and the widespread dislike of in- terminable and indeterminate Asian land wars, presented an in- viting target. For both sides, then, U.S. domestic politics- public support and opposition to the war-was to be the key stress point. American public opinion was the essential domino. Our lead- ers knew it. Hanoi's leaders knew it. Each geared its strategy- both the rhetoric and the conduct of the war-to this fact. Hanoi adopted what seems to have been a two-pronged strat- egy to cause U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam by playing on Amer- ican domestic politics. The first aim was to try to convince Americans that unless U.S. forces withdrew, the killing of Amer-

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most