On Choosing War

I didn’t spend as much time with this book as I had hoped, but from what time I did spend with it, it seems sound.

Logevall’s argument is effectively that going to war in Vietnam was not a fait accompli and that the critical years for this decision were from late 1963 into February 1965 (“the Long 1964”). American officials claimed that it was necessary to intervene in Vietnam to both prevent the spread of Communism throughout Southeast Asia and to protect America’s “credibility.” Virtually everyone today recognizes that the Vietnam War should have never happened, but there’s this idea that the failures of Vietnam could not have been known before the war took place. Opposition to the Vietnam War during and after the 1968 Tet Offensive was justified and right, but there’s a whole lot more ambivalence facing the start of the war.

Logevall offers an illuminating study showing that there was widespread disapproval to the Vietnam War before it took place as well—commentators, experts, and the public all asked questions about how useful going to war in Vietnam would even be. Many pointed out that going to war would be an exercise in futility, but they were ignored in large part due to the rigidity of the Johnson administration and, especially, Johnson himself (who understood little about Southeast Asia). Moreover, American officials’ claims about the importance of maintaining American credibility was a moot point, as commentators at the time argued that war would actually hurt American credibility, and this is exactly what happened.

I don’t have any doubt that LBJ and his cabinet believed that the “Americanization” of the war in Vietnam would benefit Vietnamese people, but their rigidity caused them to look past alternative solutions that likely would have had a much more positive ripple effect than an abortive quagmire war in the jungles of a small Asian country riddled by mass atrocities (committed by invaders) and, ultimately, military failure. It’s virtually impossible to justify the Vietnam War, and Logevall makes that abundantly clear.