The Enduring Lessons of Vietnam: Implications for US Strategy and Policy
Martin G. Clemis
©2025 Martin G. Clemis
ABSTRACT: This article argues that the Vietnam War is a useful case study for assessing an enduring flaw in America’s approach to war. The United States suffered defeat in Vietnam because it privileged military strength and the pursuit of victory on the battlefield over other elements of national power. As in Vietnam, the wars America will likely face in the future will blend conventional and unconventional methods and use a carefully calibrated mixture of military and non-military means. The United States must situate its demonstrated strengths in conventional war fighting within a holistic framework or face similar strategic outcomes.
Keywords: Vietnam, strategy, Vietnam Revolutionary War, hybrid warfare, gray zone conflict
Moving beyond the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror, the United States and its military are reorienting toward great power competition and multidomain combat operations. Many policymakers and practitioners believe this reorientation is a sound strategy given the current state of global politics and that most of America’s adversaries possess sizeable standing militaries. Some defense analysts, however, consider the nation’s focus on conventional warfare foolhardy because, in their estimation, large conventional wars are relics of the past. The truth, however, lies somewhere in between. History suggests that future wars will likely require the United States to blend conventional and unconventional methods and use a carefully calibrated mixture of military and nonmilitary means. To date, America’s preferred method of waging war has revolved around technology, firepower, and large-scale combat operations, but in the future, this approach will likely prove inadequate.1
To achieve its national security policy objectives, the United States must situate its strengths in conventional warfighting within a holistic framework that leverages and synthesizes every element of national power: military, political, economic, diplomatic, and informational. The American experience in Vietnam is a useful case study that offers valuable insights and lessons for US policymakers and practitioners to prepare for future wars.
The United States suffered defeat in the Vietnam War despite possessing overwhelming military and economic power. How did the world’s mightiest superpower, with arguably the most tactically and operationally proficient military, fail to achieve its political goals or defeat a grossly overmatched adversary? The answer lies within the nature of war: to impose our will on the enemy through force. According to Clausewitz, war involves reciprocal exchange, a mutual interaction between the belligerent states, their populations, and their militaries. He argued, “War is not the action of a living force upon a lifeless mass . . . but always the collision of two living forces.” Nor is it, Clausewitz later noted, “an exercise of the will directed at inanimate matter, as is the case with the mechanical arts, or at matter which is animate but passive and yielding, as is the case with the human mind and emotions in the fine arts. In war, the will is directed at an animate object that reacts.” What this means, in modern parlance, is that the enemy gets a vote. Or as Confederate general George Pickett responded when asked by reporters why his fateful and eponymous charge failed at the Battle of Gettysburg, “Gentlemen, I have always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.”2
The United States’ humiliating defeat at the hands of a smaller and weaker adversary stems not only from the reciprocal quintessence of war but also from what Clausewitz called its subjective nature—the means each side uses to achieve desired political ends. Strategy matters, and in the case of the Vietnam War, the ends, ways, and means each belligerent employed mattered greatly. Strategy does not determine victory or defeat on its own. Rather, a host of contextual and circumstantial factors, many of them outside the control of policymakers and practitioners, also play a role in shaping which side wins. Popular support, international and domestic politics, bureaucratic inefficiency, human imperfections, insufficient knowledge, fog and friction, chance, and the enemy’s actions all play a role. History has shown that there are no guarantees in war and that good strategy does not always produce victory. Nonetheless, a sound strategy—one that is flexible, contextually grounded, attuned to underlying dynamics (social, cultural, political, economic, and military), and cognizant of war’s complex nature and the need to synthesize all its facets—can frustrate an adversary’s designs and achieve victory. Nowhere was this truer than during the Vietnam War.3
https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/News/Display/Article/4218109/the-enduring-lessons-of-vietnam-implications-for-us-strategy-and-policy/
