Tenncity, Net Strength
As opposed as we are to the present Administration policy, the CRIMSON also opposes those who, in urging unilateral withdrawal from the war, insist we have no commitments in Vietnam. For American policy and rhetoric in the past and American presence today have created commitments both to our supporters in South Vietnam and to our allies throughout Southeast Asia; these commitments cannot be ignored.
Above all, the United States is faced with the problem of protecting its friends in South Vietnam from the blood-bath and chaos which immediate withdrawal would invite. Hoping for something better than a government with significant NLF representation is unreasonable, but the United States must insist on a solution which guarantees the Saigon regime and its supporters a political stability in which they can live without fear of reprisal.
To fulfill this specific commitment, negotiations which would realign South Vietnamese politics with military facts must be achieved. For the moment, however, Hanoi's apparent insistence that the NLF should be "the sole representative of the South Vietnamese people" poses a block to such negotiations. The problem of American policy, then, is one of convincing Hanoi to negotiate while avoiding tactics which involve unthinkable costs and unreachable goals.
The "enclave strategy" proposed by formes General James M. Gavin in this month's issue of Harper's seems the most realistic solution to that problem. Walter Lippman, who has favored this strategy for many months, calls it: "the best of a bad business, not glorious, but the least costly way of repairing the grievous mistakes of the past."
According to Gavin's plan, the United States would fortify its coastal enclaves and continue to defend the cities. The strategy would perhaps require as many as 500,000 troops. It would not spell retreat or withdrawal; in place of search-and-destroy, it would emphasize securing territory which is already occupied by allied forces. The U.S., rather than extending its commitment to land which is militarily unattainable, would concentrate its commitment--rationalize and define it -- to include only those areas in which it enjoys over-whelming tactical superiority. By blocking any further Communist advance, the plan would stabilize the military situation. Its costs in casualties would be low, and on those grounds would be more acceptable to American public opinion than escalation.
And most important, the "enclave strategy" would dispel by its very nature the hopes of Hanoi that we will withdraw from Vietnam before ensuring a stable political solution. They may not decide to negotiate for several years, but the stability and de-escalation which the strategy would afford could provide both the Americans and Hanoi, both the NLF and Saigon, a chance to re-evaluate the realistic prospects for a coalition government in the South.
And when negotiations finally do occur, the more sharply defined military division of the country will force both sides to make reasonable assessments of their bargaining strengths. To facilitate that assessment, the United States should state now that it would be willing to accept the NLF as an equal party in negotiations and as a participant in any elections to determine the final political solution. We must realize, as Walter Lippmann points out, that "An absurd and impossible commitment is not a true commitment in law or morals, and a commitment to make General Ky the accepted ruler of South Vietnam is both absurd and impossible." By consolidating its commitment in Vietnam, the U.S. will make that commitment more convincing.
The United States must also be prepared to accept a possible Communist victory at the polls -- and the establishment of a unified Vietnam under the Communists -- and in that eventuality to work with them toward independence from Peking. The Vietnamese still resent their centuries of subjugation to the Chinese; as Senator Fulbright suggests, there is a good possibility that the United States can help build the stage on which Ho Chi Minh plays Tito to Mao Tse Tung's Stalin.
Finally, the United States must begin now to free its military and political resources and use them more constructively to guarantee the national integrity of our allies in Southeast Asia. By using American economic and social programs now rather than later, the United States can help promote the reforms which make "wars of national liberation" less likely. And the Americans will still have sea and air power around the peninsula to bolster by implication those allies who might otherwise quake before the threat of Chinese military might. With a more realistic use of our resources in Southeast Asia, the dominoes need never fall.
(The opinion of the minority of the editorial board will appear in tomorrow's CRIMSON.)