ADMINISTRATION’S DEBATE

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30946, 30 December 1965, Page 9

ADMINISTRATION’S DEBATE

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Dec. 29. The Administration is now engaged in another private debate on the best strategy for the war in Vietnam, writes James Reston, associate editor of the ‘‘New York Times.”

It is trying to find the right degree of military pressurestrong enough to keep the enemy off balance, but not so strong as to corner him into an all-out struggle and close all channels to a negotiated settlement.

This, at least, is the private explanation given in Washington for the pause in the bombing raids on North Vietnam. Moscow, for example, has always condemned the bombing of North Vietnam much more severely than the American military operations in South Vietnam, for in the Communist theory of warfare, the war in the South was what they called a “legitimate war of national liberation,’’ whereas the bombardment of the North turned it into an illegitimate and dangerous “war between states.” Waiting To See Washington has never recognised this odd Communist distinction in the past, and has argued that all use of military force to impose political settlements was illegitimate, but nevertheless it seems to be testing the Communist theory, holding the bombers back, and waiting to see whether this will lead to talk of a compromise. This is obviously a gamble but it has some advantages. Though it gives both sides time to regroup their forces and bring up supplies, it also gives them a chance to think about where this rising level of violence of the last few months was leading, and on our side, it shows at least some respect for the urgent appeals of the Pope and others for a new effort at negotiation. Beyond this, it is important that the United States now find a strategy that it can sustain without unacceptable casualties over a long period of time. “Not The Cause’ Vietnam is not the cause but merely a symptom of a much wider and deeper disorder in Asia. The collective security system built up in the last 20 years to discourage and deal with military aggression has broken down. There is no evidence that any of the other free nations of Asia is ready

even to think about providing effective military help, and if the United States is to carry almost the whole burden, it has to carry its own people with it, gain a little more understanding of its mission in the world, and limit its losses as much as possible. What has been happening for the last few months is that the United States has been drifting into a policy of trying to destroy the enemy’s forces in a ground war without organising the nation for the longer struggle beyond Vietnam. Without even mobilising enough power to match its strategy of searching and destroying the enemy in the jungle, and without the slightest evidence of effective help from the other free nations. Power Balance Washington is undoubtedly right in its assumption that defeat in Vietnam would result, not in the domino-fall of nations to the Communists, but in a slow and steady change in the Asian balance of power against the United States.

On the other hand, it is probably wrong in thinking that a military conquest of

the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese regulars would stop these Communist “wars of national liberation,” and persuade Peking and Moscow to settle down to a civilised and peaceful policy of competitive co-existence. This power struggle is going to go on. Both the people who want to end the war in Vietnam now and the people who want to fight it through to the surrender of the Communists are probably wrong in thinking that their particular policy will somehow solve the larger conflict of power and ideology in Asia. ‘Not The End’ The problem now at the beginning of a new year is to see Vietnam for what it is—not the cause but the effect of a larger disorder, not the end but only the beginning of a struggle that will go on for at least a generation—and to define a policy that is based on enduring historic and geographical realities rather than on immediate military and political preoccupations. Without such a long-range policy, we could get out of Vietnam and make things worse, or we could win in Vietnam at such a sacrifice of lives that the people would not support the longer struggle for Asia. In Perspective Accordingly, the need now is for a redefinition of purpose, to see Vietnam in the perspective of Asia, to see what we are doing at the end of 1965 in relation to what we are willing to keep on doing and where we want to be at the end of 1975, to differentiate between cause and effect.

This is the larger question as the President faces the pressures of the Budget and the pressures of those who

want him to get out or to go for total victory. And unless the larger question is faced, we could easily win the war in Vietnam and lose the people, or arrange a bogus peace and lose Asia.