The ongoing debate about troop commitments to Afghanistan, along with the recent publication of two books comparing that conflict with the Vietnam War, has rekindled certain arguments. As a golf writer, I\u2019d ordinarily, and quite rightly, be deemed utterly unqualified to evaluate military strategy. And I\u2019d ordinarily be uninterested in doing so.<\/p>\n
Thus, no opinion on the war in Afghanistan, a place I\u2019ve never been, will be forthcoming here. But having lived in Ho Chi Minh City for even the half-year that I have, I feel moved to comment on the Rasputin-like contention that the war here would have been won if only we\u2019d sent more troops and stayed longer; that the conflict turned on public opinion surreptitiously manipulated (as usual) by the media; that the failure was one of gumption, or lack thereof, rather than policy.<\/p>\n
Wrong<\/em>. The weird thing is that military strategy seems largely superfluous in understanding the outcome, although it\u2019s also obvious that local conditions made the effort somewhere between problematic and impossible from the American standpoint. It\u2019s evident, 35 years hence that Vietnamese national character is defined as much by their refusal to be occupied by a foreign power \u2013Chinese, French, and American \u2013 as by anything else.<\/p>\n Recently I participated in a \u201cbridge run\u201d to celebrate the opening of a new suspension bridge spanning the Saigon River. A project that seems to embody Vietnamese ethos, good and bad, the structure is a stunning piece of modern engineering of a piece with the economic dynamism of the country\u2019s recent past. The only problem is that at present it doesn\u2019t connect with anything but a scruffy network of dirt roads on the far side. As one friend put it \u2013 though not specifically in reference to the bridge \u2013 the Vietnamese seem in a hurry to get somewhere, but they\u2019re not sure where.<\/p>\n The mentality may be alternately amusing and exasperating for outsiders, but the Vietnamese seem completely unfazed \u2013 by almost everything. Near the end of the bridge run, I happened to notice the inscription on the tee shirt of one expert woman participating. (This sounds better than saying that I was staring at her shirt.) It said, simply, \u201cIntrepid Vietnamese:\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFearless and persistent in the pursuit of something,\u201d as the dictionary has it, and the appellation seems beyond dispute.<\/p>\n # # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"