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Vietnam: Nixon and Kissinger in Foreign Affairs.

The difference in Nixon's and Kissinger's approaches toward Vietnam become clear when looking at the articles they wrote on the issue for Foreign Affairs. Nixon came up first, his was called “Asia after Viet Nam”, published 1967. The main drives for writing the article were the fear that the Soviet Union may reach nuclear parity with the U.S. and may have a “deliverable nuclear capability” within three to five years.

In the article, Nixon defends the Domino Theory, which from his point of view, made the USA commit itself and as a result established good opportunities for them. Most of the Asian countries were Non-Communist, he says, and grew economically. To him, Asian countries undergo a kind of transformation process, all except China (at that time he would have predicted an American victory in Vietnam) become Western “without ceasing to be Asian.” Nixon again proves to be a Cold Warrior by stating that this process is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It’s aim of course is becoming Quasi-Western. In contrast he sees eminent danger in “Red China”. This danger has to be met, he says. The measures he proposes for now explicitly do not include a recognition of the country, but leading China into the “family of nations.” Therefore Nixon does not propose to form alliances against China, either including the Soviet Union or Western Europe, because China must not feel as an outsider. A preemptive war he also does not regard acceptable.

In the end, he also claims there was no alternative to China changing itself and recognizing that its “imperial ambitions” cannot to satisfied. It had to put his energies inward rather that outward, he writes, only then there will be a chance to talk to the Chinese.

Another country Nixon stresses as being of great importance, is India. After having lost China, he says, the U.S. could not afford to lose India. The greatest Democracy in the world must not fail. That is why India has to be supported economically and helped to use positively the substance gained.

Finally, Nixon outlines what will become his Doctrine later: The U.S., he says, will not be able to play the role of the world’s policeman forever. So he proposes that respective nations should be helped to “contain the threat by themselves”, and only if this effort fails, the U.S. would be willing to intervene directly, but even than only if there was a collective request.

Nixon’s article is very broad and far-reaching. It outlines the future Asia-policy of the United States. Kissinger’s text, however, published in January 1969, concentrates on negotiations on Vietnam. He sees the Tet Offensive as the turning point in the war. It made clear that both the (a) strategy of the war and (b) the strategy of “nation builing” had proven to be wrong.

(a) American strategy may have produced successes, but they had not been decisive and could not be turned into political advantages. What is more, the U.S. had not been able to make the South Vietnamese population feel save.

(b) This leads to the second failure. The so-called “nation building” Kennedy and Johnson had tried to conduct, failed in the case of Vietnam, because it concentrated on defending those areas of South Vietnam, in which only four Percent of the population lived. The war fought by the U.S. was a military one, whereas the enemy fought a political one. And as it is the nature of asymmetric warfare, “the guerilla wins if it does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.” That was the crucial point that dominated the negotiations and the situation on the whole.

The Tet Offensive, Kissinger states, delayed “– perhaps indefinitely – the consolidation of government authority, which in turn is the only meaningful definition of `victory` in guerilla warfare.” He claims, the U.S. would be willing to stop its military activities once it was convinced that Hanoi wanted to negotiate productively.

As the main point of conflict, Kissinger identifies the status of North Vietnamese forces in the South, which Hanoi did not consider “external”, and which for that reason would not be implied when speaking of an “withdrawal of external forces.”

Kissinger saw a way to weaken Hanoi. It had to maneuver between Peking, Moscow and the NFL. So détente with China and the Soviet Union was a way to undermine the North Vietnamese position. China would profit from a Communist victory. In contrast, a victory of South Vietnam would weaken the Soviet Union, as it showed its inability to protect “`fraternal´ Communist countries against the United States.”

U.S. objectives cannot be met as long as a coalition government was a goal agreed upon, for it took the ability to control Communist forces effectively. As it turned out this “Coalition Government” was to become part of the peace treaty.