Is there validity to the argument ofhistorians who compare the American

Revolution to the Vietnam War?

Viewpoint: Yes. Parallels between the Revolutionary War and Vietnam Warinclude overconfidence among military leaders, guerilla warfare, increasingopposition at home, enormous logistical problems, and critical foreign aid tothe opposition.

Viewpoint: No. More differences than similarities exist between the two con-flicts, and Britain had greater justification in trying to subdue the Americancolonies than the United States had in intervening in Vietnam's civil war.

It is a common maxim that "those who cannot remember the past arecondemned to repeat it." Of course, history rarely repeats itself exactly,which makes it problematic for anyone attempting to draw lessons to use inthe present. However, this difficulty has not stopped American scholarsfrom trying to use the lessons of the past to influence present-day domesticand foreign policies. A fairly recent example is found in the alleged paral-lels between the American Revolution (1775-1783) and the Vietnam War(ended 1975).

Beginning in the late 1960s, historians who opposed the Vietnam Warused the past to serve their political purposes by writing essays in popularjournals demonstrating the similarities between British involvement in theRevolutionary War and U.S. participation in Vietnam with the hopes of con-vincing the American nation of its flawed foreign policy. Characterizing theAmerican Revolution as "Britain's Vietnam," these scholars pointed out thatboth Crown officials in the 1770s and American leaders in the 1960sbelieved that failure to achieve their objectives would initiate the downfallof their supremacy in world affairs. Likewise, both Great Britain and theUnited States, because of their overwhelming military superiority, wereconfident in their ability to defeat their enemies. However, this confidencesoon waned as both superpowers confronted logistical challenges in wag-ing war in difficult geographic conditions on the other side of an expansiveocean. In both conflicts the enemy employed guerilla tactics, fighting tech-niques with which the British military in the 1770s and American forces inthe 1960s were largely unfamiliar. Contributing to both defeats was assis-tance provided by other nations to their enemies and the flawed assump-tions behind plans to replace regular troops with local forces. Finally, bothnations waged limited wars that led to military setbacks. These defeats, inturn, led to increasing domestic opposition that ultimately forced the Britishand American governments to seek peace before achieving their militaryobjectives.

Historians have recently reevaluated the Vietnam War and its parallelswith the Anglo-American dispute of the late eighteenth century. In short,they find more differences than similarities between the two military con-flicts. First, the American rebellion was a war for independence; therefore,Britain was more justified in trying to retain control of its colonies than theUnited States was in intruding in a Vietnamese civil war. Second, except inoccasional auxiliary action, both sides in the American Revolution strove to

BRITAIN'S VIETNAM

27

fight a conventional war, whereas the Vietcong (Southern Communist guerillas) intentionallychose to wage a guerilla war. Third, Prime Minister Lord Frederick North's government in Britainenjoyed more popular support at home for suppressing the Rebels than the Johnson administra-tion ever had for its attempt to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. Finally, theAmerican Revolution evolved into a global conflict, whereas fighting in the Vietnam War was iso-lated in Southeast Asia.

Although historians disagree on the parallels between the American Revolution and the Viet-nam War, analyzing the similarities and differences between these two military conflicts can stillprove fruitful in several ways: it forces one to engage in a healthy introspection concerning whowe are as a people and as a nation; it helps one to gain greater insight into the character of theBritish nation during the late eighteenth century; and, finally, it teaches the importance of aninformed and politically active citizenry.

Viewpoint:Yes. Parallels between theRevolutionary War and Vietnam Warinclude overconfidence amongmilitary leaders, guerilla warfare,increasing opposition at home,enormous logistical problems, andcritical foreign aid to the opposition.

When comparing British attempts to quellthe American Revolution (1775-1783) andU.S. involvement in Vietnam (ended 1975)almost two hundred years later, one can pointto many similarities. Although no two histori-cal events will ever be exactly the same, thenumber of parallels between these conflicts eas-ily leads one to conclude that the AmericanRevolution can indeed be characterized as"Britain's Vietnam." Both countries were themost powerful nations of their era and accord-ingly were overconfident at the onset of hostili-ties. Both placed an inordinate importance onmilitary victory but still chose to fight limitedwars. Both conflicts presented special logisticalproblems. Both powers overestimated thestrength and impact loyal citizens would con-tribute to ultimate victory, and both saw theerosion of popular and political support athome as the fighting dragged on.

Britain's victory over France in the SevenYears' War (1756-1763) propelled that nationto the pinnacle of international power, the cul-mination of a process that began as early as thedefeat of the Spanish Armada (1588). Defeat-ing the French, however, also spawned ill feel-ing between the mother country and some ofits North American colonies. Because ineptleaders within the British ministry did nottake preemptive measures to conciliate thesedifferences, the previously loyal colonistsbegan an armed rebellion in 1775 that theBritish felt duty-bound to put down with mili-tary force. King George III and British policymakers felt such force necessary in order to

maintain the nation's position of world power.Many Britons were led to believe that giving into the American colonists would mean the endof the British Empire. In a letter written toPrime Minister Lord Frederick North, KingGeorge III observed: "The moment is cer-tainly anxious; the die is now cast whether thisshall be a Great Empire or the least dignifiedof the European states; the object is certainlyworth struggling for and I trust the Nation isequally determined with myself to meet theconclusion with firmness." One of the King'sgreatest concerns, however, was the roleFrance would play in the war in America. OnceEngland's traditional adversary entered thewar on the side of the United States in 1778,the British viewed the French as their realenemy. As Lord Sheffield noted, "We musteither fight France in America or we mustfight her in the west, in the east, or at home inthe rich fields of Britain."

The United States by the mid twentiethcentury had become as powerful as Great Brit-ain had been in the late eighteenth century, andlike Great Britain's rivalry with France, U.S.supremacy was challenged by a strong rival, theSoviet Union. When the United States adoptedthe policy of containment in order to stop thespread of communism, it became involved inSoutheast Asia to a degree it had not antici-pated. Rather than recognizing the goals of theVietnamese people—for example, to end thecivil war, reunify the country, and create anautonomous government without foreign inter-vention—the United States saw only a Commu-nist plot to further undermine Westerninfluence and eventually take away freedomthroughout the world. Historian Neil L. Yorkwrote that "Just as British policymakersequated British security with possession ofAmerican colonies, American policymakersequated American security with the mainte-nance of a communist-free Vietnam." Thesepolicy makers included five U.S. presidents,from Harry S Truman through Richard M.Nixon. Truman characterized Southeast Asia as

28 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

an area "vital to the future of the free world."His successors agreed. Just as Britain sawFrance as the ultimate enemy in the Revolu-tionary War, the United States saw interna-tional communism as embodied in SovietRussia and Red China as the ultimate enemy asthe nation became more deeply drawn into theVietnam quagmire.

At the outset of their ill-advised wars, boththe British and the Americans felt invinciblebecause of their military superiority. Such feelingsof dominance can best be illustrated by two timelystatements. Lord George Germain, Secretary ofState for the American Colonies, advised in Sep-tember 1775: "As there is not common sense inprotracting a war of this sort, I should be forexerting the utmost force of this Kingdom to fin-ish the rebellion in one campaign." During a hear-ing in 1966 Senator Thomas Dodd (D-Connecticut) echoed such overconfidence. Like somany other Americans, he assumed that theUnited States could easily impose its will on "afew thousand primitive guerrillas."

Neither superpower adequately addressedlogistical challenges before plunging headlonginto hostilities. Both wars were fought on battle-fields on the other side of huge oceans and underalien geographic conditions—the often impenetra-ble wilderness in the American colonies and theequally impenetrable jungles of Southeast Asia.Regarding the problem of distance, Sir EdmundBurke reminded his British constituents:

Three thousand miles of ocean lie betweenyou and them. No contrivance can prevent the

effect of this distance in weakening govern-ment. Seas roll, and months pass, between theorder and the execution; and the want of aspeedy explanation of a single point is enoughto defeat a whole system.

Because of modern transportation andcommunication systems, the factor of distancewas not as daunting for American forces in aneven more distant Vietnam, but it did present achallenge. However, similar to the difficultyand extent of the terrain in the United Statesthat contributed to the failure of the BritishArmy, the geography of Vietnam created prob-lems for the Americans. Even with the latestinnovations in scientific warfare and technol-ogy at their disposal and with superior air sup-port, U.S. ground troops still had to wageguerilla-type battles in rugged areas to secureone village at a time, often to see theirhard-won conquests later fall into enemy hands.As in America during the Revolution, therewas no strategic nerve center whose capturewould end the war. In both cases it was likefighting a sponge. Historian Don Higgin-botham called attention to such parallels whenhe wrote, "Much of the time . . . the superpowersand their local foes were in a classic standoff,with the foreign army occupying the cities andthe insurgents dominating the countryside,with the former using the roads by day and thelatter making them unsafe by night." Near theclose of the Revolution one French militaryofficial was heard to say, "No opinion wasclearer than that though the people of Americamight be conquered by well disciplined Euro-

Nineteenth-centuryengraving of a Patriotwoman fending off Torieswho raided her cabin(Library of Congress,Washington, D.C.)

HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 29

pean troops, the country of America wasunconquerable." Can not this observation alsobe said of Vietnam?

Another mistake common to the British ofthe eighteenth century and the Americans ofthe twentieth century was their reliance onloyal local residents to help their cause.England's leaders planned to have British regu-lars replaced by colonials loyal to the King andeven projected that the Loyalists would run thegovernment after the rebellion was put down.However, they never really knew the extent ofloyalism in America. Even General Sir WilliamHowe incorrectly assumed that "the insurgentsare very few, in comparison with the whole ofthe people." In spite of the fact that there was alarge population of Loyalists in America, theirnumbers were not spread evenly throughoutthe colonies, nor were they well organized.

During the presidential election of 1964President Lyndon B. Johnson, perhaps feelingthe need to appear as the peace candidate, usedelection-year rhetoric when he declared, "Weare not going to send American boys nine orten thousand miles away from home to dowhat Asian boys ought to be doing for them-selves." Six months later he increased troopdeployment to Vietnam. Four years laterNixon's campaign promise was to bring Ameri-can military personnel home. He came up withthe plan of Vietnamization—gradually turningover the ground fighting to the South Viet-namese. Large numbers of U.S. combat troopswere returned home, but overall the programproved unsuccessful. When the South Vietnam-ese were left to fight on their own, their resis-tance quickly crumbled. Vietnamization wascomparable to the equally unsuccessful Britishplan of Americanization, in which theyattempted to turn the war over to AmericanLoyalists in the South.

Relying too much on local support pre-sented additional problems. How could onetell a Loyalist from a Patriot or a South Viet-namese from a North Vietnamese or a memberof the Vietcong (Southern Communist gueril-las)? This confusion allowed the enemy to infil-trate opposition forces easily. Both conflictsalso saw many cases of changing allegiances. Toillustrate further the problem with colonialLoyalists, historian Richard M. Ketchum haspointed out that "it was a very difficult matterto retain one's loyalty to the King unlessfriends and neighbors were of like mind andunless there was British force nearby to safe-guard such a belief."

Things were not so different for the SouthVietnamese, who shared a common heritagewith the people of the North. One journalistnoted that unlike the situation with friendly,

liberated Europeans during World War II(1939-1945), the rural people in Vietnam "kepttheir eyes down or looked the other way andoffered no greeting" when American soldierspassed through their streets or villages. "Theyjust wanted us to go home," he concluded. Bar-bara W. Tuchman asked: "What nation was everbuilt from the outside?" Clearly, earlier hopesthat local support for the superpowers could berelied upon proved ephemeral.

The goals of both Great Britain and theUnited States affected the outcome of theirrespective wars and helped bring about theeventual erosion of domestic public support.They also determined how the wars would bewaged. Although the decision to put down thecolonial uprisings aroused plenty of heateddebate in Parliament, in the end a majority ofmembers chose to support the King and hisministers. Men such as Edmund Burke, CharlesJames Fox, John Wilkes, and William Pitt theElder spoke out against such action, but theydid not at that time wield the greatest powerand influence in the English government. TheKing counted on the backing of the Englishpeople even though Lord North might nothave been as sanguine in this regard. The oppo-sition's viewpoint that the colonies wouldreturn to the fold through peaceful negotiationproved ultimately compelling. Although lead-ing adversaries could not prevent Britain fromgoing to war, at least they influenced how thewar was fought.

Thus, the American Revolution became alimited war—"limited from the standpoint ofits objectives and the force with which Britainwaged it," according to Ketchum. The Britishwanted the colonies to remain within theEmpire when the conflict was over and werenot bent on their complete annihilation. As theinterminable hostilities continued, and Britainsuffered defeats and was no closer to endingthe rebellion, the British people lost the will togo on fighting. While the goals of personalfreedom and independence held great appealfor the Patriots and their supporters, accordingto Ketchum, the goals of Great Britain did notinspire the British citizens and soldiers to putmuch effort into winning the war:

In England the goal had not been highenough, while the cost was too high. Therewas nothing compelling about the limitedobjective of bringing the colonies back intothe empire, nothing inspiring about punishingthe rebels, nothing noble in proving that retri-bution awaited those who would change thenature of things.

In Vietnam, the United States also foughta limited war. The country was torn betweenthe two conflicting goals of encouraging Viet-

30 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

namese autonomy and of keeping those peoplefree of communism. The latter goal supercededthe former. York commented on America'sambivalent aims:

American policymakers saw military success asa necessary means to an end, a way to help winthe larger war for the 'hearts and minds' of thepeople. . . . They fought something short ofall-out war while they looked for a total vic-tory. American policymakers wanted theirenemy to concede defeat and surrender with-out being completely destroyed.

In 1964 both Houses of Congress passedthe Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Senator JamesWilliam Fulbright (D-Arkansas) introducedand supported this measure in committee, giv-ing President Johnson full military discretion-ary power in Vietnam. Some opposition to itspassage existed, but at first no general protestdeveloped. Even when Johnson sent U.S.ground troops to Vietnam the following year,Secretary of Defense Robert McNamaradefended this policy: "The greatest contribu-tion Vietnam is making . . . is developing anability in the United States to fight a limitedwar, to go to war without arousing the publicire." He predicted the United States would befacing this type of war in the next five decades.

Some trusted advisers close to PresidentJohnson, however, began to have secondthoughts about deeper U.S. involvement inVietnam. Among them was Clark Clifford,who briefly replaced McNamara as Secretary ofDefense and wrote in a private letter toJohnson that "further build-up of groundforces" could become an "open-end commit-ment . . . without realistic hope of ultimate vic-tory." By the end of 1966 both public andpolitical opposition to the war had becomemore generalized, even among ranking mem-bers of Johnson's own political party, includ-ing Fulbright and McNamara. The increasinglyopen, strident, and often violent protestagainst the war and what it was doing to theAmerican economy and morale finally doomedJohnson's chances of running for the presi-dency again, just as the prolonged war in theformer American colonies brought down theNorth ministry and diminished support forKing George Ill's war policy almost two hun-dred years earlier. President Nixon, sadly, didnot learn from that history or from the failureof his predecessor.

In demonstrating the critical interest instopping the spread of communism in South-east Asia, in 1954 President Dwight D. Eisen-hower introduced an interesting analogycomparing the situation there to dominoes: ifthe United States allowed Vietnam to fall, oneby one all of the other noncommunist coun-

tries in that area would topple. PresidentJohnson, expanding on this concept, con-cluded that the United States would have to"pull back our defenses to San Francisco." Ofcourse, such dire predictions were unfounded.The British had visions of great peril if theylost in America, but such fears also proved erro-neous. In both cases the lessons learned cametoo late—only after a great toll on human life;vast political and public turmoil; and a lengthy,needless enmity between peoples who other-wise might have been allies.

-VIVIAN LINFORD TALBOT,WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY

Viewpoint:No. More differences thansimilarities exist between thetwo conflicts, and Britain had greaterjustification in trying to subdue theAmerican colonies than the UnitedStates had in intervening inVietnam's civil war.

The scientist's claim to truth often rests onthe ability to repeat an experiment many timesor to make substitutions to see if the results aredifferent. Since the historian cannot repeat anhistorical event, the best substitute is compara-tive history, one of the more useful tools in thehistorian's toolbox. While every historicalevent is exceptional, historians have found thismethodology especially helpful in looking atwars and revolutions where underlying causes,events, and results have some similarities. Evenparticipants in wars and revolutions will con-sciously or unconsciously seek out models tosupport their action or provide guidance.

During the 1970s historians began com-paring the Vietnam War (ended 1975) to theAmerican Revolution (1775-1783). In eachwar the imperial power exerted its militarymight only to be challenged by a rather ragtaggroup of dedicated revolutionaries. In bothcases the imperial power lost to the indigenousforces. Specific events can also be compared.For example, the Kent State shootings (1970)can be compared to the Boston Massacre(1770), although this comparison seemedmore compelling in the 1970s than at thedawn of the twenty-first century. While thereare points of similarity between the AmericanRevolution and the American war in Vietnam,in fact these were different events, foughtunder different contexts for different pur-

HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 31

TARLETON'S QUARTER!During the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) both sidescommitted atrocities. One of the more infamous incidentsoccurred at the Waxhaws, South Carolina. On 29 May1780 Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarfeton and the BritishLegion overran a detachment of Virginia Continentals, andlust as a white flag appeared in the American ranks, Tarte-ton's horse was shot from underneath him. The Legion*nari&B, fearing that their leader had been kilted,massacred the surrendering enemy soldiers, and theAmerican battle cry Tartefon's Quarterr (no quarter) wasbom. An American doctor wrote the following account:

The demand for quarters, seldomrefused to a vanquished foe, was at oncefound to be in vain; not a man was spared,and it was the concurrent testimony of ail thesurvivors that for fifteen minutes after everyman was prostrate they went over the groundplunging their bayonets into every one thatexhibited any signs of life, and in someinstances, where several had fallen one overthe other, these monsters were seen to throwoff on the point of the bayonet the uppermost,to come at those beneath

Capt John Stokes... received twenty-three wounds, and as he never for a momenttost his recollection, he often repeated to methe manner and order in which they wereinflicted.

Early in the sanguinary conflict he wasattacked by a dragoon, who aimed manydeadly blows at his head, all of which by thedextrous use of the small sword he easilyparried; when another on the right, by onestroke, cut off his right hand through themetacarpai bones. He was then assailed byboth, and instinctively attempted to defendhis head with his left arm until the forefingerwas cut off, and the arm hacked in eight orten places from the wrist to the shoulder. His

head was then laid open almost the wholelength of the crown to the eye brows. After hefell he received several cuts on the face andshoulders. A soldier, passing on in the workof death, asked if he expected quarters.Stokes answered, "I have not, nor do I meanto ask quarters. Finish me as soon as possi-ble." He then transfixed him twice with hisbayonet. Another asked the same questionand received the same answer, and he alsothrust his bayonet twice through his body.

Stokes had his eye fixed on a woundedBritish officer sitting at some distance, whena Serjeant came up who addressed him withapparent humanity and offered him protectionfrom further injury at the risk of his life.

"All I ask," said Stokes, "is to be laid bythat officer that I may die in his presence."

While performing this generous office thehumane Serjeant was twice obliged to lay himdown and stand over him to defend himagainst the fury of his comrades. Doctor Sta-pleton, Tarleton's surgeon,... was thendressing the wounds of the officer. Stokes,who lay bleeding in every pore, asked him todo something for his wounds, which hescornfully and inhumanely refused untilperemptorily ordered by the more humaneofficer, and even then only filled the woundswith rough tow, the particles of which couldnot be separated from the brain for severaldays,

Source: William Dobein James, A Sketch of the Lifeof Brig. Gen. Francis Marion and a History of His Bri-gade (Charleston, S.C.: Gould & Milet, 1821),Appendix, pp. 1-7.

poses. The comparative model yields far moredifferences than similarities.

These two revolutions were fought notonly in different times but also at contrastingpoints in the development of the English andAmerican nations. England's move to developan American empire began in 1607 with thefirst permanent settlement of Englishmen inJamestown, but the Empire was only beginningto reach a point of maturity throughout theglobe by 1776. It was only in 1768 that Parlia-ment was concerned enough about the colo-nies to appoint Lord Hillsborough as the firstSecretary of State for the Colonies. The eco-nomic theory of capitalism had only been

spelled out in The Wealth of Nations (1776), thesame year as the Declaration of Independencewas written. For the British, the failure to keepAmerica in the imperial fold was an isolatedexperience. In the future they would maintainmuch tighter control over their empire and notgive local residents so much political power.

The British Empire did not reach the pinna-cle of its extent and power until the mid to latenineteenth century under the reign of Victoria.By 1900 the British Empire included almost one-quarter of the world's lands and population. Bythen they had developed the administrativemachinery to control colonies all over the world,the naval power to protect that empire, and an

32HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

entrepreneurial capitalistic system that drove thegreat pioneers of empire (such as Cecil Rhodesin Africa) to commercial exploitation of the natu-ral resources of the colonies.

At the point where Vietnam emerges as animportant diplomatic issue in the 1960s, theAmerican empire is fully mature and the world iswitnessing the undoing of the Anglo-Americandomination of the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. Wars of liberation hadswept though South America and Africa, andseveral countries allied with the Soviet bloc,which decidedly rejected capitalism as a way toorganize the economy. Thus, Vietnam stands atthe twilight of Western colonialism, while theAmerican Revolution stands at the point whenthe sun was still rising on imperial exploitation.

The military and diplomatic backgroundof the wars were also quite different. The Amer-ican Revolution occurred near the end ofalmost one hundred years of conflict amongthe British, French, Spanish, and Dutch overthe construction of large-scale overseasempires. As the history of the nineteenth cen-tury illustrates, England was on the way to con-structing the richest and most widespreadempire the world had ever seen. The globalextent of this empire, protected by the RoyalNavy, was truly awesome. The Vietnam con-flict, however, came at the beginning of the endof a global cold war between the United Statesand the Soviet Union. Wearing ideologicalprisms created in the post-World War IIperiod, American policy makers saw all foreign-policy issues as a contest with the SovietUnion. Smaller, less powerful, and less prosper-ous developing countries had to choosebetween the democratic/capitalistic model ofthe West or the socialist/communist ideologyof the Soviet Union and its allies. The Ameri-cans could not accept the efforts of Ho ChiMinh and the Vietnamese as an authentic warof national liberation that would result in aworld where they, not a foreign power, wouldcontrol their national destiny.

President John F. Kennedy said aboutVietnam, "No one can call these 'wars of libera-tion.' For these are free countries living undertheir own governments." He also contendedthat "Vietnam represents the cornerstone of theFree world in Southeast Asia, the keystone tothe arch, the finger in the dike. Burma, Thai-land, India, Japan, the Philippines and obvi-ously Laos and Cambodia are among thosewhose security would be threatened if the redtide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam."Had American policy makers in the 1960slooked back upon their own revolution, theymight have proceeded in a different direction inVietnam. The Vietnamese had rejected Chinese

domination, driven out the French, and resistedthe Japanese. President Lyndon B. Johnson,who took the presidency after Kennedy's assas-sination in 1963, felt trapped by the warbecause it was going to cost him the Great Soci-ety social programs. Nevertheless, he said that"everything I knew about history told us that ifI got out of Vietnam and let Ho Chi Minh runthrough the streets of Saigon, then I'd be doingexactly what Chamberlain did in World WarII." The history of Vietnam and all of Indochinaafter the American withdrawal illustrated thatthe feared domino effect would not occur.

The Vietnam War, unlike the AmericanRevolution, did not draw in other participantsto make it a global war. France had hadenough of Vietnam, and Britain, in a longdecline, did not have the resources or will toget involved in a global conflict. Only Americahad a prosperous postwar economy to risk inthe jungles of Vietnam.

Furthermore, the military strategies usedby the Americans in Vietnam and the British inAmerica were quite different. Although therewere incidents of guerilla warfare in the Ameri-can Revolution, most of the conflict was basedon conventional eighteenth-century rules ofengagement. The closest example of guerillaconflict in the American Revolution was theskirmishing between Francis Marion and Lieu-tenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton in the Caroli-nas in late 1780. In contrast, GeorgeWashington's early defeats in and around NewYork City convinced him that he would have tochoose his battles carefully. The acknowledgedend of the war came when Washington andFrench general Comte de Rochambeau pinnedGeneral Charles Cornwallis on the York Townpeninsula and placed him under a traditionalmilitary siege. In a well-orchestrated move,Admiral Francois de Grasse of the French fleetblocked the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay,depriving Cornwallis of support from theRoyal Navy. So while the Americans utilizedguerilla tactics, primarily in the South, theyused them mainly as a backup for the more tra-ditional methods of fighting. In fact, the gue-rillas might have even posed a threat to thenationalizing force of the Continental Army.As historian Don Higginbotham wrote:

From all this we can conclude that the Ameri-cans opted for conventional military responsesin the Revolution because of their Britishbackground and because of the nature of theirsociety. Once hostilities erupted and Indepen-dence became the final goal, there was stillanother reason. A martial approach thatstressed guerilla methods would inevitably tiltthe Revolution in the wrong direction—toward localism and provincialism, with eachcolony-state devising its own ways of striking

HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 33

at the enemy. Thus among other things, Wash-ington's army—appropriately called the Conti-nental Army—was a nationalizing factor inAmerican life.

A different military strategy and mode offighting was utilized in Vietnam. Unlike theBritish in the American Revolution, the Ameri-cans could not define winning by the territorythey had under their control. One day theywould seem to control an area, and within aweek or month their control evaporated. Bodycounts became a dreadful measure of success.

Another major difference between theAmerican Revolution and the Vietnam Warwas the fundamental relationships between thecombatants. The war in Vietnam was a war ofnational liberation, where a group of peoplewith a similar history, political ideology, reli-gion, and cultural values was trying to establishcontrol over its own destiny. The AmericanRevolution was in many ways a civil war, not awar of national liberation. Robert MacNamara,U.S. Secretary of State in the 1960s, later wrotethat "I had never visited Indochina, nor did Iunderstand or appreciate its history, culture orvalues. . . . When it came to Vietnam, we foundourselves setting policy for a region that wasterra incognita." This statement is a ratherstark admission by one of the chief architects ofthe war in Vietnam. The country was anabstraction for Americans, not a reality. TheAmerican Revolution was a brothers' war, or inthe words of historian Kevin Phillips, a "Cous-ins' War." The first British commander in chiefin America, Thomas Gage, was married to awoman from New Jersey. The connectionsbetween the Americans and British went backto the founding.

The political ideology of the AmericanRevolution was essentially British in origin. Vir-ginia politician Thomas Jefferson drew freelyon the writings of English philosopher JohnLocke to compose the Declaration of Indepen-dence (1776), and much of the pamphlet litera-ture that was so critical to shaping anideological consensus was based on the Whigpolitical theorists of the English Civil War(1642-1646) and the Glorious Revolution(1688). There was no great break from theEnglish ideas—only a push in a radical direction.After the Declaration of Independence theAmerican states, counties, and localities discon-nected from British control functionedsmoothly on the English system of administra-tion that had matured in the colonies for nearly175 years.

In the area of economics and business, his-torians often argue that the Revolution wasfought so that Americans had the same free-dom to trade as they perceived the British had.

They avidly endorsed capitalism, preferring toexploit other countries rather than be exploited bythe British. In the 1780s and 1790s U.S. Secre-tary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton wasanxious to reconnect the United States withthe British Empire's trading network, but with-out any political ties. This set of economic val-ues was completely alien to the peasants ofVietnam and to their leaders who were drawnto communism.

Ethnically, a high percentage of Americancitizens during the Revolution had been bornin England, Scotland, Ireland, or Wales or weredescendants of people who emigrated fromthese four parts of Great Britain. Native Ameri-cans, of course, had been killed or marginal-ized; Africans held a clearly subordinate placein the colonies. White Americans were deeplyinfluenced by the folkways of Great Britain. InVietnam the situation was different. Most Viet-namese had different religious, cultural, andpolitical values than the French they expelledor the Americans they fought. The fact that theUnited States picked a Catholic to be its politi-cal puppet in Vietnam exposed America's lackof understanding of the Vietnamese culture.

Ho Chi Minh was an avowed Communist,although foremost he was a nationalist. Hechose to ally with the enemy of his enemy. TheUnited States tried to create the fiction thatSouth Vietnam was a nation that wanted toresist the Communists in the North and estab-lish a Western-style democracy in the South.This dream was that of the Americans, not thedream of the Vietnamese leadership. It is not atall clear how the Vietnamese peasant felt, butthe more the United States bombed NorthVietnam and committed atrocities against theVietnamese people, the more the Vietnamesehated Americans, and the peasants were pushedinto the hands of the Vietcong (Southern Com-munist guerillas). This situation was in starkcontrast to the American Revolution. As Hig-ginbotham wrote:

It is impossible to imagine the Americans asterrorists in the modern sense, for terroristshate their opponents and all they stand for.Terrorism spawns guerilla warfare, which inturn produces more terrorism; terrorism ripsapart the vitals of a community. If in 1776Americans turned toward independence, theydid not wish to risk the destruction of theirsocial and intellectual fabric in winning it.

While the American Rebel and his Britishopponent shared the same political values, theVietnamese saw the U.S. system as strange.Americans were trying to impose an alien systemfrom outside. Vietnam was also caught in an eco-nomic struggle between the East and the West.American fears about the collapse of Southeast

34 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Asia (as seen in the domino theory) drove themto follow a certain set of policies. All the Britishwanted was for the Americans to follow Britishlaws and trade regulations. They were not tryingto impose a new system. The Americans and Brit-ish shared the same culture and traditions. Amer-ican colonists honored England as the mothercountry and revered King George III right upuntil the outbreak of war.

-DAVID C. TWINING,

WESTMINSTER COLLEGE

References

Alexander Bloom, ed., Long Time Gone: SixtiesAmerica Then and Now (Oxford & NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Don Higginbotham, War and Society in Revolu-tionary America: The Wider Dimensions ofConflict (Columbia: University of SouthCarolina Press, 1988).

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HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 35