Our History Teaches: Lessons from Vietnam and the American Revolution

Thomas J. Humphrey
(810 words)

Nearly forty years ago, historian John Shy compared the Vietnam War with the American Revolution and concluded that an invading superpower would have a hard time conquering people fighting to protect their homeland. Unfortunately, what happened in both of those wars seems to be playing out again in Iraq, and the result appears too obvious.

The superpowers that fought the Revolutionary War and the Vietnam War—Britain and the United States—failed for several reasons. Although Britain and the United States were far better prepared to fight a long, protracted war than their insurgent opponents, they were unprepared to fight rebels who fought in the open as little as possible. Nor were they prepared to fight an enemy who disappeared into the countryside or that melted into the local populations.

Neither country was prepared to fight enemies who were hard to see, harder to fight, and hardest to catch. In short, neither Britain nor the United States were prepared to fight the kind of wars they ended up fighting. In both Vietnam and the North American British colonies, insurgents fought a guerilla-style war in their homeland and avoided capture by blending in with local non-combatants, making it difficult to distinguish friend from foe and giving insurgents an advantage in the battle for the hearts and minds of the people...

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Thomas J. Humphrey teaches American History and the American Revolution at Cleveland State University, and is the author of Land and Liberty: Hudson Valley Riots in the Age of Revolution.

Seduced By War: Remembering Where Our Legacy Resides

(913 words)
By Andrew Murray
I am concerned about a culture that has been seduced by war. I am concerned about a culture that salivates over the raw power of military hardware but shows little sustained interest in the military virtues of courage, loyalty, honor, fidelity and justice. I am concerned that our civilian leaders on both sides of the aisle seem to have forgotten what many of our great generals and admirals including George Washington, Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower always knew: that it is not America's military power that makes us great. It is our greatness that makes us powerful.

What makes us a great country is not that we can go anywhere in the world and kill anyone we want. Well, anyone we can find. What makes us great is that we work hard; we tolerate differences; we have room for faith and science. We are great because in the end we know that a healthy, prosperous and happy society not only endures, but needs, diverse opinions, cultures, life styles, fashions and beliefs. No amount of terrorism can take this away from us. We can only take it away from ourselves.

What was supposed to be the elixir that would cure the national malaise following the turmoil of the '60s and restore our faith in American power has turned out to be, perhaps, an even more difficult circumstance to reconcile. Iraq was a broken and depleted country in 2003, having already lost one war to the US, having been subject to crippling sanctions from the UN and having fought to a draw with Iran after a devastating war that lasted ten years. At the same time the US stood alone as the most preponderant military power.

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Andrew Murray is professor of peace studies and director of the Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa.