Trump’s Strategic Challenge: Confronting the United Nations
- The Historical Context and Lessons of the Vietnam War
- “To Save the Village, We Must Destroy It”: The Irony of War
- Popular Unity and the Politics of Resistance in Iran
- Military Power vs. Popular Will
- The Language of Statistics: Losses and Consequences in the Vietnam War
- Is Victory Possible in Modern Warfare?
- The Verdict of History: The Strength of a Weak Yet Organised Nation
War, Ethics, and the Direction of Global Politics
An Analysis of the Strategic Dilemma Facing Donald Trump—Lessons from the Vietnam War, Iranian Solidarity, and the Limits of Modern Warfare. Do Even Powerful Nations Ultimately Succumb to Popular Resistance?
The dilemma of Donald Trump
President Donald Trump faces the same dilemma which President London Johnson faced in the 1960s : fighting a country whose people are solidly united and determined never to surrender, however many casualties they take.
During the Vietnam war' an American military officer said in 1968 " It became necessary to destroy the town ( in Vietnam ) to save it "
Similarly, the US-Israeli forces will have to kill all 93 million Iranians if they wish to win this war. The martyrdom of the 86 year old respected spiritual leader Ayatollah Khameini, the killing of other senior officials, the massacre of 165 school girls, the bombing of hospitals, radio stations etc has strongly united almost all Iranians, and so even if one of them remains alive, the war will continue, just as the Vietnam war' continued for years despite the huge casualties which the Vietnamese took.
In 1995, the Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the period of 1955–75. PAVN and VC losses were reported as 1.1 million dead, and civilian deaths of Vietnamese on both sides totalled 2.0 million. Thus, over 3 million Vietnamese were killed in the war, whereas only 58,000 Americans were killed. America then had a population of over 300 million, while Vietnam had only about 40 million.
Yet the Vietnamese won. This shows that if a relatively poor nation is solidly united and is determined never to surrender, it cannot be defeated no matter how many of its people are killed and no matter how much suffering is caused to it by a stronger country
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman of the Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own.)
