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This essay explores the impact of America's war in Southeast Asia on US Air Force basic doctrine. One would assume that such a long, controversial and unsuccessful struggle would leave a lasting imprint on the Air Force's theory of airpower as represented in its doctrine. (1) This has not been the case. Few would dispute the controversial nature of the war in Vietnam. Over time it tore at the whole fabric of American society and was particularly wrenching within the US military. Among airmen, tempers flared over the conduct of the air war, particularly the restrictions placed on bombing targets in North Vietnam which many airmen perceived to be vitally important to the war effort. Nor could American airmen countenance bombing pauses used for diplomatic purposes. Controversy continues to this day over the nature of the war. Was it a conventional war disguised only by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese guerrilla tactics? Or, was it a classic insurgency (albeit with much outside assistance), an example of protracted revolutionary war? In truth, the answer to both of these questions is probably "yes" depending upon the time frame one considers.What the war was not is far more certain. It was neither the nuclear holocaust nor the modern, mechanized, conventional war for which the US Air Force prepared during most of the 1950s and early 1960s. Rather, it was what Rice has called a "war of the third kind" using the classic strategies of the weak against the strong, of those out of power against those in power.(2) For much of the war the defining military characteristic was the adversary's use of employment schemes (principally guerrilla tactics) designed to negate the superior fire power of South Vietnamese government forces and those of their principal ally the United States.Nor was the war a victorious effort. For whatever the reasons -- and there is enough blame for everyone to share -- years of enormous military effort could not bring America's adversaries to their knees. Whatever else one might argue about the outcome of the war, the salient fact is that Saigon is now called Ho Chi Minh City.Nor was the American struggle in Southeast Asia a one shot affair, an aberration that could be easily ignored. Rather, other wars of the third kind preceded the American effort in Vietnam. The Malayan Emergency, the Hukbong or HUK insurgency in the Philippines, and the French struggle against the Viet Minh all preceded the American effort in Southeast Asia. Following the Vietnam conflict, the UnitedStates also found itself involved (to one degree or another) in other wars of the third kind in Angola, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, and Afghanistan.The thesis of this essay is that with one notable exception, the Vietnam war had virtually no direct andlasting impact on US Air Force basic doctrine. The evidence that follows clearly demonstrates that American airmen officially turned their back on the Vietnam War when it came to expressing their theory of air power. It is as if the years of agonizing struggle and pain in Vietnam had never taken place. Although official doctrine ignored Vietnam, unofficially some American airmen have done considerableresearch on wars of the third kind and have published many important studies. In spite of their efforts, Air Force basic doctrine remains virtually unaffected.None of this is to say that the US Air Force was unaffected by Vietnam or that wars of the third kind did not make some indirect contributions to Air Force basic doctrine. On the contrary, the bitter experience in Southeast Asia shook the Air Force to its core.To demonstrate these points, this essay will examine both the official (doctrinal) and unofficial response by American airmen to wars of the third kind from the end of World War II until 1992. The study ends in 1992 with the publication of the current Air Force basic doctrine, an event in which the current author played a personal role and an event that further illustrates the distaste of many senior Air Force officers for wars of the third kind.In the context of this study, Rice's appellation "wars of the third kind" is a particularly usefuldescription for the struggle in Vietnam as well as for somewhat similar struggles that both preceded and followed the US involvement in Southeast Asia. It allows the study to concentrate on the impact of Vietnam on Air Force doctrine while avoiding the controversies over the exact nature of that forlorn war Further, the rubric is broad enough to encompass insurgency, protracted revolutionary war, guerrilla war (more correctly, guerrilla tactics), foreign internal defense, unconventional war, as well as the original (and terribly mis-named) concept of low-intensity conflict. All of these terms will be used somewhat interchangeably throughout the study as part of the general rubric "wars of the third kind." The Rise of Wars of the Third Kind
1945-1964It was not long after World War II that the western democracies faced the very different challenge of protracted revolutionary warfare. Many of the difficulties arose in Southeast Asia when the collapse of Japanese forces created a power vacuum prior to the return of the colonial powers.In the Philippines, the Communist led People's Anti-Japanese Army quickly changed its name to the People's Liberation Army and changed its mission to establishing a "Peoples Democratic Republic by overthrowing American imperialism."(3) The Hukbong or HUK insurgency was on.By 1950, the insurgents had 15,000 men under arms, another 80,000 active supporters, and a support base estimated to number at least one half million. At one point during that crucial year, insurgents threatened Manila itself with a force of 10,000. The government did not get the insurgency under control until 1954, and only after a shift in strategy that made civilian pacification programs (land reform and other social welfare reforms) an equal partner with military action. (4)In Malaya, the story was similar. After the Japanese surrender, the Communist dominated Malayan People's Anti Japanese Army disbanded but reappeared in a new guise bent on throwing out the British. The situation in Malaya, however, was significantly different from the problems faced by the government of the Philippines and by the French in Indo-China. In the Malayan case, the insurgent movement was limited almost exclusively to the Chinese population which was ethnically and culturally distinct from the nativeMalays.(5)The combined military-civilian campaign waged against the Malayan insurgents was a strategic masterpiece and, in retrospect, the insurgents were never close to winning. However, it was a protracted affair sputtering on through 1958 (the so-called "Year of Mass Surrender") and not formally declared finished until July 1960.Meanwhile, the French were facing very similar problems in Vietnam. The Viet Minh, who had fought the Japanese occupation forces, resisted the return of the French and finally took to the hills to wage a bloody protracted revolutionary war. The French were eventually unable to cope with the Viet Minh, and after a major defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French gave up the attempt. In the wake of the French disaster was a divided Vietnam, the northern half controlled by the victorious Viet Minh, the southern half a rump state created from those areas in which Viet Minh influence had been less pervasive. The VietMinh would soon turn their attention to uniting all of Vietnam.The Unofficial ResponseWith a significant portion of Asia embroiled in Communist backed protracted revolutionary wars during the late 1940s and much of the 1950s, one would have expected a significant intellectual response from US airmen. However, the interests of the United States military were largely focused on other areas and on other interests. US airmen focused on organizational independence from the US Army and on the missions that best justified independence, i.e., strategic bombing and to a lesser extent deep interdiction.Further, airmen were particularly enamored with nuclear weapons which promised to bring the strategic bombing concepts to fruition.The US soon became involved in the Korean conflict which, although fought with frustrating limitations, was a conventional war. But even Korea was a sideshow for the US military. The "real" threat was in Europe where the Soviets faced NATO with powerful forces and a threatening attitude.Nor was there much room for thinking about protracted revolutionary warfare in the years following the Korean conflict. Europe remained the focal point. Military budget cutting by the Eisenhower administration played directly into the hands of those who believed that "atomic airpower" could deter all forms of warfare, and if deterrence failed, could quickly defeat any enemy.(6) Nuclear strategists, nuclear deterrence theorists, and the Strategic Air Command dominated US thinking and military forces. In all of this, the obvious assumption was that if prepared for global war one was also prepared for wars of lesser magnitude. But as was being demonstrated in the Philippines, Malaya, and Indo-China, the problem was not wars of a lesser kind, but wars of a fundamentally different kind.The struggles in Southeast Asia did spark some interest in the professional military literature, althoughfar less than the major themes of "lessons" from World War II and Korea , the Soviet confrontation in Europe, and nuclear subjects.French General G. J. M. Chassin, Air Officer Commanding, Far East, published an important article in an English language journal in late 1952 that dealt exclusively with the ongoing use of French airpower in Indo-China. Although he failed to address the fundamental differences between conventional and insurgent warfare, he did offer his insights (prophetically for US airmen a decade hence) on appropriate command structures, close support and interdiction missions, and the extreme difficulty of finding guerrilla targets. In the tactical field the chief characteristic of the war in Indochina is the invisibility of the enemy. . . . Here there are no columns on the march . . . no convoys of vehicles. . . . Once outside the controlled zone, there is not a soul to be seen in the fields. When an aircraft flies over a village, the latter empties itself completely, even the domestic animals taking cover. It needs an unusual degree of skill and experience to detect the presence of Vietminh troops in the mountains and forests, where they live under perfect camouflage.(7)During the entire decade of the 1950s, the professional journal of the US Air Force published only twosignificant articles concerning airpower and the ongoing insurgencies in Southeast Asia. One concerned the HUK rebellion in the Philippines,(8) the other addressed the broader concerns of tactical airpower in limited war but included a scathing indictment of the French use of airpower in Indo-China.(9) The Philippine article addressed broader civil-military issues at the level of overall strategy but also discussed tactical lessons learned from hard experience. The article attacking the French airpower effort in Indo-China concentrated on command and control issues and failed to give even passing mention to the verydifferent kind of war the French faced.Perhaps the most important document published during the 1950s was a three volume analysis of the French effort compiled by the French high command.(10) These three remarkable volumes contained captured Viet Minh documents describing how their tactics could obviate superior enemy airpower,(11) and the difficulty of interdicting an enemy who required few supplies and relied on a very primitive and easily repairable logistic transportation system.(12) Finally, the French directly called into question the applicability of the central tenets of American airpower theory, which they referred to in these volumes as "the extremist thesis of Douhetism."(13)The continuing problems in Southeast Asia during the latter part of the decade and the election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency in 1960 spurred more interest in insurgencies in the professional literature.(14) This was particularly true at Air University where a number of student research papers directly addressed issues related to airpower and the wars in Southeast Asia.One of the earliest of these research efforts showed the influence of the Air Force fascination withnuclear weapons when the author called for their use to seal off the borders of Laos and Vietnam. The author went on to address the problem of finding enemy guerrilla forces by suggesting the use of "napalm blankets" to burn off the jungle cover and the application of chemical defoliants to kill vegetation too wet to burn.(15) Although extreme in the recommendation of nuclear weapons the recommendation for defoliation was prescient given the RANCH HAND defoliation program which began in January 1962.(16 )During 1962 and 1963, Air University students produced a number of insightful research papers concerning US involvement in Southeast Asia. In general, they all addressed counter-guerrilla uses of airpower, but in fact most put the problem in the broader context of counter insurgency. There seemed to be a general appreciation of the civil-military duality in protracted revolutionary warfare and an awareness by that the traditional focus of airpower was inappropriate.(17) One of the studies called into question all firepower missions and maintained that the supporting roles of airpower (airlift, psychological operations, etc.) would likely be most important.(18)Others, however, remained sanguine about the use of aerial firepower against insurgents even in the difficult jungle terrain of Southeast Asia. To moan the lack of strategic targets or the ability to see tactical targets and therefore conclude that air power is limited is to overlook the inherent flexibility of the air vehicle. There is no such thing as limitations or impossible conditions, only incorrect tactics or poor employment.(19)Air Force airmen published very little on the subject in their professional journal between 1960 and 1964. In 1962 a member of the History Department faculty at the Air Force Academy published an article about the use of airpower against the HUKs,(20) and in late 1963, the Air University Review carried a short article about using airpower to escort ground convoy movements in Vietnam.(21) Beyond this meager showing, the Air Force airmen seemed supremely uninterested in the subject.The Official ResponseIn spite of the insurgencies raging throughout Southeast Asia from the end of World War II through thedecade of the 1950s, in spite of deepening involvement after the election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency and in spite of a growing body of literature on the subject, the official response of the Air Force was both slow and distinctly muted.Air Force basic doctrine first appeared in 1953 and was changed in 1954, 1955 and 1959. In each case it was as if the struggles in Southeast Asia did not exist and, for the most part, as if the Korean war had not happened.(22) Terms and concepts such as low intensity conflict, protracted revolutionary warfare and guerrilla tactics were not even mentioned. Not until the 1955 edition was the broader concept of limited war mentioned.At lower levels of Air Force doctrine, the story was much the same. For example the Theater AirOperations doctrine manual published in 1953 did mention "special operations," but only in terms of inserting agents behind enemy lines, supplying partisans, and delivering propaganda. When the document was reissued in 1954, the situation remained the same.(23)Although the "official" Air Force seemed almost mesmerized by "atomic airpower" throughout the 1950s, there was some recognition that the kinds of struggles seen throughout Southeast Asia might require different military responses. For example, as early as March 1954, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff sent a message to Air University, the Tactical Air Command, and Far East Air Forces questioning whether or not the Air Force could adequately respond to the challenge presented by Ho Chi Minh, and implying that the Air Force did not appear to have the ability to fight anything but a major war.(24)The first concrete actions taken by the Air Force in response to the threat of wars of the third kind were the establishment of the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron (CCTS) at Eglin Air force Base, Florida in April 1961, followed by its absorption into the newer and larger Special Air Warfare Center at the same location in April 1962. Both actions came only after direct prodding by the Kennedy administration which viewed the threat of insurgent warfare as very real.The 4400th CCTS, nicknamed "Jungle Jim," was to train foreign airmen and at the same time developappropriate counter-insurgency tactics and techniques. In late 1961, Jungle Jim elements deployed to Vietnam in operation "Farmgate." The Special Air Warfare Center had essentially the same mission as Jungle Jim but was considerably larger and better organized to develop specialized tactics techniques and procedures.(25)At the same time (April 1962) the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Curtis E. LeMay, took official notice of the budding insurgency/guerrilla warfare problem in an Air Force Information Policy Letter for Commanders. LeMay discussed not only the ability of airpower to quickly concentrate firepower, but also other advantages that airpower could bring to such struggles. Air forces also are essential in the fast transport and resupply of counterinsurgent forces, as well as in providing reconnaissance, leaflet delivery and defense against insurgent air activities. To the central government of the nation under insurgent attack, airpower provides quick access to all parts of the country so it can maintain civic morale and stability through personal contact. I would like to see you familiarize yourself with the literature on this form of warfare. . . . And also remember these two facts: (1) general war poses the primary military threat to the security of the Free World and (2) it is under the umbrella of strategic superiority that the United States has freedom of maneuver in the lesser forms of conflict.(26)Two things are striking about this policy letter. First, the broad approach taken to the value of airpower in other than firepower roles is notable from an airman who is most closely associated with strategic bombing doctrine, nuclear weapons, and the Strategic Air Command. Second, is the continuing reference to strategic superiority and freedom of maneuver in "lesser" wars rather than "different" wars. Even at this late date, with personnel already deployed to Vietnam in the "Farmgate" program, the Air Force still regarded insurgent warfare as a lesser rather than fundamentally different form of warfare.On 21 September 1962, Brigadier General Gilbert L. Pritchard, Commandant of the new Special Air Warfare Center spoke at a limited war and counterinsurgency symposium that was part of the Air Force Association national convention. Later published by the Air Force, Pritchard's speech provided an accurate primer on the classic concepts of insurgent warfare and called for the close coordination and cooperation of airpower with other forms of military power and with non-military government agencies in a comprehensiveand integrated campaign_including civic actions and "nation-building."(27) The personnel at the Special Air Warfare Center were doing their homework.Just as clearly, interest by US airmen in insurgency and counter insurgency was growing. The establishment of the Special Air Warfare Center, the publication of information policy letters, the symposium held by the Air Force Association, and the ever deepening involvement of the US in the struggle for Vietnam culminated in a new Air Force basic doctrine Manual in August of 1964.The 1964 manual