I was a teenager in the Sixites–the Vietnam era. I didn’t understand the peace activists at the time, but years later I sensed that their opposition to American involvement in Vietnam was based on a specific rationale: Modern governments are in collusion and the only reason to fight a war is to guarantee profits for weapons makers (hence the anti-war button reading: “War i$ good bu$ine$$: inve$t your $on.”)
Would this rationale stand up to modern discussion?
As far as I know, the main reason for the protests was that the protestors themselves did not want to go. As soon as the draft was abolished the protests died away, even though the war continued for some time.
So what they were REALLY protesting was the draft, but they did not want to come right out and say this because it would look too self-serving.
Bill
Thanks, Willie.
I guess what galled me the most at the time, was that the news media didn’t tell us something which had become quite obvious to the military, at least the Army, after a while: The odds against a prospective draftee even passing the physical were 2 to 1. (I failed it myself three times and never had any military service.) I wish they had been more truthful to us in this regard. 
I remember reading somewhere that more kids of draft age were killed in car accidents during the Vietnam war than died in combat. Since about 50,000 Americans died over something like 12 years, it’s probably an accurate statistic.
The nonsense about governments going to war to provide arms manufacturers with profits is nuts. First of all, government bureaucrats would rather keep the money and spend it on their own pet projects. Second, you can easily find lots of reasons for various wars. They may not be moral justifications for it, but at least you can point to the forces at work and say, “That’s what happened”.
And BTW, military people are usually the last ones who really want a war. After all, they’ve got to fight it. And even the commanders who won’t be in the field get their lives disrupted and have to travel to hell-and-gone to support the effort.
The paradox is that military people may least want a war, but may be the most likely to think that it’s necessary, since they tend to see problem-solution in military terms.
The best evidence against the “business” of war is that the stock market jumped (at least by 60’s/70’s standards) whenever there was a hint of peace talks. The defense contractors obviously benefited by the war but to the rest of the economy the war was a fiscal drag.
The reason we got into vietnam is that we were fighting communism and upholding a commitment to the South Vietnamese Government.
You may feel that fighting communism was a bad idea or that vietnam was the wrong place to do it. Both are rational positions. However the idea that we got into the war solely to prop up the arms industry is idiotic conspiracy theory BS. There is not a shred of evidence to back up this proposition. The cold war arms industry did fine whether in peace or war.
There is a lot to criticize about the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, both in the way we fought and whether we should have fought at all. We don’t need to involve nonsense.
BTW, the vehmence of this post was not directed at you personally Mr. Montie. I realize you are just reporting something you saw and are asking a question. I’ve just heard so much stale leftist anti-american rhetoric in my life sometimes I gotta burst.
Perked Ears indicate curiosity - Know Your Cat
“Modern” warfare-at least war that fit the definition of: automatic weapons, tanks, rapid firing guns, airplanes, etc. began with WWI. As all students of history know, since that time, war has frequently been disastrous-it kills off large numbers of young men (who are the most productive units of society), and despoils large areas of land.Remember the old “STAR TREK” episode-where the inhabitants of a planet did their wars by computer? less bllody and certainly less messy!
U.S. involvement in Vietnam ended in 1975 but the peace agreement and withdrawl plan was announced in early 1973. The draft ended a few months after that. The reason protests ended was because an agreement had already been signed.
On the other hand, George Bush (senior) pretty much admitted that the main reason for defending Kuwait was economic, so we can’t entirely discount that as a rationale for war.
I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.
Being one of those who spew anti-american leftist rhetoric, never stale, I must agree with you. I don’t know who pushed the idea that the Vietnam war was designed to prop up the arms industry. That’s pretty stupid. It was about securing American dominance in the world. That is not to say that there haven’t been war’s fought over arms profits directly and indirectly.
It was because a bunch of politicans got drunk one night and decided to go to war with someone… so they played spin the bottle and they didnt want to admit this so they just decided to keep the war going 
I really can’t dispute much of this. In the late Sixties my stepfather’s niece and her husband, with two small children,lived with us–in a four-bedroom house. (Long story.) The woman told me that the country is ruled by a “military-industrial complex”–parroting a phrase used by Dwight Eisenhower–himself an Army commander in World War II–whose knowledge of such matters in depth is suspect to me. Oddly enough, I registered for the draft a few days after my eighteenth birthday, the week I graduated from high school in 1967–just after the six-day war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. And three times in as many years I went to the Los Angeles AFEES, where I took a pre-induction physical–and I failed all three of them. (My older brother did this the year before; the blood test didn’t faze me, but he passed out! He later joined the Air Force and never saw combat.) As I said, it galled me that it was not widely known–or publicized–that the odds against a prospective draftee actually passing the physical–let alone getting inducted–were about 2 to 1.
Eisenhower’s knowledge? Or the woman you’re talking about? I’d bet that Ike might have known a thing or two about the military industial complex.
Agreed.
Most of the commanders will be “in the field” to some extent; such as going from one field command to another to ensure the strategy/tactics dictated are followed or that the battalion/corps/unit commanders are aware of their niche in the action.
Not a paradox in reality as the reason why the military folks will least like to see war has been covered above; to wit: they’re not all that keen on getting killed. Well, the odd wannabe Rambo type might think it’s cool, but for the most part, military folks don’t desire their own deaths.
I disagree with this (and I didn’t even have to raise a weapon!). First of all, it’s not the military’s function to decide if a war’s necessary or not; it’s the government’s. The military’s function, just like the rest of the Executive Department, is to carry out the responsibilities assigned to them by the Chief Executive.
I disagree with this also, as many of the military folks with whom I’ve served run the entire gamut from “military solution” to “political solution.” Care to provide a citation for your assertion?
Man engages in war for all the same reasons he did in the past and will in the future.
Scarce resources create competition to control those resources. Use of force allows a person or group of people to control resources. When two or more groups of people compete for the same resources, one way they achieve control is to use force. So long as a group of have nots feel that they have sufficient might to enforce control by use of force, they will use force, especially when methods other than force fail to achieve the goal.
For those who don’t fully comprehend this explanation, you might try understanding that ‘resources’ includes more than just minerals and water and food and the like. Civil wars are fought over control of people, who are a resource the same as any other.
Great Post and Idea here dougie:
My 0.02 +HST;
The linking of numerous and sundry conspiracy theories with the words “military industrial complex” (seriously, sounds like something right out of the ol’ APA handbook, huh? I get visions of Woody Allen lying back stuttering and whining on a shrink’s recliner, concerned with what LBJ’s been doing and how come tanks turn him on?) and that most wonderous of military actions called Veit Nam is enough for me to rule out economics as the sole reason for a war.
Granted, the lesson learned in WW2 in how a good, welltimed war would/could haul a country near bankrupt (or bankrupt, like mine was) out of the dirt and re-establish some real economic strength must’ve been unforgettable. However, the States were cleaning up in WW2 before they ever entered the war… If the MIC was the reason, why send your own soldiers into the fray when you could as easily sell weapons to one side, the other, or both! Thats the MIC.
kunilou said:
You got it… fighting for Texaco, fighting for power.
Now, to take an obtuse stance: who’s still going to talk “modern” war in terms of tanks and men? Even if I don’t reduce it down to the (arguable) lowest common denominator of the A-bomb, war is fundamentally different today than it was 50 years ago, even 30 years ago.
So when DSYoung says:
I can agree entirely, but I disagree in how groups of men ‘a’ and ‘b’ are going about it.
Why War’s Different (even if the motivations remain the same)
The long and the short answer: when group ‘a’ and ‘b’ are on different economic stances to begin with (as they have been in god knows how many wars in the last 40 years), when the US matches against rag-tag Iraqi forces who never even see the enemy tanks til a depleted sabot slams through their armour, it its a different proposition for the Iraqis.
WW2, while there were small differences in technology and numbers, they balanced another enough to require 6 years of fighting to get a clear winner.
Today (and in previous years), guerilla groups armed with technologically inferior weaponry can defeat a much larger, better prepared, better equipped army, especially if given enough time, and if they get to chose the theatre of engagement. The States had a heckuva break in the Gulf War, nice big flat deserts to pick tanks out on with satelittes. They didn’t get everything though. Neither did they in Veit Nam; carpet bombing areas of jungle, night-time flying gunships and biological warfare; they just couldn’t do the job.
Martin van Krevald (I think) wrote the book The Transformation of War, basically picking up the theory of total warfare from that 119th century military historian/philosopher whose name is eluding me. In any case, I recommend the book even if I disagree with krevald’s fatalistic suggesitons.
Regards,
Jai Pey
I must be crazy, responding to this thread. After all, I wasn’t born until several years after the war was over, so what do I know? But I feel compelled to disagree with the OP on the honor of my parents, both of whom were anti-war activists. My dad was actually drafted in the very first call-up (it was done by birthday - his is September 14, you can check it out) and was a Conscientious Objector. Instead of going to Vietnam, he served as a social worker in Oakland for a few years. To this day, nothing makes him more upset than the Vietnam War. I don’t think it had as much to do with money as the fact that the U.S. was fighting a war it shouldn’t have been involved in and couldn’t win. People were dying for a cause that they didn’t understand. Don’t tell me about car accident statistics - those are accidents. This was a war. Did the protestors hate the draft because they were the ones being drafted? Of course! That’s hardly unreasonable. If I were in that position - forced to go to the other side of the world to fight and maybe be killed in a war I thought was morally wrong - I’d protest, too!
Either Karl Von Clausewitz or Alfred Thayer Mahan. Both had similar ideas.
You’re welcome.
Sixseatport,
thank you, it was Clausewitz.
Regards,
Jai Pey
Back briefly to the economic effects of prosecuting a war, people like to make hay from the idea that the second Word War “pulled the country out of the Depression.” From this, many assume either that Korea and Vietnam were economic failures (in that they didn’t do squat for the economy), or that wars are only fought for the benefit of the arms and materiels industries. Crap. We were for all intents and purposes recovered from the Depression well before Pearl Harbor.
Heinlein hit it on the head:
-andros-
That’s the second World War, of course. Not sure which was the second Word War, although I imagine it involved John Rocker . . .