A Comparison Argument between a Limited Aspect of the Vietnam Conflict and Conflict in Afghanistan - Research Paper Example

A comparison argument (or contrast, but not both) between a limited aspect of the Viet Nam Conflict and our Conflictin Afghanistan The events that have been unfolding in Afghanistan have made people, more so observers to start comparing the American experience in the Vietnam War. America entered into a problem that has resulted to be difficult and with no easy exit. Yet again, some observers say that comparing past events to the most recent ones is a very bad risk since these both of these events did took place in two different eras of government and that the events were in very different geographical locations (Edmonds 52). There is evidence that states that there are more differences to similarities. This is supported by looking at the strategies that were employed in the two conflicts; they were totally different, even the military deployment in the two wars is totally different. The willingness to use violence to change politics is known as terrorism. The history of terrorism goes back to the 13th- century. In the early 1990s, religious groups came up with motivated terrorism. These groups based their violence on the Islamic beliefs. Some of the groups are Al Qaeda and Hamas, political terrorist groups in the Middle East. This is a sign of their departure from the religious perceptions. The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks was drinking alcohol just before he boarded the plane that he hijacked and as it is known, alcohol is off limits to the Muslim community. Observers belief that the 9/11 mastermind are among the people who had violent behaviors and they had manipulated their religious beliefs to suit their own needs (Levy 12). The Afghanistan war started as a result of the September 2001 attacks in America. These were caused by Al Qaeda group based in Afghanistan. Taliban is a Muslim radical group that was also ruling Afghanistan by 2001. This radical group had denied the American government entry into Afghanistan and capture the Al Qaeda; this prompted the then American president George Bush to declare war on Afghanistan. After only three weeks of invasion, the American troops had toppled the Taliban troops and they had nearly crushed the Al Qaeda troops who were using guerrilla tactics to fight while the American troops were sophisticated and learned (Edmonds 33). The American government has been in Afghanistan since 2001 till date. This has prompted observers to relate this war to the war in Vietnam that also lasted for ten years without success. I will try to give comparisons of the two wars since observers and historians have suggested that these two conflicts are nearly similar. However, observers suggest that there may be more differences than similarities in the two wars. This is because the wars took place in totally different times; the wars took place in two different American ruling regimes and the different geographical differences. The war in Vietnam, however, becomes a referring point for America whenever it wants to enter into war with other countries, hence, its analogy to the Afghanistan war. The communists successfully mobilized the nationalism against the French and it also showed the Vietnamese power against the American weaknesses. This is in contrast to the Afghanistan war where the American soldiers were more powerful than the Taliban and the Al Qaeda soldiers. When the United States went to war to Vietnam, they faced very experienced Vietnamese troops who were very loyal and very flexible; they also enjoyed very sophisticated materials. In the Afghanistan the American troops enjoyed a high level of professionalism; they had sophisticated weapons and their tactics were far more superior (Levy 46). The American forces managed to isolate the Taliban rulers within a very short time. In Vietnam the war evolved from a counterinsurgency operation to a dominating operation whereas in Afghanistan it went the other way round, the main aim for the war in Afghanistan was to give the afghan people a new rule but this changed with time to a counterinsurgency operation. 500,000 American troops were sent to Vietnam. In the ten years that they stayed in Vietnam 58,000 soldiers died while 305,000 were badly wounded and yet the American operation did not manage to make a big difference. In Afghanistan America had exhausted the Taliban and Al Qaeda troops in a little span of three weeks. The American troops then managed to take care of the small counterinsurgency programs (Edmonds 89). As of 2004, there were only 600 American soldiers who had died as a result of the Afghanistan war. The lessons learnt from the Vietnamese war were very crucial to the Afghanistan war policy makers. America had moved into Afghanistan to create and manage a local government that the local people would come into terms with. The building of the Afghanistan is work in progress and it is difficult to make any conclusions on how it will end. Below are more comparisons of the Vietnam conflict and the current conflict in Afghanistan. In 1960, during the period when America invaded Vietnam, the military power was not as large and the strategies that were being used were not as sophisticated as the weapons it used on Afghanistan. In the Vietnam war America was at the same time being opposed by the Chinese people, and the Soviet Union (Levy 25). The two countries provided support to the Vietnamese troops by supplying weapons to them, and also by advising them on how to fight and defeat the American troops. However at the time of the Afghanistan conflict in 2003, the American troops were enjoying very powerful military strength worldwide. America was labeled the world superpower; she had the best military training and equipment. As a result of this, America easily dealt with insurgents in the Afghanistan conflict. The biggest contrast between the two major wars of America was the objectives i.e. why the war was being fought in the two countries. In 1960 America was looking to conserve the non-communist quo in South Vietnam, and this was done by and divided the communist North from South Vietnam (Temple 46). In 2001 America went in to the Middle East in the name of nation building and liberalizing the Afghanistan people from the rule of dictators and terrorists. The democracy of the people in Afghanistan was a big issue that was to be solved; hence, the Americans had to move in to help these people. In contrast to this, in the Vietnam War democracy was not an issue. The objective in Afghanistan was Afghanistan Freedom; to liberalize the Afghanistan people and get rid of the terrorism acts. The biggest objective in Vietnam was to maintain the state of the American defense internationally (Temple 52). In defending South Vietnam, President Johnson and his administration showed the readiness of America to defend South Vietnam. The failure of America to defend South Vietnam would cause other states to doubt the American commitment and question their defense mechanisms (Temple 52). This was a big responsibility for the American government to fulfill. However, the inverse was true in Afghanistan; the American commitment was not that big a question in this warfare in 2001. The operation in Afghanistan was a response by America to defend their country from future terrorist attacks; hence, the war had to take place. Americans had the obligation to stop the Middle East country from the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons that would in turn be used in committing terrorist attacks on civilian westernized people. Another contrast in the Vietnam- Afghanistan conflict was the type and scale of war, and the duration it took to be completed. The Vietnam War was a communist counterinsurgency war in the South of Vietnam that was started by the North Vietnam against the American supported South Vietnamese government security forces. This war finally ended as a military war between America and the North Vietnamese regular forces. The war in Afghanistan was a very difficult task for America as it was to beat the Taliban and the Al Qaeda troops. This operation then proceeded to become a counterinsurgency operation (Willoughby 12). The communists started a war that had sanctions, and political and economic divides were created to ensure that the peasant South Vietnamese people had support for the American operation. They had a well staged war and trained their soldiers who took place in the French- Indochinese war. They also had external support from the anti – American Revolution countries (Temple, 32). In contrast, Al Qaeda terrorists were not as organized as the American troops. The Al Qaeda trained suicide bombers and gunmen. This did not seem to be the case of the Vietnamese war. The insurgent rise in Afghanistan was as a result that there were an increasing number of people who did not belief in the American way of counterinsurgency means. The operation in Afghanistan was initiated in November 2001, and the operations have been going on since then up to date. In the Vietnam conflict the American government started the war in 1960. The American troops continued to increase in to the country with time. By 1965 the American government started an air strike war where it used fighter jets to fight the Vietnamese war (Willoughby 41). The America- Vietnam conflict ended in 1973, this was after it had signed the Paris Peace Accord that meant the war was officially over. Hence the America- Vietnam war lasted after approximately ten years. It is difficult to compare the scale of the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan war. The total number of troops that were deployed to Vietnam was 540,000 in 1969; this included the U.S. Army and the American Marines department. In addition to this there were 87,000 troops that were deployed in the Vietnam boundary. In comparing this numbers with the numbers that were deployed to Afghanistan, then we can say that the Afghanistan war was relatively small since the American government only sent less 100,000 troops to the Middle East country to combat with insurgency. The Vietnamese war was more damaging than the Afghanistan war. The bombing tonnage that was dropped in Vietnam was the biggest in the history of wars. There was a total of 8million tons of bombings in the Indochina country alone, this compared to 1.23million tons that were dropped by the American troops during the World War 2. In Afghanistan, the American air power was contained of the major operations in the country. These operations had major developments since there have been great technological advances in the Americans as they are developing and advancing their weapons. In Afghanistan the terrorists have gunned down more than twenty American helicopters and they have damaged more than five fived wing transport helicopters (Willoughby 52). The enemy in Vietnam War made a great impression to the American troops since they were equipped and well trained but at the same time the American troops and the South Vietnamese troops were also at their peak in terms of being prepared and training they had received from the American trainers (Addington 89). The American troops had an impressive war in Afghanistan as they had improved technological weapons against the insurgents. The American troops had a big advantage to win over these terrorist groups as they had managed to neutralize them in a few weeks. The American troops left the South Vietnamese troops in the middle of the war and the reasons for withdrawal were because the rest of the world had put pressure on the American government to leave Vietnam to solve its own domestic problem. A total of 1million communists were dead in the Vietnam War and 2million civilian loss in total. These were a lot of people who were lost in the Vietnam War and this was end. The terrorists in Afghanistan were small in number and hence it was less ideological and less cohesive. The counterinsurgency seemed to be a tough call for America to enter into but that ideology has been down played since the American operation has managed to combat it and the troops are currently trying to rebuild Afghanistan more so after the death of the Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden who was killed by American troops in Pakistan sometime last year. At the moment the leadership of the terrorist groups in Afghanistan is quite unclear to the public as they have been changing their leadership after the death of their leader. The group has also scaled down its terrorism activities since sometime last year. The United States staged two wars in Vietnam; one of the wars was a ground war in the South Vietnam and the other one was an air war against the North Vietnam. Both of the wars failed since the American troops concluded their operations in the Laos (Addington 46). The U.S troops used a poor strategy to stage the ground war and the air war in North Vietnam. This was because the U.S military underestimated the ability of Hanoi to accept its punishment. Therefore, the North Vietnam was a fruitless air war this was because the North Vietnam had formed the ability to come to terms with the American tactics and defenses. In Afghanistan, the American guidance was not seemed to give any regular warfare which was beyond the combating of the terrorism operations. However, this was not the case as it changed so fast since the Americans had to start helping in building the nation again. The terrorist attacks that took place in Afghanistan were directed to different targets which included the American troops and the civilian contractors including the afghan civilians who worked for the American contractors. The tactics that are being used by the terrorists in Afghanistan have evolved and changed over the years as they are trying to study the fighting tactics of the American troops. The terrorists also have been on the move to purchase new and sophisticated weapons that they are using to counter the American troops. The naïve terrorists have also learnt the art of using new technology and new weapons like the rocket propelled bombs. The terrorists are also increasing their knowledge of creating bombs. The American government will have to increase vigilance in order to combat these kinds of threats and be able to manage insurgency (Addington 8). These are some of the contrasts of between the Vietnamese war and the ongoing Afghanistan conflict. Works Cited Addington, Larry H. Americas War In Vietnam. Indiana University Press, 2000. Print Bahl, Jörg. The Vietnam Conflict - the Most Important Incidents in the Years of 1954 - 1965. New York: GRIN Verlag, 2008. Print Buzzell, Colby. My War: killing time in Iraq. New York: Penguin Group, 2006. Print Deane, Hugh. The War In Vietnam. New York: Monthly Reviews, 1963. Print Edmonds, Anthony O. The war in Vietnam. Michigan: Greenwood Press, 2009. Print Guan, Ang Cheng. Ending the Vietnam War. London: Routledge, 2000. Print Kwon, Heonik. Ghosts of War in Vietnam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print Lawrence, Mark Atwood. The Vietnam War. London: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print Levy, Debbie. The Vietnam War. Twenty-First Century Books, 2004. Print Pender, Sam. Saddams ties to Al Qaeda. Virtual Bookworm Publishing, 2005. Print Stanton, Shelby L. Vietnam Order of Battle. New York: Stackpole Books, 2009. Print stephen J. Cimbala, Keith A. Dunn. Conflict termination and military strategy. Westview: Westview Press, 2007. Temple, Sir Richard. progress of India, Japan, and China in the century. Michigan: W&R Chambers, 2004. Print Willoughby, Douglas. 20th Century Perspectives . Heinemann Lib, 2001. Print Wright, David K. War in Vietnam. Childrens Press, 2008. Print Read More

 

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