The trickiest problem in evaluating a limited war is not in making clear what limits were observed, or even in trying to estimate the results of those limits, but in trying to decide by what standard to judge the limits. People who ask why the United States waged a limited war in Vietnam implicitly assume, for the most part, that this should be considered an odd anomaly, that total war is the normal form of warfare. In fact, wars that approached the abstract ideal of "total warfare" closely enough for the use of the term to seem even marginally appropriate have not been all that common. Historically, limited warfare has been the norm.
The issues involved can be considerably illuminated by comparison with a very similar war: that fought by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
The problem began in April 1978, when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan carried out a coup and Noor Taraki became the leader of the new government. The previous President, Daud (a general who had himself come to power by a coup in July 1973), was killed. It had not previously been obvious that the People's Democratic Party was a Communist Party.
In September 1979, Taraki was killed and his former Deputy Prime Minister, Hafizullah Amin, became the new leader. In December 1979, there was another coup, in which Amin was killed and Babrak Karmal (who had been in exile in Moscow) came to power. Soviet troops parachuted into Kabul December 27 to assist this coup; four motorized rifle divisions crossed the border the following day. "The Soviets have always insisted that they came in response to a plea for help from a legitimately constituted Karmal government... Moscow announced that its 'limited military contingent' would stay as long as necessary to repel outside aggression." (The New York Times, February 16, 1989, p. 4.)
Read Full Article »
