Gen. Gavin’s Trilemma

As Gen. Gavin analyzes the Vietnamese situation, there are three strategic alternatives, and three only: 1) We can recognize that we are in reality fighting China. In this case, we are “in the wrong place on terms entirely to [China’s] advantage. Manchuria … is the Ruhr of China and the heart of its war-making capacity. There, rather than in Southeast Asia, is where China should be engaged, if at all.” 2) We can try “to secure all of South Vietnam.” If that is our objective, “then forces should be deployed on the 17th parallel and along the Cambodian border adequate to do this. In view of the nature of the terrain, it might be necessary to extend our defenses on the 17th parallel to the Mekong River, and across part of Thailand. Such a course would take many times as much force as we now have in Vietnam. . . . We should anticipate the intervention of Chinese ‘volunteers’ and the reopening of the Korean front.” Gen. Gavin adds: “This seems to be the ultimate prospect of the course that we are now on. . . . [Such] straightforward escalation of our land power in Southeast Asia to meet every land-based challenge, while at the same time we leave China and Cambodia free from attack, poses some very forbidding prospects.” 3) We can “maintain enclaves on the coast, desist in our bombing attacks in North Vietnam, and seek to find a solution through the UN or a conference. . . . We could very likely do so with the forces now available.”

Let us grant that the criticisms made of Gen. Gavin’s rather optimistic assessment of his third alternative are justified. What better, then, can be said for the two other alternatives of the Gavin trilemma? Or are there further alternatives he has not seen, or not listed? If so, what are they? These are questions that we have a right to put to his official critics.

JB

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James Burnham

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As Gen. Gavin analyzes the Vietnamese situation, there are three strategic alternatives, and three only: 1) We can recognize that we are in reality fighting China. In this case, we are “in the wrong place on terms entirely to [China’s] advantage. Manchuria … is the Ruhr of China and the heart of its war-making capacity. There, rather than in Southeast Asia, is where China should be engaged, if at all.” 2) We can try “to secure all of South Vietnam.” If that is our objective, “then forces should be deployed on the 17th parallel and along the Cambodian border adequate to do this. In view of the nature of the terrain, it might be necessary to extend our defenses on the 17th parallel to the Mekong River, and across part of Thailand. Such a course would take many times as much force as we now have in Vietnam. . . . We should anticipate the intervention of Chinese ‘volunteers’ and the reopening of the Korean front.” Gen. Gavin adds: “This seems to be the ultimate prospect of the course that we are now on. . . . [Such] straightforward escalation of our land power in Southeast Asia to meet every land-based challenge, while at the same time we leave China and Cambodia free from attack, poses some very forbidding prospects.” 3) We can “maintain enclaves on the coast, desist in our bombing attacks in North Vietnam, and seek to find a solution through the UN or a conference. . . . We could very likely do so with the forces now available.”

Let us grant that the criticisms made of Gen. Gavin’s rather optimistic assessment of his third alternative are justified. What better, then, can be said for the two other alternatives of the Gavin trilemma? Or are there further alternatives he has not seen, or not listed? If so, what are they? These are questions that we have a right to put to his official critics.