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Hypothesis testing on the Vietnam War
War… war never changes. As man developed better and more efficient ways to kill each other war has continued to plague mankind and all of its lands for millennia. Some campaigns are blatantly justified, and others are still looking for answers as to why they happened. One of these conflicts that are still highly debated throughout the United States is the Vietnam War. Officially involving the United States on November 1st, 1955, the conflict managed to escalate fairly quickly from simply having American military advisors assisting RVN military personnel to have U.S. Marines and Army troops conducting extensive search and destroy missions throughout the Vietnamese countryside by 1964, effectively contributing a substantial amount to the fighting. This critical expansion in the role of American presence in Vietnam happened very quickly under the Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, who justified this move, however many still questions what the real purpose of American intervention was in Vietnam. Many posited that the intervention truly was meant to halt the spread of communism around the world stemming from North Vietnam, China, and the USSR and to maintain the U.S.’ position within the international system, while others believe that the conflict was based on a lie to maximize U.S. power around the globe and to eventually reach hegemonic prowess, or at the very least, unipolarity, within the international system. There are two possible theoretical explanations that can help explain why this conflict spiraled into an all-out war between the U.S. and the NVA and Vietcong. Defensive realism and its counterpart, Offensive realism, both provide substantial evidence that stipulates incentives for U.S. intervention, or expansion depending on who you ask. Offensive realism ends up being a better guide to understanding this case and provides the strongest evidence that points to the U.S. intervention being a strong reactionary conflict intended to be a bid for U.S. hegemony in Southeast Asia.
The first theoretical framework that seeks to explain the expansion of the U.S.’ role in Vietnam is Defensive realism. Developed in Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics, defensive realism stems from Neorealist theory, which in turn stemmed from the realist school of thought which was influenced by prolific figures such as Rousseau, Machiavelli, and Thucydides. Realism is not one single theory, but rather a collection of theories that share similar characteristics but differ on a number of key aspects. Each realist theory always tends to conserve four basic tenants that have come to define realist theories as such, which are “Groupism, egoism, anarchy, and power politics”. Groupism, stemming from our human nature and disposition toward cohesion and group solidarity, establishes states as the central actors that preside over international politics and foreign policy, not particular leaders or international organizations. Egoism, described by William C. Wohlforth as “when individuals and groups act politically, they are driven principally by narrow self-interest”, thus establishing another central characteristic of human nature that influences foreign policy design in international politics, imperative and rational self-interest. Anarchy is the way that the international system is fundamentally interpreted by realists; a harsh and uncaring world that has no central authority within the international system that constrains adversary aggression, thus further promoting self-help behaviors and exacerbating group egoism. Lastly, Power politics explains the desire for states to pursue power, either through influence or material resources needed to attack or coerce other states, to ensure self-preservation. Defensive realism retains all of these tenants but makes certain assumptions that differ from other realist theories. Firstly, Defensive realists agree that the anarchic stricture of the international system creates potential security threats, however, they also believe that states tend to directly confront and attack other states only when they pose a real and rational threat to their interests. In other words, “states balance against the greatest threat to their interests rather than against the strongest power in the system.” Defensive realists are also very confident about the effectiveness of the balance of power mechanism in restraining aggression. Balance of Power theory, one of the oldest theories in the study of International Relations, postulates that states fear hegemony and that any attempts at hegemony by any other state are faced with a balancing coalition willing to fight the rising hegemonic order, thus resulting in hegemonies being rare and great power war common. In other words, power has been envisioned as a means to maintain peace in three ways, “The first is in the form of a monopoly, the second a balance, and the third a community, of power”. Lastly, defensive realists also believe that if states act aggressively it is not due to anarchy-induced systemic pressures, but rather it is due to domestic variables such as having malevolent leaders, hostile regimes, domestically induced revisionist goals, or very extreme, either deliberately or not deliberately created, misperceptions of external threats to the state. The theory’s independent variable, which is the distribution of power in the anarchic international system, and its dependent variable, the likeliness to go to war, can have several observable implications when examining a case study of an outbreak of war. One of which is a history of the observed state showing limitations on its use of force when confronted with threats that do not directly threaten the interests of the nation. In other words, if the theory were accurate, you would see the observed state only confronting other states when there is a bid for hegemony or when another state directly snatches or destroys valuable resources necessary for a state to survive, such as military bases halting the advance of its adversary. Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, neatly summarized defensive realism’s foreign policy predictions if the theory proves to be correct, saying,
“Defensive realism predicts greater variation in internationally driven expansion and suggests that states ought to generally pursue moderate strategies as the best route to security. Under most circumstances, the stronger states in the international system should pursue military, diplomatic, and foreign economic policies that communicate restraint.”
When examining a case, you would also be able to easily attribute the expansion of the state’s aggressive behavior to a particular revisionist leader who wishes to see his state as the hegemon, or at the very least as being the leader in a unipolar world, that is a world with only one great power.
The next theoretical framework that can help us better understand the reasonings behind the American Intervention in Vietnam is Offensive Realism. Developed by John J. Mearsheimer, in his book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, builds on the four basic tenants of realism and adds another characteristic exclusive to his school of thought and that is that all states have some form of offensive military capabilities to hurt or destroy other states. He then goes on to further establish some of the new characteristics that define offensive realism. To begin, offensive realists agree with defensive realists that predatory states and leaders exist, however, they link the source of predation to a number of other mechanisms. Firstly, offensive realists think that the anarchic nature of the international system leads states to feel uncertain about the adversary’s intentions and thus leads states to adopt worst-case scenario analysis when confronted with possible attacks and international incidents, thus increasing the likelihood of a conflict emerging out of a possible misunderstanding. In other words, “for Offensive realism, when a state believes that it can do harm to you, it will not just”. It has also been theorized that states act aggressively because they perceive expansion as being the best way to obtain security in a really competitive and uncertain world. According to Peter Toft, “States soon realize that the most efficient way to guarantee survival in anarchy is to maximize their relative power with the ultimate aim of becoming the strongest power — that is, a hegemon”. Mearsheimer, in essence, created a depiction of great powers as power-maximizing entities with the aim to dominate the international system. While theory can be great in helping us determine what the purpose actually was for the Vietnam War, we must delve into the history of what actually occurred leading up to the expansion of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
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