The resistance four star General James Cartwright experienced with the simple introduction of a "blog" into the infrastructure of a military bureaucracy to encourage faster communication between the ranks started my thinking about other events where the influence of bureaucracy might have played an even more crucial roles such as the Vietnam War. You know, if you keep beating the search engines with the same nut in slightly different ways you eventually will hit the jackpot and pop open a surprise that exceeds all expectations.
My surprise was the discovery of Robert W. Komer, President Johnson's point man in Vietnam, who in 1972 wrote "Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam"
Rand Report:
Kromer's book is a sad but wiser look at the impact of institutional factors on the U.S./GVN response in Vietnam. An atypical conflict being handled by institutions designed for other purposes but reluctant to get involved as well. Komer highlights such constraints as "institutional inertia — the inherent reluctance of organizations to change operational methods except slowly and incrementally — influenced not only the decisions made but what was actually done in the field. These constraints lead to
- an overly militarized response;
- diffusion of authority and fragmentation of command;
- hesitation to change the traditional relationship of civilian to military leadership
- agency reluctance to violate the conventional lines dividing responsibilities.
FM 3.24 makes a lot more sense to me now that the context for clear and hold is placed in historical view. All the ideas that are now being bandied about like so much confetti were known and realized then---even before Tet. However, it was only after Tet that Pacification, clear and hold was taken seriously enough to implement and funded. But by that that time the clock was ticking off the final fourth quarter and we will never know if the program had been installed and supported in the first years would have worked. Kromers analysis is a must read as context for FM 3.24. You'll get a much better understanding of the ideas if you read Kromer first. To me the read was an astonishing been there, done that, here's why it worked, here's why it failed.
A heartbreaking work in view of all our losses and a deeper appreciation of how much work and energy it takes to reverse course on an Iceberg or a bureaucracy.
