Setup - What The Air Force Did In Vietnam And Why

Setup asks an unusually direct question about the Vietnam War: what did the United States Air Force actually do, why did it do it, and how did an organisation possessing extraordinary aircraft, weapons and technical expertise manage to apply them so persistently to the wrong kind of war?

Earl H. Tilford Jr. does not offer the comforting explanation that American air power was on the verge of victory until politicians interfered, the weather deteriorated or somebody neglected to bomb one final railway bridge. His argument is considerably less reassuring. The Air Force entered Vietnam shaped by its experience of the Second World War and its Cold War preparation for nuclear conflict, then attempted to understand a revolutionary war through doctrines designed for destroying the industrial heart of a conventional enemy.

North Vietnam was treated as though it were a smaller and less conveniently organised version of Nazi Germany: identify the important targets, bomb them, increase the pressure and wait for the enemy’s capacity or willingness to fight to collapse. Unfortunately, North Vietnam lacked the sort of vast industrial system that strategic bombing doctrine expected to dismantle. It also possessed political endurance in quantities that did not appear on target folders.

The resulting campaigns consumed enormous resources. Tactical aircraft attacked strategic targets, B-52 bombers designed to devastate Soviet industry flew missions in support of troops on the ground, and commanders counted sorties, tonnage and damaged structures with tremendous precision. Numbers rose, graphs improved and the war remained stubbornly unwon. It was possible to demonstrate that more bombs had been dropped while remaining less certain what relationship this bore to the desired political result.

Tilford examines Rolling Thunder, interdiction over Laos, close air support in South Vietnam, reconnaissance, gunships, airlift and the later Linebacker campaigns. He shows an Air Force capable of remarkable tactical adaptation: crews developed new weapons, new aircraft roles and increasingly sophisticated methods for locating and attacking difficult targets. At the operational level, American air power could be ingenious and devastating. At the strategic level, it was sometimes the world’s most advanced answer to a question nobody had asked.

The title carries two meanings. It describes the institutional and doctrinal arrangement with which the Air Force entered Vietnam, but also suggests that the service had set itself up for disappointment. Air leaders believed deeply in strategic bombing and in the independent power of air forces to produce decisive results. When Vietnam refused to validate those beliefs, the natural response was often to request fewer restrictions and a larger bombing campaign—rather as one might respond to an unsuccessful recipe by adding another three tons of flour.

Political direction from Washington certainly imposed changing targets, pauses and restrictions, but Tilford refuses to let military leadership assign the entire failure to civilian interference. Strategy requires more than permission to destroy things. It requires a clear connection between military action and political purpose, a connection that became increasingly difficult to find beneath the smoke, statistics and inter-service arguments.

Particularly striking is that this criticism was published by Air University Press, the intellectual arm of the institution being criticised. It is not an anti-military polemic written from a comfortable distance, but a work of professional self-examination arguing that the Air Force must understand its own failure rather than renovate the historical record until Vietnam resembles an air-power success regrettably interrupted by evacuation.

Published in 1991, Setup runs to more than 300 pages and offers a serious, detailed analysis of doctrine, organisation and operations. It is ideal for readers interested in the Vietnam air war, strategic bombing, military institutions and the fascinating human ability to interpret disappointing results as evidence that one should repeat the same policy more vigorously.

This copy is in As New condition, appearing unread and untouched, perhaps because its criticism has so far failed to attract defensive fire. Sold by Crappy Old Books, where institutional doctrine remains simple: identify the book, describe it accurately and deploy it through the postal system with a reasonably clear objective.

Keep browsing: See more War books Other books by Earl H Tilford