I have gathered together a few notes on the Vietnamese military puzzle made during these last 20 years. I have not changed the substance, in order to show my ideas as they appeared at the time, even if today some of them may be obsolete or wrong.
1946 . . . Indochina . . . Three Pictures . . .
. . . Three pictures on the wall of a bamboo hut in a tiny village into which my unit came six months after the Japanese surrendered. A little community of a few hundred souls, all Vietnamese, most of them trained to read and write French by an old Catholic missionary who fled the village when the Vietminh threatened his life. A small bamboo and clay house in which a family lives on rice and fish, the only light from the outside world provided by reading in French. In this house, the head of the family can read; he believes what he reads simply because it is written, and because he is among the few who can read.
Many homes like this one, and in many of them, three pictures can be found: Ho Chi Minh, Stalin, and Maurice Thorez, the chief of the French Communist Party. These three pictures reach deep into the Indochina jungle, into the mind and soul of the average people Three pictures and two slogans which are never separated: "A BAS LE COLONIALISME—A BAS LE CAPITALISME" Down with Colonialism—Down with Capitalism.
All the jungle has been undermined. The Vietminh began to emerge when the Japanese overthrew the French in March 1945. When Japan was defeated "because the white men were lucky enough to get the first A-bomb," the Japanese helped the Vietminh with arms and training. The same Japanese who have demonstrated that the white race was no longer superior.
Many educated people in this area; those who can read, adhere to the new crusades somebody from abroad has given them as ideal—something to fight for—and has promised them a better life. They have read so in the leaflets, listened to the chiefs. The opponents had their throats cut; if they escaped, their families were slaughtered. Now terror reigns in the jungle. People are silent.
One thing is obvious: in the rebels' minds, "Colonialism" and "Capitalism" are the two enemies. If they get rid of one, they will go on fighting the other. War will not cease with the independence of Indochina. Ho Chi Minh may win his independence; he and Big Brother Stalin will carry on further, and in France the third man will undermine the will of his people. Very few in this village know that in Brazzaville the freedom of her colonies has been solemnly proclaimed as the official objective of France. Those who know don't believe it. They believe in these three pictures. The Communist Organization first took care of the political education of these people and enlisted their young enthusiasm in a cause which may not be their cause. But they will serve it with a blind faith.
Autonomy granted to Indochina in July 1946 did not solve the problem. Ho Chi Minh was received in France with red carpet honors and, while in Paris, he ordered a surprise attack in Hanoi and the fight flared up again all over Indochina.
Always and everywhere the same pictures and the same slogans. A strange fight indeed. No apparent objectives; but we French soldiers know the enemy is here. In the morning, we find our friends killed, their houses burned. Ambushes destroy convoys. Soldiers are shot in the back, mines placed on roads. Bombs blow up, killing women and children. When we arrive, the enemy has vanished into the jungle or has mingled with the population. People do not talk. There is no intelligence. French planes (the enemy have none) have mastery of the skies; the French Navy (the enemy have none) controls the seas; French tanks, armament, and technical skills are unchallenged. Yet, all this materiel, all this military strength appears useless. A new type of war? Not at all. Partisans have always existed. What is new is the tremendous hope these partisans get from being part of a gigantic conspiracy, and from the way we civilized people have chosen to cope with them. It is a radical departure from the rules of war. The first rule was to make fighters wear uniforms (this must have been one of the first steps of civilization) in order to save civilian populations from indiscriminate massacre. When these fighters were defeated, the war was lost.
But here the Communists changed the rules. Everybody is a fighter without uniform, wearing a weapon or helping with intelligence or with silence, under penalty of death. When we appear, weapons are concealed, and we are welcomed by smiles. Each village is friendly or hostile depending on our strength.
In the old times, this too-simple trick could not work because the whole village or a group of hostages were held collectively responsible for any belligerent act. But the Communists know that our idealism prevents us from using these radical remedies which are the one and only way out, unless we use a fantastic number of soldiers, and special techniques foreign to classical military actions. But the third man in France will prevent our government, by means of public opinion, from sending adequate reinforcements. Our friends at home and abroad believe that we are fighting an old colonial-style war. Nobody understands nor cares that we have forever given up our old colonial policy, and the Eastern propaganda label: “Colonialists” still sticks to our backs. The Organization plays with idealists’ minds like a cat with a mouse. Americans print papers favoring Ho Chi Minh and we know that they approve his action. Contributions are made even in France for the heroic “resistance” of the Vietnamese people. No one knows the facts except our government and a handful of soldiers lost in the jungle. We, the soldiers, and our government are in the path of a machine that has been carefully and shrewdly built by a great people who were strong enough to defeat Hitler’s armies. Their machine is on the move and could crush us. These thoughts make heavier the hot and humid air we breathe in this deep equatorial forest. Our lonely fight, is it hopeless? We’ll fight it anyway. How?
Our units were created to fight against Germany in World War II battles. Within a few weeks, we have occupied practically the whole of the Indochinese peninsula. We hold the towns, the network of roads, the harbors, the airfields. But in G-3 offices, no classical military problem appears. In G-2, intelligence people are perplexed. We hold everything, but the enemy is everywhere. We have received leaflets which say, “If you want to join Vietminh, leave the highways.” But our World War II organization ties us to these roads in order to get fuel, ammunition, food, supplies. If we go on foot, we are lost in a terrible terrain of jungles, mountains, forests where malaria and dysentery are the worst foes. We have not enough strength to mop up everything. Mop up what? Civilians?
In daylight, however, we succeed in keeping an appearance of order. Only infantry is usable. Other weapons have no targets.
By night, Indochina belongs to the Vietminh. Our night patrols are spotted when they leave the posts. Dogs bark and disclose our ambushes. "Tam-tam" calls in the jungle mark the progress of our men. The rebels seem to know all the trees in the forest; they fight where they played when they were children.
The Organization has made each village a military entity, a little theater of operations, self-efficient with its cells, its "political commissar," its tax collector, and its supply system. We discovered that the medical organization of one village consisted only of women. This confirms that, willingly or not, everybody has a role. Even children bring messages of weapons. No modern army could cope with such a problem without using the old barbarous methods, or inventing radically new ones. We need at least 500,000 infantrymen trained for this special warfare, but we haven't even 50,000. We do not play the same war game as the enemy; we never meet. There is no hope of enlarging our forces. Public opinion in France, undermined by Communists and idealists of all kinds, will never agree to send draftees. Modern weapons can help to conquer land; the Communists conquer people. To control land and lines of communications among unfriendly people who become, when necessary, hostile fighters, a considerable number of soldiers is required. One million might not be enough.
As weapons systems become increasingly complicated, they depend more on sophisticated, vulnerable logistics and lines of communications. In theaters where the Organization has thrown its underground nets, quality cannot defeat quantity. On the contrary, quality—which is almost useless here—requires quantity. This is the new military challenge of Communism whose infantry by millions is already spread all over the world. We need soldiers and more soldiers; nothing can replace the old infantry, the one and only all-weather and all-terrain weapon.
Are not our military chiefs a little lulled by the promises of scientists, and led into dangerous concepts of warfare—relying too much on machines, and forgetting men?
Obviously, here the machines fail. In this environment, they work only in daylight, only if it does not rain too much, and only on limited portions of the ground. They are useful one-half of the time and over one-tenth of the terrain; the rest belongs to foot-soldiers.
Some illusions of World War II vanish in the swamps, the forests, the monsoon, and the nights of Indochina.
1947 . . . Tourane (Danang) . . . The Crossbow
At last we have met them, entrenched to guard the pass in the Marble Mountains. They have built pillboxes in which they wait for us. My tanks now have targets.
When the easy fight is over, we find only corpses. No prisoners, no wounded, no weapons. The survivors have fled into the forest, with their wounded and all the weapons. They do not have even one rifle per soldier, only one gun for two or three riflemen. A cord is tied to the weapon, and if the first man is killed, the second pulls on the cord and hauls the gun back into his foxhole.
In a pillbox hit by my tank, I find only one forearm, blasted off at the elbow. The man has fled. But he left his weapon—a crossbow.
This rugged Communist infantry is courageous, too. We have underrated them. Communism, like Nazism, like Fascism, provides an ideal—right or wrong—and this makes men fight.
They have numbers. If they get weapons. . .
1963 . . . Phase II . . . The Americans . . .
A long time ago, they got weapons, training, and advice from their Communist brothers, when the Chinese were released from the Western pressure by the signing of the Korean Truce.
In their sanctuary beyond the Chinese border, they built up regular divisions, their walking Army of Red ants, necessary in order to achieve military victory. Dien Bien Phu closed the story. One out of four of my St. Cyr classmates lost his life in our lonely fight in these faraway jungles.
In the minds of those simple people, entirely dominated by the Communist techniques, Phase I of the grand design—“Down with Colonialism”—was over. But the job that had started long before Dien Bien Phu was still unfinished. Long before the end of the French “Colonialists,” the Vietminh propaganda had shifted its attacks against the American “Imperialists.”
Phase II —“Down with Capitalism”—is on the way. Ngo Dinh Diem has replaced Bao Dai. Minh has replaced Diem, Khanh has replaced Minh, and so forth. The Americans have replaced the French. The Viet Cong has replaced the Vietminh. The North Vietnam sanctuary has replaced the Chinese sanctuary.
And here, 17 years later, I know that in my village, under the coconut trees, the same yellow men—or their sons—continue the same fanatical fight for the same obscure cause, under the same chief—Ho Chi Minh—using the same methods. Their fight, as seen at the village level, “against the white man, his machines, and his stooges” is the basic, permanent, and terrible weakness of our Western position. This is no more their true cause today than it was 17 years ago.
The only cause worth fighting for, in such communities, is the material and spiritual development necessary to catch up with the 20th century which moves faster and faster away from them. And this race to modern life would in itself require all the skill, the energy, the time, and the courage so generously wasted in an endless and awful civil war by all these unfortunate men.
Until the real challenge of our times is finally understood, until the dark magic of empty words which makes those men fight has disappeared, will peace ever come back to the Vietnamese jungles?
1966. . . Twenty Years Later . . . Red Ants. . .
Too much has been written by "experts" on the subject of political warfare, psychological warfare, control of populations and maybe not enough on the military challenge. All this counterinsurgency thinking was needed, because 20 years ago it was badly missing in the
Western arsenal. Unchallenged in psychological warfare, the Communists could win soldiers for their cause. Words alone cannot win a war. Loudspeakers can and probably should complement the guns, but by no means replace them. Gunpowder has always been, is still, and will remain the most convincing psychological weapon. Sad to say, Communist treatment of the Hungarian revolution shows an example of effective counterinsurgency techniques through mass murder.
Today, 20 years after the landing in Saigon of the “Royal Poland” (my regiment), with the Foreign Legion and other units of the small French expeditionary forces to the Far East, the endless fight is still going on. Much progress has been made in the techniques of psychological warfare, in the fourth dimension of war, to check the underground Communist attack on minds at the village level— this type of “unconventional” action which surprised so much the French veterans of World War II.
But the main task still remains, and it boils down to a prosaic military problem which apparently has not been solved. How to destroy the fighters? How to cope with those yellow devils who come out of the ground, out of the night, by hundreds or thousands, in company, battalion, or regiment strength, strike and vanish like ghosts? How to dig them out of their underground sanctuary, the forest and the night?
It is obviously a problem of numbers. We felt, 20 years ago, that one million men were necessary. It seems to be true today. This is problem No. 1.
We knew, 20 years ago, that it was also a matter of tactics, military tactics, besides the psychological action, then non-existent. Recent history, in Asia, has shown the incredible ability of those infantrymen to master problems that cannot be solved by machines. The example of Red infantry swarming like ants across the highest military barrier in the world—the Himalayas—is the striking lesson of the war between China and India. It is a lesson which raises questions in many vital areas of the world, to the tacticians who still stick to the World War II concept of a “war in automobiles.” Can the helicopter, the flying machine, the bombings beyond the sanctuary borders (although they can certainly help) offer the solution to the 20-year- old problem? How to control the land, the people; how to control the night? How to control the forest, beyond the barbed wires, where the “Viets” live and move like monkeys; the darkness where their shadows disappear behind the next bamboo grove, beyond reach of all our machines. On which side is the advantage of mobility, that “queen of battles,” when besieger and besieged are on the same side of the barbed wire?
To be sure, American air and sea power, which might mean nuclear power, will prevent anything like Dien Bien Phu. But unless the enemy’s back is finally broken through massive strategic air strikes aimed at the very source of their will power, the military task of cleaning out the forest and coping with the night appears a formidable one indeed for conventional weapons, manpower, and tactics. Can the Westerner really win unless he plays the same age-old game, or resorts to mass destruction? How long would it take to learn that game, how long to train soldiers to play the game, assuming the necessary national will to undertake such an enormous enterprise and carry it to its end?
Nobody can win half-hearted wars. At the end of the line, something is missing in the arsenal if the national will is not totally bent towards the common good. It may be manpower; it may be the will to use all the weapons available; it may be restraints of all kinds which hamper the proper execution of the military task to kill the enemy.
1967 . . . Deadlock? . . . The Fortresses . . .
We must now admit that something is going wrong somewhere. In two decades of continuous fighting, neither the Vietminh nor the Viet Cong guerrillas were able to throw the conventional armies into the ocean, nor were conventional armies able to destroy the guerrillas. Quite obviously some vital ingredient is missing. The deadlock is bound to continue, unless mass destruction is used, which is no longer a political solution, or unless a new military approach enters the game.
The Westerners have firepower, strategic mobility. They lack numbers, intelligence, and—correlatively—tactical mobility to control the land and the people. Tactical mobility, against guerrillas, is that type of all-weather, all-terrain-capability which permits exploration of all the bamboo groves, underground caches, 24 hours a day, to dig out the enemy beyond the next tree. No plane, no helicopter, no tank, no black box, no computer can do it. These cannot bring quickly the only machine able to do the job—the infantryman—assuming, of course, that the enemy did not walk out of reach at the first sign, which he generally does.
Our opponents have everything, except strategic mobility and firepower. They fight at home and do not need transcontinental transportation. The bulky and vulnerable hardware necessary for conventional fire. power and associated logistics, however prevent them from getting the necessary punch to blow up the fortresses in which yesterday the French, and today the Americans, gather to rest, to repair, and feed the machines, and to escape piecemeal destruction in the jungle and the night. From these sanctuaries, heavily protected but very small, the Americans launch—mostly by day—their mechanized military raids. Faced with the "total war" or "total mobilization" concept of Mao Tse-tung or Glop's "people war," the Americans have to resort to mechanization, ground and air mobility to replace the numbers of fighters. But the bulky logistics of their machines always bring them back to their bases. These bases, strangely enough, appear on the maps like the fortresses of the Middle Ages from which the European landlords sallied forth to defend their feudal domains whenever threatened.
Everyone knows where those vital fortresses are, especially the enemy who controls the land around them. But he cannot wipe them out, because he lacks heavy weapons. One side can destroy the enemy but cannot find him, the other side can find the enemy but cannot destroy him—up to now.
I lay aside my notes. I am weary of thinking about the Red ants. Those persistent troublesome ants. How might they be driven back into their hill or exterminated? By something much smaller than they? By the invisible atom perhaps?
While the refinement and codification of old age tactics, under Communist military thinking and leadership, evolved to reach the stature of an effective type of warfare, and permitted dedicated men to check with a primitive weaponry the threat of sophisticated military hardware, a new military technique born at the beginning of the Vietnamese war evolved in the laboratories and the testing grounds all over the world.
The enormous psychological impact of the first A-Bomb probably saved hundreds of thousands of American and Japanese lives, by bringing World War II to an abrupt end, and the threat of the atom was certainly, during all these subsequent years, the main bulwark of peace, at least among the great powers.
But the aura of a Promethean achievement slowly vanished, as the veil of secrecy progressively disappeared. Now, 23 years after Hiroshima, the mysteries of the atom are common and universal knowledge, the illusions of scientific and technological, and military “monopolies” have evaporated—if indeed they ever seriously existed. Moreover, the raw materials of nuclear bombs—Uranium 235 and Plutonium—are also the key ingredients of future nuclear industry. Everyone knows from public statements of official writings that nuclear swords and plowshares use the same metal.
Hence the foregone conclusion: sooner or later, when the atom is harnessed all over the world to produce peaceful energy, considerable quantities of nuclear material will be available, one way or another, for the purpose of defense, if need be. And the right to “defense” with the atom cannot be denied to anyone, on moral ground, any more than with TNT. Even so, the needs of national survival cannot be swayed by such considerations.
The doctrines regarding the possible use of nuclear weapons have been, to a large extent and up to now, dominated by the two main characteristics of the first military atom: its extraordinary destructiveness, and its extreme cost and scarcity. Quite obviously, when the stockpiles were limited to a few bombs, the only valuable targets were the large towns, the only possible use was the so- called “counter-city” strategy, massive retaliation and the like, which is a kind of “king- size terrorism” rather than a classical military approach (since the object of war is more “control” than destruction).
It is almost certain that World War III was avoided during the dark Stalinist years by the threat of mass destruction. It is quite likely that the shadows of the H-bombs in the background put a serious brake on the escalation of local conflicts; but it cannot be denied, after the Korean, the Vietnamese or other recent examples, that the atom has been psychologically powerless to ensure total peace in this world. Too much is too much: the “unthinkable” is not credible.
Seemingly condemned to a career of “terrorism” at its birth, the atom has not yet been accepted as a real weapon for war in the minds of most people. The Viet Cong does not seem any more impressed by his nuclear opponents in 1967 than the Vietminh was by his “conventional” enemy in 1946.
Yet, today the picture may be changing. The two reasons which had relegated the atom to the category of the “unthinkable” arsenals—such as gas or biological weapons are disappearing. The production of nuclear weapons has been important during the last 20 years, and the development of nuclear energy all over the world may contribute, as pointed out above, to world-wide weapon proliferation. As the so-called “nuclear club” membership expands, the bomb’s use is no longer limited to civilian holocaust or international terrorism, as it was at the time of scarcity. No, soon the nuclear weapon will surely take its place among the weaponry of war itself—war between armies.
The tactical nuclear weapons’ increasing number is complemented by their decreasing yield, which gradually closes the gap between classical and nuclear ammunition, and renders these arms much more manageable, much more credible. Yet, even as the gap between the smallest nuclear shell and the biggest TNT bomb narrows, there remains a psychological "firebreak" between conventional and nuclear warfare. In the minds of many, to enter this no-man's land by being the first to fire a tactical nuclear weapon, however small, is to take an irreversible step beyond which escalation cannot be controlled —one which is bound to start the H-bomb holocaust. This opinion has led, up to now, to the practical neutralization of tactical arsenals, even the smallest Davy Crockett, considered as the detonator of the H-bombs But this questionable belief is gradually losing ground as the tactical atom slowly replaces TNT as the core of modern armies' firepower. The prospects of limited nuclear wars, of nuclear "flexible responses," are no longer as unlikely as they were not so long ago.
Be that as it may, unless some form of arms control reverses the present trend, we must coldly reason on future capabilities, regardless of sentimental or political intentions. First of all, we must admit one fact which is crystal clear: in the not-so-distant future, nuclear explosives will be available to many nations, from home production of nuclear energy, as a mere by-product of electric power. Secondly, unless some new international law and order replaces the present relationship among nation states, there is no substitute for defense to ensure freedom. Thirdly, unless a powerful world system can physically control its peaceful use, there is no reason why this new potential should not be used when national survival is at stake.
The atom is now in the hands of the tacticians. From the Air Force it came down to earth, and the surface forces are now provided with nuclear firepower. We must now realize that it might very well go even lower—and reach the underground. It seems that there is no technical limit to the availability of nuclear explosives for any form of warfare. The first nuclear shell was fired in 1953. It was cumbersome but clearly opened the path to "miniaturization." Gradually, the weight—and the yield—of nuclear weapons decreased.
Today, everyone has heard of 155-mm. shells, Davy Crockett or other subkilotonic nuclear gadgets which are hand portable. The "critical mass" of uranium or plutonium has been widely published, as well as the basic principles of atomic weapons design. The small nuclear weapons probably possess a reduced explosive power because the machinery which brings the fissile material into a subcritical mass cannot at the same time be light enough for easy handling and powerful enough to obtain a good nuclear yield. Quite naturally the scientists, the economists, and the technicians might have conflicting views with the tacticians in this critical matter.
They might point out that it is an incredible waste of nuclear energy—of potential firepower and money—to draw the equivalent of 500 tons of TNT out of a critical mass able to release 10 kilotons or more. On the other hand, the tacticians might prefer to place 100 tons of explosives right on the target as opposed to 10,000 tons alongside, if the handiness of the small weapons permits a greater accuracy and far shorter reaction times. The average nature of tactical targets—mostly small and well-guarded—does not require an "overkill" capacity which is generally bought by sacrificing size, speed, sophistication, and accuracy (to say nothing of unnecessary destruction of civilian environment).
Moreover, nuclear explosives in the kilotons range create serious problems for the safety of friendly troops—i.e., fall-out, buffer zones, etc.—that the targets analysts know too well, and which considerably complicates the difficult interplay of mobile maneuver and nuclear firepower.
The fact that atomic ammunition is becoming more plentiful does not mean that battlefields of the foreseeable future will see Verdun-type artillery barrages. The 600,000 tons of uranium metal reserves known on the planet, even if they were turned to nuclear explosives overnight, which is obviously neither practicable nor desirable, would set an upper limit to nuclear expenditure, and forbid nuclear waste. An atomic round, like a battalion, is a part of the total potential of a modern army. It has to be used only if and when the dividends, in terms of enemy’s destruction, will surpass the price paid in terms of one’s nuclear potential.
One round fired is one round lost from the limited stockpiles; it has to inflict upon the enemy a damage greatly superior to any alternate choice of weapon. If it misses the target, it is a tactical disaster, like the useless loss of a battalion. “Economy of forces” does apply to nuclear firepower. The blind and systematic B-52 “bomb carpet” on whole areas in which the enemy is “supposed” to be is possible only when there is a limitless amount of ammunition. It is utterly ridiculous with limited tactical nuclear stockpiles. Only the H-bombs might be used, because they are much cheaper in terms of uranium cost/effectiveness. Thus, all military men must consider anew the formidable problem of target acquisition and accuracy of delivery means associated with the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
The best weapon system is, by far, the one which guarantees the maximum damage on the enemy for each nuclear expenditure. The yield of the warhead, the range of delivery means are not the main points: they are secondary to the factors of reaction time, accuracy, and vulnerability of the system to enemy countermeasures.
The atom and the ants, the ants and the atom, the visible and the invisible, the ponderable and the imponderables, the thinkable and the unthinkable.
Let us go back to Vietnam to study coldly the puzzle without political or sentimental considerations. Let us try to forget the French, the Vietminh, the Viet Cong, and the Americans, and consider only the theater of military operations, where two forms of warfare have collided inconclusively.
What would happen if the atom entered such a game?
Naturally, the “classical” party would be equipped with the full arsenal of nuclear warfare: bombs, rockets, shells, land mines, the associated delivery means, and target acquisition devices. His already crushing firepower would then be multiplied a thousand-fold; it would become phenomenal. No limits would be set to the yield of the warheads, and a large supply of atomic ammunition would be available whenever and wherever needed.
The Red ants would possess only the type of nuclear weapons which they could handle without losing their unusual mobility—and associated invulnerability. Their atomic weapons would have to be the smallest, hand-portable, and most unsophisticated of devices—those, obviously, with a very low yield. At best, they would have to be no larger than “Davy Crockett” type mortars. The struggle, indeed, would be unequal, and predictably short. The Red ants would win overnight.
In 25 years of practical experience in Vietnam or elsewhere, no way has been found to stop a terrorist from setting off a suitcase full of explosives. This type of action, however, was never very successful, except for psychological warfare, because one man or one small group of men could not physically carry a militarily significant amount of TNT. The only effective “bombs” were hidden in trucks or in cars, and their practical effects could not alter the balance of military forces.
Today, a terrorist carrying a nuclear suitcase is by far the most fantastic delivery means thinkable. There might one day be anti-ballistic missiles capable of stopping ICBMs, satellites capable of spotting and even of destroying nuclear submarines. But what about the hot-eyed little fellow and his suitcase? Today, he is the one weapon that cannot be stopped. This man can carry right to the target, or close enough to it, a payload equivalent to an ammunition train in terms of explosive power. Or, consider the two-man crew of a nuclear mortar that can practically at point-blank range, lob the equivalent of 100 tons of TNT into a building's windows, or onto an airstrip The total accuracy and almost total invulnerability of these weapon systems more than compensate for their lack of nuclear yield.
The true problem in nuclear warfare, as in any warfare, is to find the target. The atom, big or small, will always kill it.
The "fortresses," in which the classical armies confronted with a "people's war" are condemned to gather with their machines, would immediately be blown up. On the other hand, for the great nuclear power, nuclear weaponry has very little advantage over TNT in destroying the guerrilla target—and no advantage whatever in finding it. The subterranean world in which the guerrilla live like moles is certainly among the best anti-atomic shelters ever devised. The blind bombings of the jungle would quickly expend the limited nuclear stockpiles without any better returns except perhaps to render the impact area unusable.
As we have seen, then, if we introduce the atom all along the spectrum of modern war fare, which is today technically possible, we have to review closely the value of war as an instrument of policy, and estimate the dividends that a prospective aggressor might find in the use of force.
Finally, while we are making certain assumptions, let us make a very big one. Let us assume that direct thermonuclear attacks or blackmail against the target nation cities may be ruled out by virtue of automatic retaliation (provided the balance is kept in this vital field) or because mass destruction is not the object of war. It is important to remember that this assumption does not rule out the possibility of invasion by ground, airborne, or seaborne forces. Such an invasion would not necessarily mean the automatic escalation to general holocaust, including destruction of cites. Assuredly, the field armies of both attacker and defender would be annihilated in the inevitable exchange of atomic shells, assuming some nuclear parity in the beginning. But a "second wave" of attackers might flood with numbers the weakening defending party and "conquer" the target nation's territory.
If, however, the "home defense" has been organized along Mao's "people's war" line, assuming the necessary national will to defend, the aggressor would be confronted with a task very much similar to the French or American plight during the last 25 years in Vietnam. And the problem might be even worse, because in Vietnam only a part of the population is willing to participate in the fight.
Resistance movements, adequately organized to control the land and the people, and provided with "nuclear suitcases,"—either from national stockpiles or from outside help—would confront the invader with a difficult choice. He would either have to concentrate in "fortresses" to escape guerrillas as in Vietnam today, and risk nuclear destruction, or disperse on the land to escape the atom and thus become easy prey for the guerrillas.
Under such conditions, what would be the cost of occupation, or what dividends would be gained by invasion? What statesman would embark on such a military adventure if he knew that he would be confronted by a patriotic people who were armed with the crushing power of the atom and organized for a “nuclear guerrilla warfare”?
For the first time in history, there is a weapon which gives to the smallest group of dedicated men the power to destroy almost any military formation and a formidable defensive power to a people willing to fight for their national freedom. The combination of land control through “people’s war,” combined with the power of the atom, seems to be a very formidable roadblock indeed on the ancient military “path of glory.”
Does not the atomic suitcase, then, offer an additional hope for lasting peace by ruling out aggression as a reasonable instrument of policy? Could not this offspring of the marriage of the oldest war tactics and the newest war techniques be considered a very significant weapon in the “war on warfare” that might eventually consign the use of crude military force to its rightful place, among the nightmares of the past?
Educated at France's military college of Saint Cyr, Lieutenant Colonel Geneste escaped to Spain from Nazi-occupied France and joined the Free French Forces. Subsequently, he served with the 2nd French Armored Division, 3rd American Army. After World War II, he took part in the Indochina campaign, and from 1951 5o 1957 he served in Algeria. In 1959-60, he attended the Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia. He was an instructor and liaison officer in the U.S. Command and General Staff College, and, prior to his retirement in 1965, was Assistant Commandant, 12th Chasseurs, Sedan, Ardennes, France.