Forty years ago, I was serving in the waters of Vietnam as a Swift Boat skipper. Morale was sky high. Most of us, wrongly, thought we were invincible. We were not. While most of our service was uneventful, the occasional dust up with the other side, monster waves that appeared from nowhere and threatened to capsize our tiny boats, and special operations managed to get the juices flowing.
But we were woefully unprepared for the war we were fighting. We had no tactics or plans for operations ashore or for coping with the armed trawlers Saigon continually and wrongly warned us were infiltrating the south. Because our radios were incompatible, we couldn't talk to the Air Force, Army, and special forces operating close by. While we worked with the Marines in DaNang and Chu Lai, there was no formal arrangement, and personalities and ad hoc procedures substituted for well thoughtout operational schemes.
Worst of all, we were culturally ignorant of Vietnam and its society. We had been to all the briefings. Many of us were devotees of Bernard Fall and a litany of other experts on the region. Yet, we had not a clue about the depth of the political struggle and what it would take to turn that tide.
Fortunately, today's Navy is more professional. It and the other services have been rigorous in applying greater degrees of analysis to conventional warfare. Effects-based planning and operations, war gaming, and simulation have advanced the skills and honed the capability of the military. Jointness has corrected many of the Vietnam-era problems regarding operating together. The Navy, to use former Supreme Allied Commander Europe General George Joulwan's inspired phrase, has become part of "one team, one fight."
But the post-Cold War, post-9/11 worlds have changed the nature and roles of our military. For the Navy, unless we are very clumsy with China or a resurgent Russia, there are no navies to defeat. Even in Iraq, aside from launching air strikes, protecting port and oil facilities, and supporting forces ashore, there is little need for a big-ship Navy. Instead, an inexorable revolution is taking place.
In the European Command, as its commander Marine General James L. Jones tells us, about 70% of its effort is directed at Africa-yes, Africa. By the decade's end, less than 30,000 U.S. soldiers will be stationed in continental Europe, a far cry from the 300,000 that once guarded the inner German border.
Meanwhile, in Latin America, all is not going well for the United States. A junior "axisito of evil" may be springing up linking Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia.
As a consequence, preventive and public diplomacy are becoming more important missions. As General Jones puts it, military-to-military diplomacy in Africa can keep small problems from turning into larger ones, and even crises. And as we saw in the humanitarian relief effort following the tsunami, the good will naval forces generated in Indonesia was priceless.
In response to these changes, the Navy is reinvigorating its brown-water capability. The littoral combat ship (LCS), the increase in the small boat fleet, and the beefing up of SEALs and special forces are the tip of this new spear. In this regard, three of the lessons from Vietnam are particularly applicable.
In Vietnam, the Navy tolerated brownwater operations. Today, the Navy must approach them with the same rigor and expenditure of intellectual capital that it put into conventional warfare. Understanding the operational environment and what these forces can and cannot do in terms of preventive and public diplomacy is essential to success.
Second, cultural understanding is crucial. An earlier column recommended a revolution in naval education. That revolution must be expanded to raising true regional experts without whom the Navy will not be able to execute these missions.
Third, one of the greatest virtues of Swift Boats is that young officers were provided command opportunities. Although called officers-in-charge, the responsibilities were the same. Brownwater operations have the same potential for young officers.
For the Navy, those lessons from Vietnam must not be forgotten. No one wants to reinvent the obvious. However, given the growing importance of preventive and public diplomacy, this is a great opportunity for the Navy. Make the most of it!
Harlan Ullman is a columnist for
Proceedings and the Washington Times. His newest book, due out in Ju ne, is America's Promise Restored: Preventing Culture, Crusade, and Partisanship from Wrecking Our Country.