Withdrawal

Reassessing America's Final Years in Vietnam

Gregory A. Daddis

An original and major reinterpretation of American strategy during the Vietnam War
Thoroughly reconsiders the generalship of Creighton Abrams (who was compared so often to David Petraeus during the "surge" in Iraq) and offers a more balanced picture of the US Army in Vietnam
A timely contribution that posits strategies for US forces' departure from wars in which they did not attain traditional victory

Withdrawal

Reassessing America's Final Years in Vietnam

Gregory A. Daddis

Description

A "better war." Over the last two decades, this term has become synonymous with US strategy during the Vietnam War's final years. The narrative is enticingly simple, appealing to many audiences. After the disastrous results of the 1968 Tet offensive, in which Hanoi's forces demonstrated the failures of American strategy, popular history tells of a new American military commander who emerged in South Vietnam and with inspired leadership and a new approach turned around a long stalemated conflict. In fact, so successful was General Creighton Abrams in commanding US forces that, according to the "better war" myth, the United States had actually achieved victory by mid-1970. A new general with a new strategy had delivered, only to see his victory abandoned by weak-kneed politicians in Washington, DC who turned their backs on the US armed forces and their South Vietnamese allies.

In a bold new interpretation of America's final years in Vietnam, acclaimed historian Gregory A. Daddis disproves these longstanding myths. Withdrawal is a groundbreaking reassessment that tells a far different story of the Vietnam War. Daddis convincingly argues that the entire US effort in South Vietnam was incapable of reversing the downward trends of a complicated Vietnamese conflict that by 1968 had turned into a political-military stalemate. Despite a new articulation of strategy, Abrams's approach could not materially alter a war no longer vital to US national security or global dominance. Once the Nixon White House made the political decision to withdraw from Southeast Asia, Abrams's military strategy was unable to change either the course or outcome of a decades' long Vietnamese civil war.

In a riveting sequel to his celebrated Westmoreland's War, Daddis demonstrates he is one of the nation's leading scholars on the Vietnam War. Withdrawal will be a standard work for years to come.

Withdrawal

Reassessing America's Final Years in Vietnam

Gregory A. Daddis

Acknowledgements
Lists of Abbreviations
Introduction - The Limits of Strategy in a Stalemated War
Chapter
1 Abe's "One War" - Continuity in Change
2 Vietnamization - Policy of Withdrawal or Strategy for Victory?
3 Pacification without Peace - The Travails of Nation Building
4 Balancing a War - Strategy, Diplomacy, and Withdrawal
5 A New Army for an Old War?
6 From Victory to Defeat? - Abrams's Final Years
Conclusion - Limited Wars, Societies, and the Problem of "Victory"

Withdrawal

Reassessing America's Final Years in Vietnam

Gregory A. Daddis

Author Information

Gregory A. Daddis, Professor of History, Chapman University

Gregory Daddis is Associate Professor of history and director of Chapman University's MA Program in War and Society. A retired US Army colonel, he has served in both Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. Daddis specializes in the history of the Vietnam Wars and the Cold War era.

Withdrawal

Reassessing America's Final Years in Vietnam

Gregory A. Daddis

Reviews and Awards

"... the author convincingly suggests that the war was much more than a military endeavour, essentially a political conflict that must be studied as part of the 'changing global context of the larger Cold War'." - Marcel Berni, Journal of Contemporary History

"The author methodically takes apart the myths surrounding the latter years of the war....Highly recommended." - CHOICE

"Greg Daddis revisits an overlooked and contested period in the Vietnam War with clarity and scholarly insight. His deep dive into the last years of America's war in Vietnam opens the door for today's reader to better understand our past and our own century. Like his two previous books on Vietnam, Withdrawal is an essential addition to the conversation and should not be missed." - Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, directors of the PBS documentary film series, The Vietnam War

"In this revelatory book, Gregory Daddis demolishes the myth that the United States 'won' the Vietnam War militarily only to have thrown away that victory on the home front. The evidence he presents on that score is definitive and irrefutable. Yet perhaps more importantly, Daddis shows that the war was never America's to win or to lose in the first place. Vietnam's fate was a matter for the Vietnamese to decide. Apart from sowing death and destruction on a vast scale, U.S. military efforts had no bearing whatsoever on the outcome." - Andrew J. Bacevich, professor Emeritus of International Relations and History, author of America's War for the Greater Middle East

"A major accomplishment. Far and away the best study of the military and the last years of the Vietnam War we are likely to have for some time." - Robert. K. Brigham, Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations, Vassar College

"Withdrawal brilliantly dismantles old and pervasive myths about the final phases of America's lost war in Vietnam. The book affirms Greg Daddis' stature as one today's most original and insightful historians of the war and deserves a broad readership among not just students of history but also policymakers and military officers." - Mark Lawrence, Associate Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin

Withdrawal

Reassessing America's Final Years in Vietnam

Gregory A. Daddis

From Our Blog

The soldier and the statesman: A Vietnam War story

We need to 'send someone over there as a cop to watch over that son-of-a-bitch.' 'I have no confidence' in him. 'I think he's run his course." These remarks'excerpts from conversations between President Richard M. Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger'left little doubt about how the White House's inner circle viewed the top US general in Vietnam, General Creighton Abrams.

Posted on September 28, 2017

Read the blog post