Rules of Engagement
During the Vietnam conflict, the Rules of Engagement provided distinct limitations on what military forces could and could not do. It is worth considering how the Rules of Engagement for Vietnam -- and the rationale behind them -- affected the progress of the military action there, and reflected the ideology behind it. An examination of six different points on the military's chain of command -- from the level of individual soldiers all the way up to that of the Commander in Chief -- during Vietnam will yield some understanding of how Rules of Engagement can affect a prolonged military campaign.
From the perspective of individual soldiers, the Rules of Engagement placed limitations on what was and was not permissible during combat. After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution expanded America's military support in the Vietnamese conflict, the Rules of Engagement were amended accordingly. The post-Tonkin ROE declared:
Hostile forces which initiate unprovoked attacks against our forces whether on the high seas or ashore should not be afforded sanctuary from which they can repeat the attack. The best way to preclude repeated attacks is to pursue and destroy the attackers. Such action is not punitive per se but primarily defensive. For self-protection, U.S. forces should be authorized immediate and unrestricted pursuit. (Pentagon Papers 3, 517-8)
In other words, the individual...
South Vietnam, it believed, could be a base for the desired ability to mount military and economic operations throughout the globe and regardless of the insidious presence of communist influence, a premise which stood in direct contrast to Ho Chi Minh's dream. Indeed, as an official policy, leaders in Washington considered that the fall of South Vietnam to communism would be a pathway to the prevalence of communism in other
ROE Vietnam Within the context of war fighting, the idea of limited war and the rules of engagement within that paradigm can often conflict if not counter act each other. The purpose of this essay is to correlate the understanding the rules of engagement (ROE) with limited war ideology as seen through the perspective and experiences of different levels of the chain of command. Individual Soldiers The Vietnam War was mosty a guerilla
Chain of Command In Vietnam, the rules of engagement were designed to limit the impact of operations in select areas (most notably: North Vietnam). This is because there were concerns that the conflict could escalate. If this were to happen, it was believed that the Soviet Union or China could be drawn into the war. To prevent this and destroy the North's ability to fight, the policy concentrated on: annihilating their
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They could not admit such a great loss, and so they concocted lies, false assessments, and poor recommendations just to cover themselves and their reputations. These essays are so disturbing because they show the culpability of the American people. They make the reader wonder what falsehoods are underway in military actions today, and if in another thirty years, the same kinds of revelations will continue the lies, deception, and
The lack of action over Rwanda should be the defining scandal of the presidency Bill Clinton. Yet in the slew of articles on the Clinton years that followed Clinton's departure from power, there was barely a mention of the genocide." The UN, pressured by the British and the U.S., and others, refused to use the word "genocide" during the event, or afterward when it issued its official statement of condemnation
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