Review of: Giap, General Vo Nguyen. People’s War, People’s Arm: The Viet Cong Insurrection Manual for Underdeveloped Countries. New York: Bantam, 1962.

            Vietnamese Communist General Vo Nguyen Giap’s essays People’s War, People’s Army, discussed the organization and strategy of the Viet Minh who fought from 1945 to 1954 for the independence of Vietnam. As the military leading battling French imperialism, Giap believed in Marxist-Leninist and used its terms throughout his essays–like “socialist democracy,” “correct objective principles.”

            While repetitious, Giap’s essays focused on the unity of purpose of the Viet Minh movement. He devoted much attention to the political preparation by the Vietnamese Communist Party of peasants and soldiers to unite for a war of “national liberation.” The Viet Minh identified two enemies that rallied the peasants, the sea around the fish as it were, behind the communist-led nationalists. The enemies were French and colonial troops and the native landlords of the ancient system of feudal ownership. The French exploited Indochina’s class divisions and bribed the landlord class to control the country by oppressing poor tenant farmers.

            The key word that shows up in the essays is “politics.” The concept of political activity formed the starting point the Viet Minh strategy. Unified political aims of a mass movement of insurgents is essential to any victory over the foreign armies of imperialism. All the successful guerilla movements the last 200 years adopted a rigid orthodoxy of aims and ideology. The Spanish were anti-Napoleon. The Arabs were anti-Turk. The Chinese Communist were anti-fascist (both Japanese- and KMT-fascist) . The Algerians, anti-French. The African National Congress, anti-apartheid. Not a single successful guerilla movement in that time considered lacked an identifiable enemy and unifying purpose. Not a single unsuccessful rebellion–Mau Mau, Cypriot, Greek–had a unity of political objectives which the mass of the population could support. One other thing is also evident: the successful wars of liberation all had nationalist movements that received backing of a great power. In our own experience, the rebellion of the thirteen colonies became a war of independence from imperial Britain and was only possible because of the self-interested support of the King of France.

            The Islamist-Sunni insurgency in Iraq is an alliance of the minority Sunni-Bathists and the Islamist Arab radicals from outside the country. They oppose Shi’a and Kurdish domination and the U.S. occupation. These are divergent themes, not an “Iraq for all Iraqis” political cause. The Iraqi insurgents lack significant help from outside powers. Iran and Syria every day are filling that gap with more support.

            The military situation for the U.S.-led Coalition can only worsen if the insurgents lose their minority identity and adopt a broader, nationalist theme and gain widespread support. Overwhelming or even marginal victory by the Coalition depends on keeping the political goals of the insurgents from gaining mass support from the Shi’a and Kurdish populations. It is all about divide and conquer. A political solution that the friendly Iraqis are empowered to provide themselves is the only way to keep the Islamist-Sunni/Bathist insurgency from achieving a national base of support. If so, the budding civil war (in all but name) would be a nuisance that the Iraqi-manned military, police, and civil support forces eventually would be able to handle.

            What Iraqi solution could divide the political unity of the insurgents? Democracy in Iraq? That seems an insufficient cause on which to sacrifice American lives. It is time-consuming. Pluralism opens the doors to dissent and Iraq doesn’t yet have the social institutions in place to create “loyal opposition” which would only challenge an authority peacefully. The Coalition occupation is not stopping the terrorism in Iraq. On the other hand, an armed minority such as the Sunni would oppose any political authority in which Shi’a and Kurds dominate. The Sunni insurgents are a revolution fighting the revolution in political power that has and is taking place. Their political aim is clear: “Iraq for the Sunni.”

            Successful revolutions do more than reorder the political power in a country. That would be just a coup where one group displaces another. Revolutions must be imbedded in the social context–the mind-set and relationships–between groups in a country. The Middle East Muslim world might be a civilization in crisis, not only in Iraq. A combination of economic, demographic, and cultural pressures are creating a horrible future reckoning for all Arab nations.

            The U.S. Coalition will be in Iraq and places nearby a long time unless the people living there can produce societies based on the natural right of self-government, self-respect, self-sufficiency, and self-control. Western civilization has done much damage to long-term peace and stability in the Middle East by actions in history meant to maintain dominance over lesser developed peoples. The only solution for Iraq, and the many future of Arab civilization, is a complete recognition and development all around the world of what constitutes the true source of peace: individual empowerment and the building of stable communities through responsible cooperation among free individuals. It would be world peace from the roots upward, the local environment where the violence is apt to occur in plain view unless something is changed.