Columnist:Technology Alone Can't Win War

ByABC News
March 18, 2003, 9:25 AM

March 19 -- Each evening, just before sunset, we would make our pilgrimage to the restaurant atop a dump known as the Majestic Hotel, on the banks of the Mekong River, to watch science and technology at work in the war in Vietnam.

I wasn't much more than a kid at the time, sent off to that tragic land to help the readers of a San Diego newspaper learn to love a "new kind of war," as it was described so often in those days.

As darkness approached, the helicopter gunships streaked out of the sky, sending rockets into the dense foliage across the river, bringing hell to the elusive Viet Cong. Tracers zipped across the darkening sky as explosives lit up the ground, and it all seemed surreal as we sipped our drinks and safely watched the war from an incredibly short distance.

Matter of Control

The immense technological advantages we had at our disposal in those days made the war seem more entertaining than dangerous, at least some of the time. This was a war that would be fought largely with science and technology, the press was told often during the daily military briefing in Saigon, known among reporters as the "5 o'clock follies."

In the end, we would win, we were told often, because no backward little country could stand up to the military might of the United States. Our technological prowess would save lives, keeping our troops out of battle until the enemy was neutralized, military spokesmen told us so many times.

They were wrong, of course. We lost that war, and not because our science and technology wasn't good enough. And a lot of young men came home from Vietnam in body bags.

There are many reasons why we lost, but near the top of the list is the simple fact that the kind of war we fought in Vietnam really wasn't all that new. In fact, it stands as a stunning reminder that although the tools of war have changed over the decades, war itself hasn't.

In the end, wars are won because one side is able to acquire and control the land. That means that despite all the science that may be on one side, victory rests ultimately in the hands of the foot soldier, the poor devil who has to slog through the streets and claim the territory.