INDOPACOM Battle Knowledge Centers

The Vietnam War was the bloodiest and one of the most fascinating conflicts in the history of warfare. It began with America pouring massive military aid upon the South Vietnamese in an attempt to thwart a Communist takeover, and culminated in the'peace with honour'withdrawal by the Nixon administration. This authoritative account accurately details every aspect of the Vietnam War and provides an overall view of the impact which it continues to have to this day.

Christian G. Appy, author of the widely praised oral history of the Vietnam War Patriots, now examines the relationship between the war's realities and myths and its impact on our national identity, conscience, pride, shame, popular culture, and postwar foreign policy.

Neglected by scholars and journalists alike, the years of conflict in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 offer surprises not only about how the war was fought, but about what was achieved. Drawing from thousands of hours of previously unavailable tape-recorded meetings between the highest levels of the American military command in Vietnam, A Better War is an insightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these final years.

Tracing the use of air power in World War II and the Korean War, Mark Clodfelter explains how U. S. Air Force doctrine evolved through the American experience in these conventional wars only to be thwarted in the context of a limited guerrilla struggle in Vietnam. Although a faith in bombing's sheer destructive power led air commanders to believe that extensive air assaults could win the war at any time, the Vietnam experience instead showed how even intense aerial attacks may not achieve military or political objectives in a limited war.

This history represents a small down payment on the efforts by Army Security Agency historical officers in the field and the historians at Arlington Hall Station to document the signals intelligence story in Vietnam.