The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the U.S. strategy in the Linebacker II air campaign during the Vietnam War. This campaign, which occurred in December 1972, was the last major U.S. offensive of the war. It was followed by a peace agreement in January 1973 which resulted in the removal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. The method to be used in evaluating the strategy used in the Linebacker II campaign will be Crowl's "Six Questions." Stated briefly, Crowl's six questions are: (1) What is the conflict about?; (2) What are the proper methods for fighting the battle?; (3) What are the limits of military power; (4) What are the alternatives?; (5) How strong is the domestic support; and (6) Does today's strategy overlook points of difference and exaggerate points of likeness between past and present? Using these six questions as a guideline for analysis, it can be seen that the military strategy in Linebacker II was highly successful in meeting U.S. objectives at the time.
American involvement in Vietnam began in the 1950s, when the United States started providing support to the South Vietnamese in their struggle against the Communists of North Vietnam. U.S. military involvement escalated after the 1964 attack on American forces in the Gulf of Tonkin. From the start, the political purpose of America's involvement was to control the spread of Communism in the region of Southeast Asia. In view of the popular "domino theory" of the time, it was assumed that the maintenance of a non-Communist South Vietnam would be "of considerable strategic value to the United States" (Ball, 1972, p. 37). On the basis of this assumption, President Lyndon Johnson made the decision in 1965 to commit "U.S. armed forces to combat to save South Vietnam from being overrun by Communist aggression from North Vietnam" (Sharp, 1978, p. 1). The military strategy adopted at the time was one of "gradualism." This meant that, rather than making an all-out...