As one who actively resisted the Vietnam War, I remember the tremendous political and cultural divisions that it created within the United States.

It is tragic that this war, which offered an opportunity for a much-needed, honest discussion about America’s interventionist foreign policy and the ideological messianism underlying it, came to be interpreted instead in ways that have resulted in an even more myopic nationalism.

“American Reckoning” is a balanced, thoughtfully written investigation of how this happened. Professor Christian Appy, the author, believes that the Vietnam War “still matters” because the crucial questions it raised are still unresolved.

As its author writes: “Should we [the United States] continue to seek global military superiority? Can we use our power justly? What degree of sacrifice will the public bear and who among us should bear it? Is it possible for American citizens and their elected representatives to change our nation’s foreign policy or is it permanently controlled by an imperial presidency and an unaccountable military-industrial complex?”

Myth of ‘exceptionalism’

Our slide into war in Vietnam was neither accidental nor unintended. It was a clear choice, prompted by an unquestioned faith in American’s “exceptionalism.” The widespread, often subconscious, belief in American exceptionalism — the conviction that our divine mandate to spread economic and political “freedom” grants America a unique role to play in the world — is central to the unfolding of US history.

As this central myth continued to evolve through passing decades it came to also embrace manifest destiny — the conviction that the US was destined to expand throughout the continent of North America as well as in the Western Hemisphere.

Only scant years after the end of World War II, the world seemed to be divided between two armed camps, the United States and its allies on the one side and the Soviet Union and its allies on the other.

Because these “two sides” represented completely incompatible values, not only was some kind of violent clash seemingly inevitable, but also any kind of compromise was out of the question.

Nations were either “with us” or “against us,” and other countries were simply either “free” or “communist.” (This is the reason the US often found itself aligned with nation-states controlled by dictators and tyrants.)

In 1954, the Geneva Accords forced France to grant independence to Vietnam. One of the important provisions of the Geneva settlement stipulated that the country would be separated — for a brief time — into northern and southern zones, a concession to the reality of the situation on the ground.

Even though the Geneva Accords also provided for a general election in 1956 through which all of Vietnam’s people could determine their own future, the US joined South Vietnam in declaring that free elections were simply “not possible” as long as the north was under communist rule. Thus, the “temporary” division of Vietnam was morphing into a “permanent” one. By the early 1960s, President John Kennedy began to send a small number of “advisers” to assist South Vietnam’s military. Though by early 1963 he was having second thoughts about continuing American involvement there, his assassination in November of that year ended possible changes.

Lessons to be learnt

Ironically, while both of his successors — Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon — apparently wanted to get out, they feared that if they did so before winning several clear military victories, then outsiders would perceive America as “weak” while the domestic Right would assert that we had now “lost Vietnam” just as we had “lost China.” So the stream of troops sent to Vietnam became a flood, as did the casualties. It took ten more years before the US finally withdrew.

What should Americans have learned from the Vietnam War?

First, the US is not an “exceptional nation,” nor have we been appointed “sheriff of the world.”

Second, the large community of nations have multiple, legitimate understandings of what constitutes the “best” society or the “most desirable” political structure.

Third, with a more fully informed understanding of our own history, we would understand — maybe even apologize for — how often we have intervened in the internal affairs of other nations, often prioritizing the protection our own commercial and political interests instead of the interests or wishes of those other nations’ peoples.

Fourth, American politicians have ill-served citizens by masking or distorting history and by manipulating the public’s belief in American exceptionalism.

Fifth, because the United States has become the “military-industrial complex” that President Eisenhower warned us about, fundamental policy changes are absolutely necessary if American democracy is to have a chance at survival.

Outright deceit

Sadly, the profoundly different “lessons” that entered cultural consciousness were a result of multiple, reinforcing layers of misunderstandings, ideological biases and outright deceit, forces that continue to bedevil America in the 21st century.

The Vietnam War did seriously undermine citizens’ confidence in their government. However, under the sway of the far Right, the object of citizen animus has changed from anger over the government’s deceit about the war to a general disbelief in the government’s competence and ability to do anything well.

America’s failure in Vietnam, therefore, has come to be understood by many Americans to be not a misguided venture but, rather, a mistake resulting from government incompetence: we should have known better than to get sucked into a land war in Asia.

Many Asian nations are demanding that Japan face up to — and admit the truth of — its imperial misadventures. The United States needs to do the same. Otherwise, the 58,000 American troops and upwards of 3 million Vietnamese people killed during the Vietnam War will truly have perished for naught.

The author has been a college teacher of American history and political science and the director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference. He served as a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives, and retired from public service in the Iowa executive branch in 2004.