Backing the Wrong Horse

     Those of you who follow my blogs may have noticed that from time to time I slip back and go over a topic that was previously covered.  I do this when I feel that I never actually covered the topic sufficiently in original blog and, the subject matter is important enough to deserve further discussion.  Such is the case with our government seemingly, constantly "backing the wrong horse," so to speak, in the international arena.
     In one of the earlier blogs I had what could be called an "what if?" series going back to World War Two era.  I think everyone who is familiar with that period in our history knows how we backed the Nationalist Chinese and their leader Chiang Kai Shek.  We poured millions and millions of dollars into Nationalist China, making their leaders some of the richest men in the world!  We gave them not only money, but tons of military hardware, which we ended up facing in Korea and Vietnam!  Chiang Kai Shek fielded one of the largest and best equipped armies in Asia, yet, he was unable to fend off the Japanese on his own, and later was run out of the country by the communist guerrilla army of Mao Tse Tung!
     There were many in the U.S. government who were against this unconditional support of the Nationalist Chinese.  Many knew how corrupt Chiang Kai Shek and his regime was, yet we continued to pour millions of dollars and arms and equipment into that dark hole.  What many are unaware of is that in 1944 we dispatched a special mission to the mountains of Yenan where Mao and his communist guerrillas were set up after escaping the Nationalists in that famous "Long March."  The special mission, called "Dixie Mission" was headed by Colonel David Barrett and a contingent of army officers.  On the civilian side, John Service, a State Department Foreign Service Officer represented the U.S. Embassy in Chungking, and was also a special observer and advisor to General Joseph Stilwell who was the U.S. Commanding General of CBI (China, Burma, and India Theater).  Stilwell, who knew Chiang Kai Shek very well and despised him, was responsible for the unflattering nickname of "peanut head" that was given to Chiang.
     The "Dixie Mission" lasted until 1947, well after the war ended.  Both Colonel Barrett and John Service came to know Mao, his deputy Chou En Lai, and the communist guerrillas very intimately.  After all, they lived with them in those mountains of Yenan for three years!  At the end of the mission, both Barrett and Service filed reports urging the U.S. government to support Mao and stop wasting money and effort on Chiang Kai Shek and his corrupt regime.  They said that Mao would win the civil war, even without our help and support and Chiang would lose despite all the money and equipment we poured in.  They insisted that Chinese communism was different from Soviet and that we had nothing to fear, the Chinese communists were not interested in world conquest, they wanted to get their country on its feet and rid of corruption that ruled for so many centuries!
     Of course, no one listened to Barrett and Service.  Both men's careers were ruined, they were tagged as communist sympathizers.  Shortly afterwards, things got even worst when Senator Joseph McCarthy started his infamous communist witch hunt.  McCarthy ruined so many lives!  Most of McCarthy's accusations were totally unfounded and based on lies!  Yet people listened to him!  Service was kicked out of the State Department and Barrett, who was due for promotion to Brigadier General never saw the star and took an early retirement.  At least Service fought to be reinstated and to prove his innocence.  He was eventually reinstated and given token assignments that never led to anything!
     As I said in the earlier blog.  What if?  What if Barrett's and Service's advice was followed and we supported Mao?  For one thing, there would never have been the Korean War.  It is very doubtful if Kim Il Sung and the Soviet Union would have risked the war with China on the northern border as our ally!  We would not have lost all those men and the terrible three years of warfare!  Indeed, what if!  Additionally, there would not have been the Vietnam War!  North Vietnam was primarily dependent on China's support both financially and for arms.  Without China's support, it is highly unlikely that Ho Chi Minh would have invaded the south.
     So much attention and publicity was given to General Douglas McArthur and his antics in the Pacific that General Joseph Stilwell was almost forgotten.  "Vinegar" Joe, as he was called was a terrific soldier who had the unenviable task of commanding a relatively small American army but charged with advising a much larger Chinese Nationalist Army.  Stilwell was fluent in Chinese, in fact he was a China scholar.  He knew China and Chinese very well and, therefore, knew just how corrupt and bad the Nationalists were. Yet, like the good soldier that he was, he followed Washington's orders (as disagreeable as they were to him) and tried his best to "advise" the Chinese, who would only listen to him when he withheld equipment and money unless they did as he advised.
     A reporter once asked him what his opinion was of the Chinese soldier.  Stilwell responded by saying that he thought the Chinese soldier was very good.  The average Chinese soldier was obedient, disciplined, and brave when called upon to go to battle.  However, Stilwell added, no soldier in the world can fight well without proper leadership from NCOs and officers.  He said that what the Nationalist Chinese Army lacked was good NCOs and officers.  There were plenty of good soldiers, but no NCOs or officers to lead them!  Unless the Nationalists developed a strong NCO and officer corps, their army would not be able to defeat anyone!
     The difference between the Nationalists and the communists  was that Mao's People's Liberation Army was motivated, had good, solid NCOs, and a decent officer corps.  In battle, there was no contest!  That is why by 1949, only two years after the "Dixie Mission,"  Mao's PLA ran Chiang's Nationalist army out of the country, to Taiwan! 
     Ultimately, after all the misery of the Korean War and Vietnam, losing all those American lives and spending billions, not to mention Korean and Vietnamese lives that were lost in the millions, we made peace with Communist China some 20 years after the cease fire in Korea.  What a shame, and what a waste of human lives!
     Even if we never did "back the right horse" and supported Mao, the whole business in Vietnam could have been avoided as well, had we supported Ho Chi Minh, instead of the incredibly corrupt Bao Dai at first, followed by Ngo Dinh Diem and a series of corrupt and inept leaders.
     During World War Two, Ho Chi Minh was our ally! Ho, along with his Viet Minh guerrillas fought the Japanese and the Vichy French in Indochina.  He was the only one to fight the Japanese!  He also helped rescue many downed U.S. airmen and worked in concert with our OSS.  His only request was that when the war ended, we help him establish an independent Vietnam.  We promised to do so.  When the war ended, Ho established a Provisional government and ask that we recognize it.  He wrote letters to President Truman that went unanswered.  Had we recognized Ho's Provisional government, that would have put an end to any future conflict.  Vietnam would have been one of those newly founded countries after World War Two.
     We, it seems, wanted to back the French who wanted to come back to Indochina and reestablish their colonial rule!  Considering that we (OSS) fought the Vichy French in Indochina along side with Ho and his Viet Minh, it is rather surprising how we turned our backs on our former ally (Ho) and supported the French!
     The result of our choice to "back the wrong horse," again, brought about one of the bloodiest and most divisive conflicts in our history.  We not only lost American lives and killed millions of Vietnamese, but caused one of the more traumatic splits in our society.  Today we try to overcompensate for what some did back then, and the current "thank you for your service" comments and flag waving at airports and welcoming returning servicemen, many who are simply returning from overseas assignments, not combat, is a bit overboard, but then, better late than never!
     Twenty years after the end of our involvement in Vietnam, we established normal relations with that "communist" country!  What if we had backed Ho from the beginning?  There would not have been all those lost lives, all that misery, and we would be trading partners with Vietnam just as we are today!
     I will sort of continue with this theme in the next blog.  Not exactly with the subject of "backing the wrong horse," but rather with why the Afghan and Iraqi armies are still not ready to fend for themselves after all these years!  Shades of Chinese Nationalist Army of old.  In their defense, today's Nationalist Army in Taiwan is an excellent military force.  They have good NCO and officer corps, not like it was in the past.  Once they were put in a position to have to fend for themselves on that island, they were quite capable of developing a good NCO and officer corps!