0 - The Black Vault

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THE BDM CORPORATION
assumed either that Vietnam was vital to US national security or
that the American people would not stand for the loss of another
country to communism. 76/
D. LESSONS
The following lessons are drawn from the material developed above-
0 There are limits to US power. It is unlikely that the miracle
work performed after WWII
in Westerr. Europe with US Marshall Plan
aid will ever be reproduced. Being a superpower with en extensive
arsenal oil nuclear weapons and missiles, and having a• powerful
modern army does not automatically guaranteg that a foreign
policy designed to exploit those strengths will be successful.
* In tne final analysis, it is the president of the US who is held
responsible by the American pecple for the formulaticn of US
foreign policy as well as for the security of the nation. The
Vietnam legacy is such that any future commitment by -n American
president of US military force will require the support of the US
citizenry,
* If in the future the US finds it necessary from time to time to
use limited force for limited objectives in certain strategic
areas, such as in the Middle East (e.g., Iran) or in Latin
America, where important US security interests are directly
threatened and where limited intervention would offer the prospects
of effective deterrence, then the US
armed forces must be
structured, trained, indoctrinated and equipped to meet the
anticipated threat, and tho US congress, press and public must be
kept apprised to retain their support for any such action.
* As long as US policy is defined in negative terms - c anticommunism
or anti-Diem - it will be limited in coherence, continuity
and relevance to US interests by the need to respond to
situations rather than to consciouIsly shape them. Thus, despite
the overwhelming power impiled by "superpower" status, the Uni÷Ad
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