On Strategy is the cornerstone of the 'revisionist school' of Vietnam War historiography-those who argue that the war was ultimately winnable with a greater degree of military commitment. Summers uses Clausewitz to castigate the civilians responsible for Vietnam, President Johnson and Secretary McNamara's systems analysts, for failing to set objectives with a chance of victory. Army senior leadership is close behind, for failing for the siren lure of counter-insurgency and failing to hold to traditional strategic arts in a nuclear era.

Summers' argument is dressed up in a lot of Clausewitzian jargon, but the core is fairly simply. Vietnam was a war fought in 'cold blood' without a mobilization of the population, which separated the American people from the military mission, as color TV brought the savagery of war to everyone's living rooms for the first time. American posture was a strategic defensive, which require endurance and the hope that the situation of the war will turn in your favor. Tactical successes at Ia Drang, in the Tet Offensive, and the Christmas Bombings were rendered irrelevant by a refusal to bring the war to North Vietnam, and strike directly at their political leadership, their military logistics, or their alliances with China and Russia. American leaders took counsels of their fears of turning the Cold War atomic hot, and bought into North Vietnamese propaganda of a people's war.

In the one sense, Summers isn't wrong. Vietnam was fought without clear objectives beyond the continued existence of the Republic of South Vietnam. But he misses some key points. If War Comes to Long An is accurate, Viet Cong terror and assassinations had decimated the South Vietnamese government long before the main introduction of US troops. As a battalion level officer in Vietnam, Summers should have something to say about the tool of ambush and mines, and the difficulty in bringing communist guerrillas to battle. The American people were not comprehensively mobilized, but it's hard to think of a strategic US interest at issue in Indochina, both in terms of contemporary superpower politics and with the benefit of historical hindsight.

Finally, for the "well if you're so smart, you do it" question, Summers' suggestion for how to fight the war involves a cordon of US troops stretching across Laos from the Vietnamese DMZ through to the border with Thailand, and heavy ongoing air strikes against Hanoi and Haiphong. I can't see this being easy, or avoiding a massive escalation of the Cold War.

My final assessment is that Summers wants to have his cake and eat it to. If Vietnam demanded full American mobilization, it was definitely part of the Cold War and must be seen in terms of DEFCON levels and nuclear risk. If Vietnam is a limited war, then the relatively paucity of American interests in the region against the absolute interests of the North Vietnamese leadership to reunify their country must be accepted. Either way, Summers isn't wrong but he isn't yet right. This is an important book on the Vietnam War, but one that must be read carefully and in context.