Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
Let me commend to your attention James S. Robbins' piece in World Affairs Journal on the legend of the Tet Offensive:
Tet is kept alive by the pervasive use of analogy in public discourse—not as an analytical framework to better understand or contextualize events but as a form of shorthand used to brand those events for media consumption. Such analogies are exercises in perception management, whether or not they have anything to do with the course and conduct of the insurgency or terrorist threat in question. The Tet story line is always lurking when U.S. forces are engaged against weak, unconventional enemies who lash out under limited and exceptional circumstances and briefly capture the attention of the media. Tet is then re-fought, providing a handy framework for revisiting familiar themes—intelligence failures, war crimes, terrorism, troop surges, leadership breakdowns, and media bias, among others.
Tet allows any collection of terrorists, insurgents, guerrillas, or other thugs who momentarily shock public perception through sudden, unanticipated acts of violence to achieve a succès d’éstime, even if they attain no significant objectives. It has become the standard an enemy has to meet in order to achieve victory, not actually prevailing on the battlefield, but seeming to, or in some cases simply trying to. In its function as a metaphor, Tet is a standing invitation to our enemies to seek low-cost, dramatic, and violent means of achieving high-impact strategic victories.
Quite. Time to stop going on and on about Tet; it wasn't what people seem to think it was and it isn't relevant anyway.
Tangentially, this passage is fascinating:
Reporters and opinion journalists, who seek to package stories using preexisting themes in order to give immediate (and potentially erroneous) context to events, are particularly susceptible to terrorist exploitation. In August 2006, Najd al-Rawi of the Global Islamic Media Front published an essay called “The Global Media: A Work Paper for Invading the U.S. Media.” Among the potential targets for terrorist information operations, he lists “American forums . . . chat rooms, well-known American newspapers and magazines, American TV stations which have Web sites and electronic e-mail addresses, and well-known American writers such as [Thomas] Friedman and [Francis] Fukuyama.”
I looked for this essay online, but couldn't find it. Can anyone?
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Comments :
Aug '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
"weak, unconventional enemies who lash out under limited and exceptional circumstances"
Hardly the NVA with Chinese backing.
Jul '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
An Al-Queda media front organization putting forth a call and plan to infiltrate U.S. media organizations? Seems like a waste of resources to me. Kind of like the KGB infiltrating and co-opting the CPUSA.
But perhaps I'm being too harsh. I should check with NPR on this . . .
Sep '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
http://ics01.ds.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&requesttimeout=500&folder=1087&paper=2864
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
Thank you! Wow, it looks as if there might be some excellent job opportunities with al Qaeda, no? I'm actually really qualified. I may drop them a copy of my CV. Were you able to find out anything about their medical and dental coverage? EEO? Policy on workplace harassment? Those things are important to me.
Aug '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
Your hooves aren't cloven enough to worry about harassment from these guys. They like to save themselves for the caprids.
May '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
An excellent article by Robbins. He's entirely correct to look at the Tet Offensive as a media phenomena rather than a military one. Here's the quote that caught my eye:
"To exploit this critical American vulnerability, terrorists and other enemies must replicate certain conditions to produce Tet-like narratives in the information domain. This will help turn small events into climactic ones in the same way that media coverage transformed Tet from a North Vietnamese rout to a Communist victory."
The phrase "critical American vulnerability" captures the lesson of Vietnam perfectly. Even in a massive and costly defeat the North Vietnamese were able to plant the seeds of their eventual victory. Since the American military is tough to destroy, one does better to expend resources destroying the American will, which is much easier since there are people inside the U.S. eager to do the job. All you need to do is provide the right visuals for them.
Sep '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
All jobs with Al Qaeda are a dead end.
Aug '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
Mr Dean
I'd say the Vietnam epic has been hijacked wholesale by the media, heck if we blame Walter Cronkite for losing it, then we've answered the question.
So they've turned it into some leitmotiv .They crowned Ellsberg , Woodward and Bernstein as sages and applied the template to anything with more bullets going than a driveby.
If there were really that many quagmires, we would have surrendered to the Creature from the Black Lagoon long ago.
In short, it's the same old story. A fight for love and glory, a case of do......er wait ! Wrong channel.
Same old story. SOS MSM
Oct '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
The real lesson to take away from Tet is that agenda-driven "journalism" is fully capable of destroying the morale of an entire nation, which in turn makes the idea of victory seem selfish, stupid, and, hypocritical.
I hope enough of us have learned this lesson.
May '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
We talking about this Tet?
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kCwNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hmwDAAAAIBAJ&dq=harris-survey%20north-vietnam&pg=7435%2C1479271
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
Here's the original with a (Google) machine translation. Voilà. Enjoy the transliteration of "Photoshop 3D," etc. It doesn't seem too profound. Still, worth keeping an eye on, of course.
May '10
Re: Tet-à-Tet: Offensive Analogies
Yes, Anang, that's the one. And that's just how I remember it. A U.S. victory, but messy and widespread, with lots of nasty looking footage for the cameras.
I'm not particularly concerned that the pundits have a habit of recalling the Tet engagement with regularity. Since they misrepresent (and probably misunderstand) it, the more attention they draw to it the more people will learn the truth.
What's troubling is the lesson Al Qaeda and others have learned about our "critical weakness", as the article calls it.
Look at the experience of Iraq. Saddam didn't learn the lesson, and he tried to fight for military victory over the U.S.. Big mistake. Once he's gone Al Qaeda takes over the resistance and the strategy changes. They don't aim for a military victory but a "media victory". We get the insurrection, Fallujah, and in America pundits are using the words, "fiasco" and "quagmire". They almost pulled it off, too; got us to pull up stakes and leave the place in their hands.
They may yet succeed in Afghanistan.
Edited on Oct 22, 2010 at 3:57pm