University of Virginia Library

Prof. Edward A. Kolodziej

'Will Vietnam Cease-Fire Win Peace?'

By EDWARD A. KOLODZIEJ

The following is the first of
a four-part series of articles
examining the end of the war
in Southeast Asia.

Mr. Kolodziej is an
Assoc. Professor of
Government and Foreign
Affairs at the University.

Will the cease-fire signed in
Paris win the peace? No one
can truly say. The question
itself admits of no consistent
or conclusive answer. Whether
there will be "peace" depends
on the interests and
perspectives of the contending
parties. Since they still differ
on many critical points, the
peace resulting from the
cease-fire must be partial and
refracted, too.

The Paris accord marks a
provisional settling of accounts
in a struggle dating back over a
generation. It also codifies the
present rules of the contest
under which the participants
will continue the
political-military conflict and
identifies, however vaguely,
who the participants will be,
including an international
control group, and what will be
their respective roles.

If the accord is viewed in
this ambiguous light, it assumes
less the perspective of a peace
treaty – which it decidedly is
not – and more the aspect of a
managed conflict with some
agreed upon rules and still
many others that must be
defined by the principals who
remain, particularly the three
contending parties in South
Vietnam – the Saigon regime,
the Viet Cong and the North
Vietnamese.

Important Questions

Three important questions
arise: What kind of conflict
pattern can be expected to
develop out of the cease-fire
accord? What are the incentives
of the contending parties to
accept this pattern of conflict
in reaching their divergent and
conflicting aims? And what are
the long-run prospects that the
conflict process defined in
Paris, which generally reflects
the present military capabilities
and will of the parties, will be
equal to the task of bringing
about a final political
News Analysis
settlement? None can be
answered with certainty, but
some guesses can be hazarded.

It is easier to guess what
kind of conflict will not
emerge in the immediate future
than to predict what kind will
develop. Large-scale
conventional attacks, like the
one mounted by North
Vietnam across the
demilitarized zone last spring,
would appear to be ruled out.
The legal strictures of the
accord conspire happily with
the presence of political
incentives and the absence of
adequate military means in the
hands of the Vietnamese
parties to assure a lowering of
the military conflict in the
immediate future.

The accord not only
prohibits a military
confrontation but also places
significant legal limits on troop
and material reinforcements
needed for a major military
operation. The demilitarized
zone is reconstituted. Laos and
Cambodia are declared
off-grounds as supply routes
and staging areas. There is an
international control and
supervisory commission,
sufficient in size (1,160
members) and adequately
equipped with communications
and transportation facilities, to
report, if not preclude, the
build-up of troop
concentrations.

Offensive Restricted

More important is the
present inability of Communist
forces to launch a conventional
offensive or to wish to do so if
they did. Hanoi appears to
have suffered much when its
spring offensive failed and
American bombing
recommenced. Evidence
suggests it sued for a cease-fire
in early October, partly as a
result of the losses incurred in
the field and at home. The
massive December-January
American bombing raids would
appear, too, to have seriously
damaged what little indigenous
productive resources were
available for direct war
purposes. Now American aid is
tantalizingly dangled before
the North to bribe rather than
bomb Hanoi into a conciliatory
posture. If the carrot falls there
is always the stick of American
air and sea power in Thailand
and off the Vietnam coast as a
forceful guarantee against the
re-escalation of the war.

The accord is, however, not
likely to prevent fully more
killing and coercion through
covert means, especially on the
part of the rival contenders for
power in South Vietnam. The
accord, of course, prohibits