Facing an impasse in negotiations to end the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon ordered an 11-day air campaign in December 1972 to bring North Vietnam back to the negotiating table.
“I don’t want any more crap about the fact that we couldn’t hit this target or that one,” Nixon remarked to Admiral Thomas Moorer. “This is your chance to use military power effectively to win this war and if you don’t I’ll consider you personally responsible.” After nearly 2,000 sorties, 20,000 tons of ordnance, and the loss of 27 American aircraft, Hanoi agreed to a ceasefire agreement.
Fast-forward to the present day, and the Trump administration is reportedly considering conducting a “short and powerful” wave of airstrikes to break its negotiating deadlock with Iran and force Tehran to surrender its nuclear program. The administration’s model for these airstrikes may well be the 1972 “Christmas bombings,” known formally as Operation Linebacker II.
If history is any guide, the Trump administration should be cautious in its expectations. The success of the Christmas bombings remains highly contentious — an aide to then–National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger concluded that “we bombed the North Vietnamese into accepting our concessions” — and, even if one accepts that the strikes produced their intended strategic effect, their ability to do so was more luck than any American strategic intuition.
Moreover, the strikes came on the heels of another wave of U.S. strategic bombing (Linebacker I) which could be argued prepared the ground for these later diplomatic breakthroughs.
Before the Trump administration commits to a course of action that may worsen its fragile diplomatic discussions with Tehran, it is useful to examine the Christmas bombings and the reasons for their limited and, ultimately, accidental success, and whether these lessons would even apply to the current diplomatic stalemate in the Iran War.
Linebacker II
By October of 1972, the United States and North Vietnam reached an accord to end the Vietnam War. Upon learning the details of the agreement, however, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu refused to sign the draft. The North Vietnamese backed away as a result, and with negotiations at a complete standstill, Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II in mid–December to force Hanoi’s return to a compromise settlement.
In just 11 days, the United States “flew almost half as many sorties…as in the six months of Linebacker I,” while applying overwhelming amounts of firepower. Earlier that year, the US had increased its deployment of B-52 bombers in Southeast Asia from 40 to 171, tactical aircraft from 76 to almost 400, and aircraft carriers from two to six.
The brief campaign decimated Hanoi’s logistical network, eliminating the North Vietnamese’s capacity to resume a major ground offensive. Critically, the campaign made clear that the United States could continue to conduct future air operations at will, as the North Vietnamese had exhausted the majority of their surface-to-air missiles.
Though Linebacker II did not produce any new North Vietnamese concessions, it did create a clear change in their behavior: they resumed discussions, which they had refused for more than a month and a half. However, while the North Vietnamese concluded that they could not improve their political position so long as the threat of American air power remained, that success cannot be credited to the December air offensive. Fundamentally, Linebacker II’s accomplishments were built on the back of those of its predecessor, the U.S. bombing campaign Linebacker I, conducted from May to October 1972.
Linebacker I
For the majority of the war, the North Vietnamese relied on guerrilla tactics. Communist forces (Viet Cong) operated in small, dispersed units that were enormously difficult to target. By the end of 1971, however, the North Vietnamese shifted to conducting conventional ground attacks. The North Vietnamese began massing troops, making formations easily identifiable and targetable.
The US, then, could apply air power to its benefit in a way that the previous 7 years of war did not allow for. The North Vietnamese adopted a strategy that they had avoided for so long precisely because it played to American strengths. Finally, air power could be applied to blow up more than just empty jungle.
That opportunity came in May 1972 when the United States launched Operation Linebacker in response to the North Vietnamese “Easter Offensive.” Rail lines, fuel dumps, and other critical arteries of support were hit with enormous effect. Troop shipments were reduced by 75 percent and North Vietnam’s import capacity declined by 80 percent. Intelligence reported that NVA tanks had begun to run out of gas. After a month of bombing, the NVA offensive stalled and ARVN began reversing North Vietnamese gains. It was then — July — that serious US–North Vietnamese negotiations began anew and ultimately led to the final agreement reached in October and signed in January of the following year. Without Linebacker I, therefore, Linebacker II would have had no appreciable effect.
Iran military solution
Today, however, the military situation in the Iran war bears virtually no similarity to that in 1972. The first and most obvious difference is the lack of a conventional Iranian ground offensive. Iran’s forces do not mass, are highly mobile, and require little in the way of sustainment. Its geography, especially along the Persian Gulf, is mountainous and filled with pockets to quickly launch missiles and drones before retreating into hiding again, complicating US detection and targeting. This is why Iran remains in possession of half of its ballistic missile and launcher inventory after the US struck more than 13,000 targets.
The US can continue to apply air power against Iran, but it appears that the strategic situation in many ways mirrors that which US forces faced throughout Operation Rolling Thunder; Iranian tactics make it difficult to identify and destroy targets in any meaningful way and their minor logistical needs negate the effects of targeting industrial infrastructure. It is highly unlikely, therefore, that a brief series of air strikes will threaten Tehran sufficiently and convince it to surrender.
Iran is not the real obstacle to an agreement
Moreover, unlike the situation with North Vietnam, pressure is not needed to bring the Iranians to the table. The Iranians are already negotiating. They have shifted the mode of negotiations to a series of exchanges of proposals in writing, out of concern that Trump has backtracked too many times on promises he made in earlier rounds of negotiations, and the belief that many misunderstandings have occurred due to the US’s teams lack of technical know-how on the nuclear file. But they are at the table.
The problem is that the US side continues to seek Iran’s capitulation - Trump told reporters that Iran has to “cry uncle; that’s all they have to do. Just say, ‘We give up’” - despite the fact that facts on the ground, particularly the outcome thus far of this war, does not lend itself to either side demanding the surrender of the other.
Neither the blockade of the Persian Gulf nor a new wave of airstrikes are likely to deliver Iranian surrender. As long as that remains the goal, Trump is more likely to find himself in a perpetual search for new escalatory measures.
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