MAJ Ian S.

Davis 1
The ROLLING THUNDER Air Campaign
Evaluate the ROLLING THUNDER air campaign. Why did it not achieve what the

Johnson administration hoped?

Introduction

President Johnson’s ROLLING THUNDER air campaign directed against North

Vietnam from 1965 to 1968 failed because the U.S. tried to achieve a quick victory using

a conventional warfare strategy against an adaptive and resilient enemy that was prepared

for a protracted war. The objectives of the campaign were to coerce the North

Vietnamese to halt the infiltration of men and supplies into South Vietnam and to force

them to negotiate a peaceful settlement. To achieve these objectives, the U.S. initiated a

campaign based on three conventional air power-centric strategies focused on inflicting

costs on the civil population in order to drive Hanoi to the negotiation table. The

ROLLING THUNDER campaign failed because it employed conventional strategies to

achieve unobtainable objectives against an enemy prepared to fight a protracted war of

national unification. The campaign could not achieve these objectives because of three

main reasons. First, the rural nature of the North Vietnamese population negated

conventional strategies of coercion. Second, the majority of North Vietnam’s military

supplies and materials came from external Communist supporters. Lastly, the North

Vietnamese were psychologically prepared to commit to Mao’s concept of protracted

warfare to achieve a unified Vietnam.

Concept of the Operation

The Johnson administration’s ROLLING THUNDER bombing campaign that

took place from March 1965 to October 1968 was intended to use conventional air power

to coerce the North Vietnamese government to stop its aggression against South Vietnam.
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The ROLLING THUNDER Air Campaign
The administration believed that a limited war could be prosecuted in Vietnam and that

conventional coercion strategies based on American military air power would force the

North Vietnamese to stop infiltrating personnel and equipment into South Vietnam and

force the North to the negotiating table. To achieve these objectives, the U.S. developed

a strategy based on military doctrine and deterrence theories developed during World

War II and the Cold War (Clodfelter, pp. 39-72).

The ROLLING THUNDER plan was an amalgamation of three separate

conventional coercive strategies designed to incrementally increasing the costs on civilian

and military infrastructure through the use of U.S. military air power. Civilian advisors,

the Air Force, and the Army each detailed different strategies to compel the North to the

bargaining table. Additionally, other factors influenced each strategy: driven by the fear

of direct intervention by the Soviet Union and China, the target list was restricted and

limited to South of the 20th parallel and within the borders of North Vietnam and sought

to coerce, rather than destroy the North.

The civilian advisors proposed threatening the North Vietnamese population and

economy. Coercive airpower would threaten the North’s industrial base to create an

incentive for them not to support the insurgency in South Vietnam. The U.S. would

achieve this by destroying the North’s nascent industrial base, controlling the use of force

to safeguard U.S. hostages, gradually increase of pressure on the North, and the

simultaneous coordination of military action and diplomacy (Pape, pp. 178-180). The

Air Force recommended a plan focused on raising current costs instead of future risks by

destroying, rather than threatening, the North’s industrial base. The intent was to use

speed and shock to obliterate all industrial, major transportation, and air defense targets
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The ROLLING THUNDER Air Campaign
in order to weaken civilian morale (Pape, pp. 180-181). The Army plan advocated the

exploitation of North Vietnamese military vulnerabilities through airpower to limit the

infiltration of men and equipment to support the insurgency in the South. By massing

effects on the North Vietnamese lines of communication, the insurgency in the South

would be pushed past its breaking point through attrition of its resources an would not be

able to sustain itself (Pape, p. 181). The three proposals were sequentially executed in a

four-phase plan, but still failed to stop support to the insurgency in the South or bring

North Vietnam to the negotiating table. Although the unrestricted conventional strategic

bombing campaigns of World War II delivered devastating effects Germany and Japan,

the limited war against North Vietnam presented different factors that essentially negated

the intended coercive capacity of conventional air power (Clodfelter, pp. 73-76).

Effects on the Population

The nature of the enemy and environment negated the desired effects of

conventional strategies of coercion through air power focused on restricted targeting of

population and industrial centers of North Vietnam. While the nations of Germany and

Japan relied on urban industrial centers for their war making capacity, North Vietnam

relied on a predominantly agrarian-based economy and thus had a largely rurally

disbursed population. Although the intent of ROLLING THUNDER was to increase

civilian hardship to coerce North Vietnam, the U.S. did not target civilian centers of

gravity in order to achieve the desired effects envisioned by the architects of the U.S. air

campaign.

In 1965, the North’s industrial sector produced only 12 percent of $1.6 billion

gross national product and constituted 24 targets for ROLLING THUNDER (Pape, p.
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The ROLLING THUNDER Air Campaign
189). Generally un-industrialized, the predominantly rural-agrarian population was

immune to the intended brutal effects of the destruction of industrial and economic

infrastructure. Despite the fact that the North diverted an estimated 300,000 troops and

workers to repair destroyed military and industrial facilities, the North Vietnamese people

did not perceive the U.S. air campaign as an insurmountable hardship (Lewy, p. 384).

Because of the Johnson administration’s desire to limit collateral damage and negative

political perception, critical infrastructure that supported the agrarian economy, namely

the dike system, was not deliberately targeted (Clodfelter, pp. 84-134), (Lewy, pp. 396-

406),(Pape, pp. 189-190). The U.S. targeting strategy was not focused on the appropriate

North Vietnamese center of gravity to apply pressure on the populace and achieve the

objectives of ROLLING THUNDER.

Dispersion of the North Vietnamese population, along with restrictive targeting to

minimize civilian casualties, also limited the coercive capacity of conventional bombing

strategies. Beginning in 1965, Hanoi initiated civilian evacuation programs in all major

cities and villages that reduced the population from an estimated 50 to 75 percent by

1967. (Pape, p. 190) The unrestricted air campaigns of World War II killed or wounded

Japanese and German civilians by 3 percent and 1.6 percent respectively. Conversely,

the North Vietnamese suffered and estimated 0.3 percent casualty rate during the

ROLLING THUNDER campaign (Pape, p. 190). Because of the disbursed, rural nature

of the civilian population its un-reliance on infrastructure targeted by the U.S.,

ROLLING THUNDER failed to achieve its desired effects on the North Vietnamese.

North Vietnam’s Military Industry

President Johnson and his civilian advisors sought to wage a limited war to stop
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The ROLLING THUNDER Air Campaign
the spread of Communism based on contemporary coercive deterrence strategies that

would directly affect the Hanoi government, without causing direct intervention by the

Soviet Union and China, and maintaining the popular support of the American people and

the international community (Herring, pp. 1-12). Despite recommendations by the Joint

Chiefs plan of accelerated interdiction focused on directly affecting the flow of personnel

and equipment to the insurgency in the South, the Johnson Administration maintained

tight restrictions on targeting critical North Vietnamese infrastructure in Hanoi and

Haiphong urban complexes. Although U.S. air power destroyed military and economic

targets in the North, the incremental pace of the attacks and sources of external support

allowed the North Vietnamese to rapidly rebuild and reinforce their infrastructure.

An inherent flaw in the U.S. strategy was that it relied on destroying the North’s

war industry and economic infrastructure without factoring in external support from the

Soviet Union, China, and Europe. Despite U.S. expenditures of $250 million per month,

the targeting effort achieved limited affects on the North’s military and economic

capacity (Lewy, pp. 378-382). Additionally, despite causing $600 million in damage to

the North’s military and economic capacity, the Hanoi government received nearly $2

billion in foreign aid, which negated the damage (Lewy, p. 395). Conversely, the U.S.

lost approximately $6 billion in aircraft alone and spent nearly $9.60 for every $1 of

damage caused (Lewy, p. 381). External support to the North Vietnamese military and

economic infrastructure and the Viet Cong insurgency in the South, eventually outpaced

the U.S.’ interdiction capacity.

Protracted versus Limited War

While the Johnson administration wanted a low-cost, limited war, the North
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The ROLLING THUNDER Air Campaign
Vietnamese were psychologically prepared to endure long-term hardship to achieve a

unified Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia under Communist rule. While the U.S. sought to

fight a conventional war of attrition, the North leveraged the Viet Cong to wage

unconventional guerrilla warfare based on Mao Zedong’s three-phase strategy of

protracted struggle (Krepinevich, pp. 7-16). Mao’s long-term strategy is not contingent

on a timeline and seeks to gain support for a popular uprising against a government based

on a common cause and a weak or illegitimate government. The guerrillas’ political

doctrine psychologically prepared fighters and supporters to endure hardships to achieve

a unified Vietnam under Communist rule. Supporters of the Hanoi government had the

resolve to endure long-term hardships and were largely unaffected by U.S. efforts to

destroy modern industrial targets (Clodfelter, p. 101).

Guerillas fight in small-disbursed units in the remote countryside and have

relatively low logistical requirements compared to conventional units. Viet Cong

insurgents in South Vietnam receive only 15 to 34 tons of supplied per day from the

North (Pape, p. 192). While conventional logistics flow from rear areas to forward units,

the Viet Cong relied on the local population to provide logistics to the insurgency through

willing or coercive compliance. The elusive decentralized guerrilla infrastructure,

solidified with a Communist doctrine that resonated with the rural population prepared to

endure hardship, and relatively low requirement for external support, did not make the

use of conventional air power a feasible option to increase civilian costs to meet

ROLLING THUNDER objectives since the population was essentially immune to

conventional coercion.

Too Many Restrictions?

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The ROLLING THUNDER Air Campaign
An argument can be made that ROLLING THUNDER failed because of

restrictions on targeting, not because of the strategy of incremental pressure directed

against the North Vietnamese population and industrial base. According to Clodfelter,

the Johnson administration’s control on the ROLLING THUNDER campaign flowed

from the negative political objectives of avoiding Soviet or Chinese intervention in

Vietnam, preserving the Great Society, securing a favorable American image overseas,

and maintaining the support of Western allies (Clodfelter, p. 118).These objectives drove

tight initial restrictions of bombing North of the 20th parallel, 30-mile radius from the

center of Hanoi, 10-mile radius from the center of Haiphong, and within 30 miles of

China. Furthermore, President Johnson and his civilian advisors severely micromanaged

the conduct of daily tactical operations and directed where, when, and how U.S. pilots

would execute the bombing missions. Their targeting guidance was often confusing and

not developed with input from the Joint Chiefs. Initially, only 94 of the Joint Chiefs’ 242

recommended military, transportation, and industrial targets were approved (Pape, p.

183). Arguably, the ROLLING THUNDER campaign could have stopped the flow of

support to the insurgency in South and brought the Hanoi government to peaceful

negotiation if it were not for the restrictions imposed by the Johnson administration.

While the restrictions imposed by the Johnson administration did cause internal

friction, they did not account for the failure of ROLLING THUNDER to achieve its

objectives. When targeting restrictions were incrementally removed, conventional air

power was still ineffective at diminishing North Vietnam’s resolve. By October of 1968,

the U.S. attacks on North Vietnam destroyed 77 percent of all ammunition depots, 65

percent of all petroleum storage, 59 percent of the power plants, 55 percent of the
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The ROLLING THUNDER Air Campaign
bridges, 39 percent of the railroad shops, all of explosives, iron, steel, and cement plants,

12,521 vessels, 9,821 vehicles, and 1,966 railroad cars and engines (Lewy, p. 390).

Despite the destruction, there are no indications that North Vietnam was forced into a

position to meet the ROLLING THUNDER objectives. The North Vietnamese were

immune to conventional air power strategies.

Conclusion

The ROLLING THUNDER air campaign failed to achieve its objectives because

the North Vietnamese were immune to conventional coercion through the use of U.S. air

power. The rural nature of the North Vietnamese population negated conventional

strategies of coercion as envisioned by ROLLING THUNDER planners because of the

inability of air power to apply the desired effects on the North Vietnamese population. A

vast majority of North Vietnam’s military supplies and materials came from external

Communist supporters that the U.S. had no intention of targeting to prevent and

escalation of the war and the direct intervention of the Soviet Union and China. More

importantly, the North Vietnamese were psychologically prepared to commit to Mao’s

concept of protracted warfare to achieve a unified Vietnam, something that the U.S. and

the South Vietnamese Government did not have the will or capacity to counter. While

restrictions imposed by the Johnson administration did cause civil-military friction, it was

not lead to the failure of ROLLING THUNDER. ROLLING THUNDER failed because

a limited war that relies on conventional air power is ineffective in countering an enemy

with vast external support that is psychologically prepared to wage an unlimited

protracted struggle of national unity.

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The ROLLING THUNDER Air Campaign

Bibliography

Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam.
Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.

Herring, George C. "In Cold Blood: LBJ's Conduct of Limited War in VIetnam." In The
Harmon Memorial Lectures in Military History # 33, by United States Air Force
Academy, 1-24. USAFA: United States Air Force Academy, 1990.

Krepinevich, Andrew F. The Army in Vietnam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University

Press, 1986.

Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Pape, Robert A. Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. Ithica and London:
Cornell University Press, 1996.