{"id":1680,"date":"2019-09-29T09:51:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T13:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=1680"},"modified":"2022-03-08T10:12:26","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T14:12:26","slug":"konrad-kellen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/konrad-kellen\/","title":{"rendered":"Konrad Kellen&#8217;s Vietnam Warning: Why Didn&#8217;t Anybody Listen?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Who was Konrad Kellen? And is it possible that he could have shortened the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/tim-obrien-vietnam\/\">Vietnam War<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Konrad Kellen was a German political analyst who served in various roles, including U.S. Army Intelligence, during his long career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn what Konrad Kellen knew about the Viet Cong and the Vietnamese people that could have ended the Vietnam War earlier and saved many lives&#8230;if only the U.S. government had taken his opinion seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Konrad Kellen Knew: Davids Beat Goliaths<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Although we think of underdog victories as anomalies, Konrad Kellen knew that the less powerful side often beats the more powerful side. He knew that the Goliath of the Vietnam War, the U.S. government, probably wouldn&#8217;t beat the Davids, the Viet Cong. Before we look at how Konrad Kellen knew this, let&#8217;s look at the question generally: If Davids beat Goliaths all the time, <strong>why hasn\u2019t that changed the way we view \u201cDavid and Goliath\u201d situations?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>It\u2019s counter-intuitive.<\/strong> The assumption that the bigger, stronger, wealthier, more weaponized side <em>has<\/em> to win is instinctive and goes against conventional wisdom. It\u2019s hard to wrap your head around the idea that the victory of a small, weaponless shepherd boy over an experienced, armored giant is not only possible but probable.<\/li><li><strong>It\u2019s easiest to measure advantage by what we can see<\/strong>: the number of soldiers, the amount of money, the available weapons and material resources. It\u2019s harder to look below the surface to evaluate the less tangible or clear-cut advantages of disagreeability, deficiency, and trauma. Furthermore, disagreeability, deficiency, and trauma are painful. We\u2019re wired to link pain with disadvantage, so we don\u2019t as readily see pain\u2019s advantages.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Konrad Kellen v. Leon Gour\u00e9<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>During the Vietnam War, there were two general <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/opposing-views\/\">opposing views<\/a>. Leon Gour\u00e9 was certain the U.S. military (Goliath) would be victorious over the Viet Cong (David); Konrad Kellen was certain the U.S. military would never suppress the Viet Cong. Konrad Kellen was right, but by the time the American government realized it, more than a million soldiers and civilians were dead and America was in turmoil.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 1950s, communists, backed by the Chinese, controlled North Vietnam, and a pro-Western government ran South Vietnam. The U.S. decided to send troops to help the South defend itself against communism and its North Vietnamese agents, the Viet Cong.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plan, called Operation Rolling Thunder, was to bomb Viet Cong-controlled areas until the North gave in. The U.S. government was confident\u2014as they saw it, they had all the advantages, the \u201cthree M\u2019s: men, money, and mat\u00e9riel,\u201d as one general put it.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Morale Project<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There was really only one problem: The U.S. didn\u2019t know anything about its enemy, the Viet Cong.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leon Gour\u00e9 worked for the RAND Corporation, which developed the Morale Project. Its goal was to understand the motivations of people who joined the Viet Cong. For the project, dozens of researchers interviewed people who had defected from the Viet Cong or were captured current members. Because so few people showed an interest in hearing their stories, the subjects were often very willing to talk.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gour\u00e9\u2019s Interpretation of the Morale Project Evidence<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Gour\u00e9, who read all the interview transcripts, told military and government officials that American bombing was making a huge difference in the conflict. He said that many people were defecting from the Viet Cong and that civilians in the countryside welcomed U.S. involvement in the region.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gour\u00e9 had evidence to support this interpretation: The number of defectors who thought the Viet Cong would win the war decreased from 65% to 20% after a year of increased U.S. bombing.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gour\u00e9 filtered the evidence through a military logic that said that a miniscule country with no resources <em>had<\/em> to succumb to the most powerful country in the world dropping 643,000 tons of bombs on its people and countryside.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gour\u00e9\u2019s takeaway: Even Northerners don\u2019t think the Viet Cong will win the war. The Viet Cong will give up and the U.S. will win.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Konrad Kellen\u2019s interpretation of the Morale Project evidence<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Late in 1966, the RAND Corporation asked Konrad Kellen, who had previously served in U.S. Army Intelligence, to read and analyze the interview transcripts from the Morale Project and report back.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Konrad Kellen saw the same data, but interpreted that data through a different lens and reached a totally different conclusion. He took note of subtleties like those in interviews by Mai Elliott, who found that <strong>interviewees were actually defiant<\/strong>.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These subjects had sacrificed their lives for their ideals of reunifying Vietnam and getting rid of the Americans. One woman Elliott interviewed had been forced out of her home by Americans who suspected her village of being controlled by the Viet Cong. The Americans then required her to help build her new village. She hadn\u2019t been a member of the Viet Cong when Americans arrived, but the Americans treated her badly, forcing her into the Viet Cong\u2019s waiting arms.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of the Viet Cong insurgents were poor and disillusioned by the West\u2019s \u201chelp.\u201d Their lands had been bombed and they had few material possessions. <strong>They had the freedom of having nothing to lose.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Near and Remote Misses<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Konrad Kellen intuitively understood the distinction between \u201cnear misses\u201d and \u201cremote misses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Near miss:<\/strong> You\u2019re a civilian. An American bomb leaves you badly injured and demoralized. You don\u2019t have the energy or health to fight. You give up.<\/li><li><strong>Remote miss:<\/strong> You\u2019re a civilian. An American bomb destroys your home and kills your family members, but you emerge unscathed (at least physically). This experience fosters so much hate of Americans and their allies in the South that you vow to never stop fighting.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Although Konrad Kellen saw the same statistics as Gour\u00e9\u2014that only 20% of defectors thought the Viet Cong would win the war\u2014he saw something Gour\u00e9 didn\u2019t: Defectors didn\u2019t think the U.S. would win, either. In other words, \u201c80% of defectors did not think the Viet Cong would win the war\u201d does not mean \u201c80% of defectors think the US would win the war.\u201d Gour\u00e9 had jumped to his own favorite conclusion.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Viet Cong were indifferent to winning or losing.<\/strong> They were merely concerned with fighting. How do you conquer an enemy who doesn\u2019t care if he wins or loses?<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Konrad Kellen\u2019s takeaway: Northerners don\u2019t think there will be a winner in this conflict. The Viet Cong will never give up. <\/strong>Consequently, after spending hundreds of billions of dollars and sacrificing the lives of thousands of soldiers, <strong>the U.S. will be the loser in this conflict.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Konrad Kellen and his interpretation of the Morale Project transcripts were largely ignored by the White House and military officials.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What he was saying diverged too greatly from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/common-sense-pamphlet\/\">common sense<\/a> of American might. It might always be hard to believe that a small shepherd boy could conquer a giant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who was Konrad Kellen? And is it possible that he could have shortened the Vietnam War? Konrad Kellen was a German political analyst who served in various roles, including U.S. Army Intelligence, during his long career. Learn what Konrad Kellen knew about the Viet Cong and the Vietnamese people that could have ended the Vietnam War earlier and saved many lives&#8230;if only the U.S. government had taken his opinion seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,39,33],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-history","category-people","tag-david-and-goliath","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Konrad Kellen&#039;s Vietnam Warning: Why Didn&#039;t Anybody Listen? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Konrad Kellen was a German political analyst who served with U.S. Army Intelligence. 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