London: C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 2021. xvii, 516 pp. (Maps, B&W photos.) US$47.55, cloth. ISBN 9781787384804.
Nathaniel L. Moir’s book charts Bernard Fall’s role as a key expert on the insurgency in Indochina. Fall was a noted commentator of the events in the region for close to two decades, earning the respect and ire of movers and shakers in France as well as the United States, until his untimely and unfortunate demise due to a landmine in 1967.
Why was a college professor embedded with a US Marine Corps unit on patrol in South Vietnam at the height of hostilities in 1967? The answer to this unlikely question lies in understanding the motivation behind Fall’s committed and vocal analysis of the situation in Vietnam. Fall famously (albeit self-depreciatingly) called himself the “no. 1 realist” in his understanding of the insurgencies. This self-confidence was not misplaced, with him spending two decades researching and writing in the region. Fall’s key contribution to the body of literature of the Indochina wars was his field research, manifesting the best of this tradition with his commitment to “walk the ground” in order to understand the situational context, rather than an academic pursuit from the ivory towers of policy and academic study. Nathaniel Moir’s book charts Fall’s intellectual history by relating the building blocks of his formative experiences: his early years in the French Resistance and service in the Second World War, his personal tragedies of his father’s execution and mother’s death during the Holocaust and his professional development during his years as a researcher for the Nuremberg Trials. Moir convincingly demonstrates how these events prepared Fall to provide an insightful analysis of the Viet Minh’s revolutionary war efforts, and his controversial opinions on the involvement of the French and later the Americans in the region.
His impact on the French and the American administrations of the day oscillated between privileged involvement to outright exclusion. This determination to speak strongly on the situation stemmed from his understanding on the larger geopolitical realities from the perspectives of the Indochinese. Moir’s expert telling of Fall’s life does not hide Fall’s strong conviction that the French and American efforts at that time were doomed to fail. Current and recent insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan highlight Fall’s continued relevancy by demonstrating that technological and military supremacy does not provide decisive power; it is the social spaces that determine political power. This conviction comes across in his publications as anti-establishment. While he was undeniably a key expert on the political, economic, and social conditions of Vietnam and the region, his scholarship was not welcomed in the halls of Washington, DC, affecting his ability to “reform from within.”
Even in his active exclusion, Fall’s significance could not be ignored. Contrary to the political “flavour” of the day, Fall’s analysis was that the Indochina region was not in danger from the “domino theory” of the Cold War. His conclusion, reflected in his writings, was that the situation in the Indochinese region was a political dilemma, needing a political outcome with the combatants, rather than a military one. This belief manifested itself when Fall, in a published letter to the editor of Newsweek in 1965, claimed for himself “the place of ‘the No. 1 pessimist’ about Vietnam—but if a place of ‘No 1 realist’ is available, I’ll be glad to stake out a claim for it.”
This book provides an invaluable look into how a master craftsman conducted his work in the days when academic research was done differently. Premised on contextual realities on the ground, seen through the eyes of academic theory and integrated with personal and professional experience, Moir’s accessible prose admirably delivers the complex development of Fall’s personal history and professional experience. Even readers without a close familiarity with Fall, the Indochinese wars, or insurgency warfare will be able to relate to Moir’s portrait of Fall. Meticulously researched, this book provides modern readers a template for examining approaches to the study of insurgency warfare today. Moir’s telling of Fall’s story, one in which informed scholarship was not received positively by the governments of the day, behooves both academia and political arenas to find a common platform. Ultimately, this is a history of Fall’s scholarship, focused on why it mattered when he was alive and why it remains relevant today. The author sheds light on how Fall construed insurgency warfare, as well as the cultural and historical contexts in which it functioned. In so doing, he details Fall’s argument that reducing overly militarized solutions, and increasing diplomatic and political ones, can offer more optimal solutions to deterring or blunting adversarial intent. Whether this is truly the case in today’s complex geopolitical environment, there’s the rub.
Eddie Lim
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore