A Great Place To Have A War: America In Laos And The Birth Of The Military CIA, by Joshua Kurlantzick

This book is a sobering and unpleasant one, both because it talks about an area that was and remains obscure to the vast majority of Americans but suffered greatly at the hands of bombing as well as fighting over a long period of time World War II for about fifty years or so, but also because the lessons that the CIA took from the experience of Laos were ones that have carried on to more recent clandestine operations around the world. It is easy enough to understand why America’s presidents (as well as the CIA’s own swamp creatures) would want to be able to use local counterinsurgency forces to fight in strategically important but politically marginal areas on the cheap far from the prying eyes and accountability to politicians in Congress or intrusive journalists. It is also easy enough to understand that there has been a real human cost to the lack of honor by which those clandestine operations have been conducted, which have led to very real suffering by those people who we have allied to, given resources and encouragement to, and then abandoned when it was time to cut and run from unpopular foreign involvements. The author has a sense of righteous anger which would be all the more effective if it was less political in nature. The author clearly has chosen favorites here and sides, and the bias he represents, even if it is an understandable one, is also one that hinders his ability to understand at least some of the people he writes about.

There has long been within the United States a troubling dichotomy between the general ignorance and lack of concern that ordinary Americans have for foreign matters and the intense interest that America’s elites have with foreign matters. This disconnect has led over decades into the widespread pursuit of means by which America’s elites could support their own interests without the knowledge and anger of ordinary people. In the early 19th century this meant pursuing a pro-slavery agenda that was opposed by a significant portion of America’s population, while in recent decades it has involved the CIA supporting exploited minorities within larger nations whose marginal position and hostility to the bad politics of the regimes of those nations makes them worthwhile allies but also somewhat expendable when the general population tires of the waste of blood and treasure for difficult and unprofitable nation-building exercises. The author makes a reasonable case that the lessons that the CIA learned from Laos were the wrong ones, but he does not appear to have a great knowledge of the Hmong except a sense of pity at their suffering and concern over the problems that the Hmong still face in Laos, Thailand, and the places where they have emigrated and found themselves unable to settle in to the same degree of success that other ethnic groups have found.

In terms of its contents, this book is between 250 and 300 pages and is divided into 19 chapters. The book begins with a discussion of Laos and its surprising geopolitical importance to the United States in the aftermath of World War II (1). This is followed by a discussion of Laos as the CIA’s first (but not last) war (2) and an introduction of Vang Pao, Bill Lair, Tony Poe, and Bill Sullivan (3), who form an essential part of the author’s narrative. After this the author talks about Laos before the CIA and the CIA before Laos (4), as well the fateful moment when the CIA encountered Laos (5). The author discusses the beginning of Operation Momentum (6) and its expansion under President Kennedy (7). The author details how a not-so-secret secret operation was mostly hidden (8) and the entrance of the bombers into the operation (9). The author discusses the wider war (10) and an early massacre that was much like Dien Bien Phu (11). The author talks about how the Hmong were encouraged to go for broke (12) and the victory and loss involved in seeking to counter Communist advances (13). This is followed by a discussion of how the secret war became public in the United States (14), the defeat of the United States and retreat of anti-Communist Laotian forces (15), and the long battle for Skyline Ridge (16). This is followed by a look at the final days of a free Laos (17), the legacy of the CIA’s involvement in Laos (18), and the aftermath of the defeat for the Hmong (19). The book then ends with acknowledgements, notes, and an index.