ROLLING THUNDER – A Failure of Intelligence and Cultural Awareness?

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Strategic bombing with conventional weapons as a means of coercing an enemy into negotiation was an untested concept in the 1960s. Nonetheless this was a key element of the protracted ROLLING THUNDER campaign conducted over 3 years in the latter half of that decade, a component of the Vietnam War that is considered to have been a failure. Given the complexity of this War, analysis of any one such facet reveals a morass of interrelated issues so this essay will try to bring clarity to the germane elements by opening with a brief overview of the geo-political situation. This will illustrate how the roots of ROLLING THUNDER are intimately laced into the overall American approach to involvement in Vietnam, spanning France's period as a significant regional influence in Indochina through to the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. It will analyse some of the reasons behind the campaign's failure both in the logic underpinning its inception and in the management of its execution. Higher level doctrinal issues will then be considered before taking an alternative look at the campaign, postulating how it might better be pursued in today's timeframe drawing on lessons learned over the intervening 3 decades.

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