The carefully graduated increases in manpower and in the intensity of bombing attacks and the wellpublicized U.S. diplomatic efforts for negotiations, make it appear—at least as I write this—that the United States is conducting in Vietnam a well-controlled and limited military operation.

This impression of limitation and control, implying as it does the discriminating application of military power in the service of political ends, is morally soothing. It is nevertheless an illusory impression which cannot avoid being exposed as the war progresses. For the underlying fact of the U.S. commitment in Vietnam is that its objective is no longer the politics of South Vietnam.