DOGE fired me as it tries to destroy Institute of Peace, but our mission will live | Opinion
Op-ed in USA Today
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2025/04/24/us-institute-of-peace-doge-firings/83011879007/
Presentation at Texas Tech University Conference, “1975: The End of the Vietnam War”
April 11, 2025
Andrew Wells-Dang
When Texas Tech University invited me for this lunch discussion, you probably expected
that I would give an introduction and summary of the Southeast Asia program at the U.S.
Institute of Peace that I’ve been leading for the last four years. And I will still say a little
about that.
But as we’re all aware, a lot has changed in the world in the last few months, including in
the United States and in Vietnam. 2025 may turn out to be an inflection point in
contemporary history, in some ways comparable to 1975 in Vietnam. I’d like to invite us all
to reflect how our present moment relates to the events of that long ago April, which in the
words of former Vietnamese Prime Minister Võ Văn Kiệt, “made millions of people happy,
but also millions of people sad”. This outcome happened because of conflicting interests
of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Republic of Vietnam and the United States.
USIP was formed and grew out of the post-Vietnam War context in the US. Our founders
were members of Congress from both parties who were largely veterans, of World War II,
Korea, and Vietnam. They were supported by citizen groups around the country who
believed the US should have a capacity for peacebuilding alongside capacity for war. Their
vision led to President Reagan signing the USIP Act in 1984. The institute’s first president
was Robert Turner who is with us today.
The bipartisan drafters of this law, in their wisdom, made USIP an independent institute,
not a part of the executive branch. This status is currently under dispute, part of an ongoing
court case. I’m happy to give more details for anyone who’s interested. For purposes of this
talk the important point is that for the first 35+ years of its existence, USIP didn’t have a
program on Vietnam. This came about through the support of former Sen. Patrick Leahy
who proposed that USIP become a hub for US-Vietnam relations and war legacies in
Washington, DC. In the last 4 years, we’ve contributed to the Vietnamese Wartime
Accounting Initiative, bringing US veterans and Vietnamese researchers together to search
for mass graves. We’ve hosted a series of annual dialogues on war legacies and peace in
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and released reports on the effects of Agent Orange and the
process of postwar reconciliation. USIP has joined with USAID in projects to design a new
permanent exhibit on war legacies cooperation at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi
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Minh City and to produce a documentary film on dioxin remediation at Biên Hòa Air Base.
We’ve organized several workshops on the US-Vietnam partnership with the Diplomatic
Academy of Vietnam in Hanoi; hosted online youth dialogues with Fulbright University in
Ho Chi Minh City; started a US-Laos war legacies dialogue group; and since last year,
signed an MOU with Texas Tech University and the Vietnamese American Foundation on
war legacies of the former Republic of Vietnam, including preservation of Biên Hòa / Bình
An cemetery.
USIP works with and across differences. This is in our DNA as peacebuilders. This includes
joining with members of Congress and presidential administrations from both parties, as
well as foreign governments, universities, veterans organizations and others. Not everyone
agrees all the time, sometimes there is conflict, and that’s kind of the point, to listen and
engage with these conflicts before they get out of hand or become violent. We were
prepared to do the same with the new administration in the US. Starting in January, we
made efforts to explain how USIP programs contribute to stated foreign policy priorities and
US national interests, in the formulation of Secretary of State Rubio, making America
“safer, stronger, and more prosperous”. This is a case we are well prepared to make.
Of course, other countries have interests too, which sometimes conflict with and
sometimes coincide with those of the US. It’s not a zero-sum game. We can all think of
some peace treaties and some trade agreements that benefit all sides, and others that
have mostly benefited one country at the expense of another.
Second thing to point out: nations are not monoliths. Many economic and security policies
benefit the interests of some groups in a country and hurt others. What some claim are
national interests may actually be the interests of one political party or faction. The framers
of the US Constitution were cognizant of this risk. I consulted the definitive historical
source for this period, the musical “Hamilton”, which says:
It must be nice to have Washington on your side
Every action has an equal, opposite reaction
Our cabinet’s fractured into factions
Try not to crack under the stress, we’re breaking down like fractions
Words that apply well to RVN in 1975 too.
In the US in 1975, in the wake of Watergate and the toll of lives lost in Vietnam, a majority of
Americans thought our national interest was to end involvement in the Indochina conflict.
Many believed the war was unwinnable, a mistake, or immoral. For those who believed in
the US intervention, this was a bitter pill to swallow.
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In Vietnam, there was more than one set of competing national interests. The Republic of
Vietnam’s survival depended on continued US foreign assistance. But Congress suspended
funds through an aid freeze, I would add through a transparent legal process based on
majority vote.
Of course, the DRV defined national interest as unification through military victory, and this
view of Vietnam interest won out. In history as at present, sometimes those who gain power
become overconfident and take extreme measures that are against their long-term
interests. Huy Đức shows us in Bên Thắng cuộc how the winning side undertook policies
like forced collectivization, re-education camps, and displacement of ethnic Chinese.
These policies didn’t serve the interest of unification. How to conceive of national interest
in a way that doesn’t make millions of people sad?
The role of government, according to the US Constitution, is to promote the general
welfare. This seems as good a definition of national interest as any. national interest comes
from the people and benefits people and thus the countries they live in. It’s a win-win not a
zero-sum. So let me restate the question: how can the US promote its national interest in
ways that benefit Americans and also the interests of our partners, in this case Vietnam?
This approach is foundational to diplomacy and to the 2023 Comprehensive Strategic
Partnership.
I’d like to conclude by offering 3 areas that are in the national interest of both countries and
should be beyond politics:
1. War legacies cooperation (including UXO clearance, dioxin remediation, health and
disability assistance, search for missing persons from all sides): Foundation for
building trust. Humanitarian. Affects hundreds of thousands of families in Vietnam.
Value of bringing US veterans and MIA families together with their Vietnam
counterparts. For instance, we recognize that efforts to share info on Vietnam
remains leads to info on US MIAs, and vice versa. Similarly, Agent Orange affects the
lives of Americans as well as Vietnamese (and Laotians). It’s in our joint interests to
care for people who are affected to live lives of dignity.
The total value of US assistance to Vietnam in this area, at $90 million/, is a fraction
of 1% of total US foreign assistance, but it brings outsized benefits for US-Vietnam
relations. War legacy cooperation is a catalyst for cooperation in other areas such
as maritime security, law enforcement, higher education, energy, and human rights.
2. A second area that would bring mutual benefit is the increased involvement of
Vietnamese Americans in all areas of US-Vietnam relations. Vietnam refugees and
immigrants to the US have benefited this country greatly since their arrival. But for a
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long time, Vietnamese Americans were not centrally involved in US policy towards
Vietnam. That has changed to an extent – I’ve made an effort to do so at USIP – but
there’s more to be done. Their involvement benefits Vietnam by bringing education
and technology into play. Vietnamese Americans understand Vietnamese culture
and society better than other Americans do, and understand America more than
other Vietnamese. The younger generation of Vietnamese Americans are the future
of this relationship. I commend the work of everyone here who is involved in
educational and exchange programs for heritage learners.
3. Related to this, it’s in all of our interests to increase knowledge and understanding
of both countries through language learning, study and tourism. This channel works
well in some aspects: Vietnamese learning English, Vietnamese students studying
in the US, an increased number of Americans visiting Vietnam. It needs more effort
on the part of Americans to learn about Vietnam, and for Vietnam to welcome and
value US inputs. I’ve observed that the educational and cultural programs of the
State Dept are among the most effective and cost-effective things the US does,
including Fulbright programs, American centers, English teaching and the
International Visitors Leadership Program. We can all, as academics, practitioners
and community members, work to support the continuation of these programs.
Each of these areas of common interest is now facing uncertainty, affected by the new US
administration’s dismantling of USAID, freeze on foreign assistance funds, and contentious
tariff policies. US-Vietnam relations have faced more serious challenges than these in the
past, and the partnership is stronger now than it has ever been. So I am cautiously
optimistic that the pragmatism of the Vietnamese, plus common sense and generosity of
many Americans will get us through these crises. But we are experiencing a real-time test
of the progress made in many areas of cooperation.
As the postwar and especially post-normalization experience of Americans and
Vietnamese shows, it is possible to move beyond conflicts of national interest to build
partnerships of common interest. Another way of saying this is building peace. But it takes
a lot of time and effort to ensure that the US in 2025 doesn’t abandon all of its international
commitments and responsibilities.
There will always be differences about what national interest entails, whether in 1975
Vietnam or the 2025 United States. At the end of the Vietnam War, it wasn’t possible to
transform conflict into general welfare for all sides. Whether we can do that today is an
open question that we can contribute to, intellectually or collectively. I don’t know if USIP
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can persist as an institution with this mandate and mission. I know that regardless of the
outcome, I and you and all of us need platforms and spaces to continue to listen to each
other, Americans and Vietnamese, to attempt to understand differing views and transcend
them.
Thank you all for your attention.
