So, how would we have won in Vietnam?

[Stainless Steel Rat]

To all:

I saw these posts in another thread in this section:

OUGHT SIX

The whole conduct of the Vietnam War. The idea of limited, politically correct war with areas we could not bomb, individual airstrike targets picked in the White House, peace talks and halts in bombing, the cessation of the mining of Haiphong harbor, and generally a war that was not fought to actually win it.

MANBERRIES
Well ****ing said. Funny, the hippies demands for peace in that war ended up killing far more people than an all out war against the north would have. This is especially true since we bombed it into dust in the end anyways.

MASTERMIND
(My War) Well said. Sadly, I think this lesson has yet to be learned or understood. I think we are doing exactly the same stupid crap today x2. ]

And it finally compelled me to ask: OK, given that we 'lost" the War in Vietnam, give me a strategy for "winning" it.

Let's define some terms here:

**Winning (to me) is either an independent and peaceful South Vietnam able to defend itself with modest US support (think S. Korea) or a united (and reasonably free and democratic) Vietnam--If you have a different definition of winning, please feel free to enlighten me.

**You can use any weapons you like, add as many troops as you like, invade and bomb wherever you like...BUT you cannot change the political conditions and opposition to the war in the US--in other words, the nation had deep divisions in the 1960's and 1970's about Vietnam, and don't make like your policies suddenly paper over that and present us as a nation 100% united behind the conflict--it wasn't and it never was going to be. Factor that into your planning.

**Remember that the Cold War was still on, that China and the (then) USSR were supplying weapons to the North, and that China had proven in 1951-53 that it was very allergic to U.S./anti-communist forces on it's borders.

I am truly interested in what responses I will get. I have heard this from many vets in many places that "we weren't alowed to win in Vietnam" and I really am curious as to (1) One defines winning and (2) How we could have accomplished it.

In my own humble opinion, to paraphrase a quote from one of my favorite movies, "The only winning move was not to play". I am open to any moves that would change the nature of the game.

Thoughtfully yours, Slippery Jim DeGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat

[LineDoggie]

1965 Mine Haiphong harbor Immediately, announce exclusion zone for Military goods- ENFORCE IT.

Immediately destroy all North Vietnamese Airfields, Rail Heads, Port facilites for heavy Equipment

Announce Immediate and ongoing amnesty for any VC or anti Gov forces, organizations, individuals who rally to the gov side. Make sure they are publically rewarded and treated well.

Increase Psyops targetting VC/NVA EM's to rally to Saigon Gov

Reforms and Anti Corruption to scour the SVN government. Any corrupt Politicians and functionaries tried for treason and executed publically, given long prison sentences at hard labor.

Insist upon equal rights for indigenous peoples (Montagnards, etc)

Insist on Competant LEADERS for ARVN, not politically reliable or buddies with the President, but proven combat leadership.

Bring ARVN up to US Standards for equipage, and training

Massively enhanced ARVN Civil Affairs program, get the masses to understand the Joes are their Sons fighting for them, have units given CA infastructure programs to improve the crop yields and farmers lives, Medcaps, etc.

Ensure foriegn press has chance to see ARVN forces in action and in CA missions. If certain foreign press elements obviously are supporting Communists, marginalize them, fact check them and make sure any lies are exposed. If absolutely neccessary, deport them.

Massively Increase the CIDG program in funding, training and equipment.

Prosecute any War Crimes be they ARVN/FWF or VC/NVA, make trials public and given wide audience.

Fundamental changes in US policy:

1 No individual replacement policy- It was proven a morale killer in WWII and we continued it, rotate Units.

2 Use Reserves and National Guard

3 Hold SVN gov accountable, no reforms, no battlefield victories, no aid

Admittedly a quick pull it out of my ass plan

[Hollis]

IMHO; It was not how the military conducted the war that led to how the war was concluded. It was on a much larger political end that decided how the war was to be ended.

[Laconian]

To do the things that would have been needed, LBJ would have had to have mobilized the NG/Reserves and all but completely have stopped funding the "Great Society" programs, political suicide. A consensus would have to have been reached to realize the war was both a conventional war between belligerents (the cause of the war was the invasion of the South by the North) and the war would be brought to a close when the North was unable or unwilling to continue; and it was an insurgency/counterinsurgency that would be won by destroying the insurgents by stablizing the RVN govt.

Hindsight being 20/20, I don't think either of those things were really possible.

[domokun]

All out war would have been less bloody for both US and Vietnamese. Limited rules of engagement limited US actions, NVA/VC used that in their in advantage in many ways.

USA didn't understand Vietnam war and it didn't adapt to conditions in Vietnam. US military leadership played game with their own rules & goals, soldiers in bush had their own rules & goals, US political leadership had it's own rules & goals, US average joe's had their own rules & goals and finally there were hippies. Those goals were partially overlapping but still not same. USA wasn't willing to commit into total war, Vietnamese were.

It doesn't matter that north Vietnamese lost over 90% of battles, they could afford 20 times more military losses than Americans. Tactical blunder like the Tet offensive can become major strategic victory with help of media.

As mastermind said US failed to learn things about counterinsurgency warfare, but it isn't that simple, US did learn things but forgot about those pretty much as soon as war ended. Many of same lessons had to be learned again in Iraq and Afhganistan. Pretty much only thing learned from Vietnam that wasn't forgotten was media management, both Gulf wars are good examples, second one is especially neat as solution problems media can cause, flood public with that much detailed information that folks can't create general picture of what is happening.

[Hollis]

Partisan politics in US is the best allies our enemies have in wars like this. Very few Americans in terms of percentage actually feel the sting of the war, unlike WWII. The party not in power will use the war as a mean of decrying how the current administration is a bunch of incompetents, or made wrong choices to go to war, etc etc etc. Basically indirectly supporting the enemy. The real battle for victory or defeat is in the states is not on the battle field.

While Tet '68 was a military victory it was viewed as a defeat in the states. That is something the military could not over come on the battle field. Once a country decided internally to abandon the war, there is nothing the military can do. Iraq is another example of this.

Saddam's Army was defeated, Bush stood on a air craft carrier and announced the defeat and his political opponent decried it as, "What job done." It would be similar as saying VE day did not happen till 10 or 20 years later.


This site goes into more depth on this:

http://www.25thaviation.org/johnkerry/id27.htm

The Viet-Nam was a battle in the a greater war, the cold war. Maybe one can say with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, victory was obtained.


The US pulled out of Viet-Nam in '72 or '73, it still took Bac-Nam two years with full Communist support to defeat SVN who was cut off from support from the West.

In 1968 -69. The VC where no more, the NVA severely crippled, it took years for the North to rebuild and eventually defeat the South in '75. Yet again, the opinion/world view at home was the US was the one that got hammered in 1968-69.


Even today, Partisan Politics on a national level and global level is what will establish victory or defeat in the eyes of the population. It will not be any military victory or action that establish how the conclusion is viewed. Getting elected and maintaining in power in the states is more important than the lives of those serving. Unity only existed after 9/11 when the emotional pitch of the American people was 100% behind the war. As time moved on, the emotion caused by the attack on 9/11 faded away and the partisan political attacks began. The criticism that American's patience very short, is pretty correct. As in the Viet-Nam, support for the war waned allowing for those seeking to be elected or remain elected to use the war as tool for their own purpose regardless of what it's impact on the war effort would be.

The Military did make mistakes in the Viet-Nam war, but their mistakes did not lead to any decisive victory on part of the enemy. It's conclusion was a product of politics in the US, cold war strategy and probably some secret mastery sauce.


Pogo said it best in the early '60's, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."

[junglejim]

Help Uncle Ho when he asked for it. :/

[LineDoggie]

Help Uncle Ho when he asked for it. :/
We wanted to, then his OSS LNO Major Pete Dewey was Killed "apparently" by Viet Minh....

[junglejim]

We wanted to, then his OSS LNO Major Pete Dewey was Killed "apparently" by Viet Minh....

Could have made a whole lot of difference.

[Jacknola]

Two facets of the Vietnam war, as described by Laconian, (1) the conventional war with PAVN and, (2) the local “insurgency” in RVN were BOTH winnable with the resources committed in country by 1968... with perhaps minimal reinforcements for two or three years.

But the two “wars” were not equal - nor were they completely separate entities. The conventional PAVN forces had to be defeated first, and held outside of the RVN before the counterinsurgency efforts could finally be completely victorious.

Keep in mind that the counterinsurgency efforts in Vietnam were ultimately successful. The VC were basically eliminated by 1972, the supports of the communists reduced to insignificant status by the end of the war... which was decided by a conventional invasion with masses or refugees fleeing the “communist liberators.”

I. If the primary war had been recognized as a conventional war between belligerents caused by a northern invasion of the RVN, it thereafter only required the addition of political will and the mobilization of the American public to be winnable. The military assets were available in RVN by 1968.... but the effort still would have taken until about 1972-4 for logistic and infrastructure reasons.

Following commitment of conventional forces, it took 3 years, from 1965 to 1968, to completely establish the logistic base, build the ports, roads, airfields etc., to support the conventional forces. When that effort was completed, the main forces of the PAVN were driven progressively out of the country into Cambodia and Laos.

The key moment for the conventional war came in Lam Son 719 ... the attempt by the RVN army to cut the Ho Chi Minh supply trail. The reaction of the PAVN forces who threw every available asset into the fight indicates they recognized the decisive nature of that thrust.

If significant American ground assets had been added to the RVN in that attack would have sealed the trail and the supply line to the main forces in the tri-border, Cambodia, etc. Regardless of your thoughts on the NVA, cutting off its supplies would have ended it as a fighting force.

After locking up the peninsula a la Korea, we should then have combined the decisive ground actions against the trapped NVA main forces with almost unlimited air campaign in the north... shock and awe ... complete with levees and especially mining the harbors. North Vietnam would have been faced with starvation and been unable to continue the conventional war for years.

(1) Holding and fortifying the line across the peninsula, the (2) elimination of NVA main force units next to III-IV Corp (limiting their logistical support through Cambodia), combined with (3) punitive air actions and aggressive ground actions up the trail, followed by (4) "Vietnamization" - building up and mobilizing RVN forces, would have won the conventional war. Only NVA large scale conventional attacks against the defense line would have had a chance of breaking through to RVN.. and these would have exposed the NVA to concentrated air actions.

Furthermore, there would be no chance of outflanking the line as the PAVN did to the French leading to Dien Bein Phu. The Mekong valley in Laos was (and remained) the provenence of the Royal Thai army and the Vietminh would have been hardpressed to logisically support the capture of that route. They would have been up against a hard ethnic and national frontier.

II. Early on, the “internal VC insurgency” should have been recognized for what it was ... a tool of the conventional NVA forces, not a truly home-grown rural uprising. The tools of the insurgency were typical ... terror, murder and destruction of civil facilities with the aim of diverting forces from the conventional war.

Once the outside conventional threat was contained, eliminating the internal “insurgency” would have been rapidly accomplished by internal RVN black police-type actions ... not the least because VC use of murder as a tool of control left a lot of pissed-off people.

In fact, the ultimate destruction of the internal “VC insurgents” was largely accomplished in 1967 and 1968, by the Phoenix program despite the continued periodic intervention of NVA main forces. (Do not underestimate the effect main forces intervention has on "hearts and minds. Recall what the conventional NVArmy did in Hue in 1968 and 1972 – killed 10 thousand people, many for simply being suspected of not supporting their ideology).

Essentially the Phoenix program established intelligence assets in an area, and then systematically assassinated - killed the supporters and the local Communists. The program worked because in even heavily populated areas, the committed communist insurgents were not numerous... it only took a platoon or two to terrorize a million people, a la the mafia.

Actually, absent the NVA intervention, the southern “insurgency” would have been relatively easily contained even without initiating a phoenix program. In 1963-64 it WAS contained and was being reduced to insignificance by strictly limited deployment of US special forces and MAACV personnel.

The PAVNs reaction to this containment was with a full scale invasion which led to the deployment of conventional US forces.

In summary,

The Allies could have won by breaking the supply line at Lam Son 719, and using unrestricted air power to limit the ability of NVN to continue the war. True the war on the static border, S. China Sea to the Mekong, may have continued for a number of years a la Korea... but increasingly Vietnamization would have run down the need for US ground forces relatively quickly.

The primary reason for the loss of South Vietnam was that US misunderstood the nature of the war, thinking it some kind of internal “war of liberation” rather than a slow-motion invasion from NVA. The US leadership, intelligencia, and the powerful press corps establishment – read Johnson and McNamara et. al. – never shook this misconception ... and

...as evidence of the power of the misunderstanding about the nature of the Vietnam war, we STILL see news programs and even individual commentators, including on this board, who somehow think the war was primarily an internal insurgency despite the evidence of the overwhelming conventional assault that overran RVN in 1975.

[zad]

By not getting involved.

[JJHH]

By not supporting Ho Chi Min during WW2?

[3rdMillhouse]

To all:

I saw these posts in another thread in this section:

OUGHT SIX

MANBERRIES

MASTERMIND

And it finally compelled me to ask: OK, given that we 'lost" the War in Vietnam, give me a strategy for "winning" it.

Let's define some terms here:

**Winning (to me) is either an independent and peaceful South Vietnam able to defend itself with modest US support (think S. Korea) or a united (and reasonably free and democratic) Vietnam--If you have a different definition of winning, please feel free to enlighten me.


I don't think you could have won, not with China and the USSR backing the north vietnamese and the vietcong. But I agree with such goals, those would be the definition of victory in Vietnam, and wish you guys had, but....

[Ghostrider_NL]

Nuke the **** out of them

[JJHH]

Nuke the **** out of them

A copy of that 1967 study, ``Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia'', has just been declassified, and lays out in terrifying detail what might have happened if the United States had used tactical nuclear weapons during the Vietnam war. The bottom line of the study is that the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam--to block the Ho Chi Minh trail, kill large numbers of enemy soldiers, or destroy North Vietnamese air bases and seaports--would have offered no decisive military advantages to the United States but
would have had grave repercussions for US soldiers in the field and US interests around the world.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2003/s031003.html

[USMCRTop]

Use Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian (sorry I couldn't resist :) )

[bigfootsf]

I remember reading an article several years ago by an ex-NSC staffer in which he advocated an amphibious assault by the U.S. and ARVN Marines at Vinh, during the Easter Offensive of 1972.

I've always thought this was interesting for two reasons.

1. It would have neutralized the conventional threat against South Vietnam. Taking Vinh would have caught most of the NVA south of the assault, and cut off their lines of communication and supply. The North committed virtually its entire army to the Easter Offensive. The implications are obvious, especially for '75.

2. By '72 -- indeed, after Tet -- PAVN was a spent force. With the conventional threat removed, the South could have worked on burying the insurgency in the south.

I think it could have worked. The South Vietnamese Army, by '72, actually had quite a few good units in it. (Perhaps "good" being a relative term.) It might have bought the government in the South a decade to enact political reforms and root out the remnants of PAVN.

The problem is, of course, there was absolutely no political will to introduce more troops to Vietnam, even moving them from Okinawa for the operation.

[Arnie100]

Nuke the **** out of them

Ya beat me to it!

[klong]

The USA did the best it could. They, and allies, persued an honourable cause.

But there was no way to win it, at that time. The commies promised (and later delivered) enough rice for the family. Nationalism, was also a decisive factor.

The West promised riches for the few, and poverty for the rest. If you did not agree with this idea, coercion made you irrelevant.

No way to win.

[LongTimeLurker]

I read somewhere a few years ago than, actually, US "won" the Vietnam War in the long run. If my memory serves well, the argument was there was a deal between the US and China in the early 70s; the US would leave Vietnam and the China would turn against USSR.
Since the US were already willing to leave Vietnam and the Russo-chinese relations were already bad, this deal seemed perfectly advantageous to both parties.

So they did, and the USSR was forced to strengthen both its western and eastern border, something it could'nt really afford, and in the end they lost the Cold War, and the whole Southeast Asia became as capitalistic as anybody. Sort of reverse domino theory.
Of course it's easier to see it that way today than back in 1968...

[LillaMy]

What was the goal in the long run? Give me a definition of done for the Vietnam war!

If I understand the agenda correctly it was to stop communism from spreading in SE-Asia i.e. the domino theory. Was the war effort even necessary? Was something accomplished by US interventions? Why didn't Thailand fall to communism?

Part from these questions...I think that the reason that US was forced out of Vietnam was a total failure in the media war. I remember seeing an intervju with General Giap who commented about the TET offensiv. Saying that when US broke the NVA offensiv in 68 the north was basically utterly spent. The ONLY resaon they didn't gave in was how TET was portraited in american media.

So say for instance that US would have landed two marine divisions on top of Hanoi right after TET and taken back the initiativ it could very well have ended in 69-70.

I guess we will knever know!
R.I.P to all casualties of the war!

[Dan2004]

Nuke the **** out of them

Nixon thought so too...

[jokuvaan]

Others here know a lot more than I but most striking element I think was the fear of open war with China and all consequences of that, meaning limited war area, meaning happy days for enemy supply system.

[sct1886]

I would have won it by never having to fight it. Woodrow Wilson should have listened to Uncle Ho in 1919. Harry Truman should have made it a U.S. protectorate when asked by Uncle Ho.

[Laworkerbee]

So much bloodshed could have been avoided if an open dialoge had taken place between the United States government and that of Vietnamese nationalists after the French had quit Indochina.

That and the cursed "Domino Theory".

[Creampuff]

Rambo would have won the war, no doubt.

What difference if any, would completion of the McNamara line have made ? And why start something they wern't willing to complete, seems telling of things to come.

[Stevey1]

Really interesting responses. Just from my novice historical appreciation:

I can never understand the argument that the US lost the war due to constraints. If memory serves, in certain actions of the conflict three tonnes of bombs were being dropped for every VC/NVA combatant on the ground. Staggering amounts of ordnance were dropped by US aircraft during the conflict. The 'bomb everything' argument seems close to that suggested by MacArthur in Korea in 1950/51 with regards to China and would have resulted in a phyrric vistory to say the least. The Soviets were ruthless in Afghanistan, but that extra ruthlessness did not prove decisive there.

Vietnam was always going to be a very, very hard action to win given the geography, demographics and complexity of facing communist conventional and unconventional forces. Combined with the unique social/attitude change occuring in the US/the West at the time and it was made even harder.
Failure to see the people of South Vietnam as the objective rather that inflicting huge casualties on the enemy seemed to hinder counter-insurgency for a long time. Others have mentioned poor SV leadership. I have read several soldier memoirs that have mentioned a focus on killing the enemy rather than protecting the people. The 'Zippo' raids seemed to point to a certain mindset that was set in conventional thinking.

I'd be fascinated to know how the US adapted to jungle warfare if anyone has knowledge of this? I know British teams would spends long periods playing insurgents at their own game in the jungles during the Malayan Emergency.

Anyway, my mainly ignorant back -of -a- fag-packet plan for US vistory would be:

1)Huge, consistant conventional pressure on North Vietnam. Sponsor unrest in that country if possible to create future bargaining chip.

2)'Ink-spot' strategy of ring-fencing SV communities at risk from VC infiltration. SV troops could be used defensively (freeing up US forces for offensive action where needed). Hopefully, the VC would be starved of support/supplies from 'gated' communities. Large use of unconventional forces in jungle to wrong-foor communists/form good ties with isolated populations with medical supplies etc. US tour-lengths would be increased to maintain experience levels/momentum.

3)As security is improved, purge of SV political/military leaders (political trust restoration effort).

It's good to hear that the heroic Vietnam vets are now being better treated than they were at the time in the States. They deserve utmost respect.

[USMCRTop]

I remember reading an article several years ago by an ex-NSC staffer in which he advocated an amphibious assault by the U.S. and ARVN Marines at Vinh, during the Easter Offensive of 1972.



That is correct.. On Okinawa in 1976, I attended Fleet communications school and one exercise was to write the Communications annex for that Invasion-our effort was then measured against the "real world' annex to that plan. It might have worked.

[Warden]

The Vietnam War wasn't lost militarily it was lost politically.

http://www.amazon.com/Unheralded-Victory-Defeat-Vietnamese-1961-1973/dp/0918339510

This book is a must for anyone wishing to learn more about the US war in SE Asia.

[Jacknola]

First - define victory. Jacknola - "Victroy in Vietnam" would have been achieved by preventing the Communist North Vietnamese for occupying the country, and by the subsequent development of a vibrant and free South Vietnam along the lines of South Korea. Please read the above statement three times.

3rdmillhouse - "I don't think you could have won, not with China and the USSR backing the north vietnamese and the vietcong. But I agree with such goals, those would be the definition of victory in Vietnam, and wish you guys had, but...."

Its so frustrating to keep dealing with these DNA embedded myths and basic misunderstandings of the nature of the Vietnam war. Please…. North Korea had the backing of both the Soviet Union and a million or so Chinese troops… and S. Korea stayed free. The same could have happened in Vietnam.

A defense line from the S. China Sea to the Mekong could have been shorter than the one along the 32nd parallel, and even harder to crack, and would have ended the war by making it static. BUT THIS REQUIRES THE ACCEPTENCE OF THE FACT THAT THE WAR WAS IMPOSED BY INVASION FROM NORTH VIETNAM. Once you accept this truth, then cutting off the North Viet access to S. Vietnam can be seen as decisive militarialy.

Klong – “But there was no way to win it, at that time. The commies promised (and later delivered) enough rice for the family. Nationalism, was also a decisive factor.

"The West promised riches for the few, and poverty for the rest. If you did not agree with this idea, coercion made you irrelevant.

"No way to win.”

You are unfortunately giving a classic illustration of the general widespread ignorance about the nature of the Vn war. Hearts and minds and rice were not decisive issues at all.

Are you aware that when the RVN was overrun, the government was supported by the largest majority of the RVN population ever… surely over 90 percent? And the flight of the refugees was 100 percent AWAY from the advancing Communist forces? The preferences of the population made no military difference… just as in France in 1940, it made no military difference that the French military was supported by 100 percent of the French people…

And furthermore… surely you jest about the communists delivering “more rice for all” than the capitalist system (WTF???)? That is the biggest laugh I’ve had lately. The Communists delivered more “re-education camps” for at least 2 million SVN, execution or death camps for hundreds of thousands, exile for another 2 million, and death to 25 percent of the population of Cambodia, and a hell of a lot less of anything else INCLUDING RICE.

Your dumbfounding statement about "riches to the few, poverty to the rest" flies in the face to the history of Communism in every country it has infected. Not one single ex-communists believes that Marxist-Leninist dogma you are spouting. Where did you go to school to learn to speak that discredited 19th century pabulum and jingoism ladden Orwellian babble?

SCT88s - "would have won it by never having to fight it. Woodrow Wilson should have listened to Uncle Ho in 1919. Harry Truman should have made it a U.S. protectorate when asked by Uncle Ho."

Huh? And Ho was not a committed communist, he was a nationalist …. Yeah, right… and pigs can fly… What is it that normal people cannot accept the actual written word of people such as Ho?

Laworkerbee - "So much bloodshed could have been avoided if an open dialoge had taken place between the United States government and that of Vietnamese nationalists after the French had quit Indochina.

"That and the cursed "Domino Theory".

Again.. huh? Do you not realize the goal of the Viet Minh, Ho, PAVN, VC, et. al., was a COMMUNIST takeover of Indochina? Do you not accept that Ho and his party was every bit a mainline committed communist movement founded in Paris and with the underpinnings of classic Marxist-Leninist dogma and slogans?

The whole long-ago proved myth about his overridding "nationalist” tendency was simply propaganda, similar to appologista propaganda about Castro, Mao, et. al. This was written and confirmed by many NVN sources before and after the war. The same "nationalist" tag was applied to Mao by the same well-meaning by foolish type people.

The domino theory was proved to be accurate in that all of Indo China fell to the communists. Fortunately the 10 year "strategic holding action" in Vietnam enabled the free world to limit the losses to the communists in the region by allowing time for governmental consolidation in Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. A North Vietnamese takeover of the South in... say ... 1964 would have led to total control of Indo-China and a strengthening of the communist control of Indonesia

Stevey1 - "Failure to see the people of South Vietnam as the objective rather that inflicting huge casualties on the enemy seemed to hinder counter-insurgency for a long time. Others have mentioned poor SV leadership. I have read several soldier memoirs that have mentioned a focus on killing the enemy rather than protecting the people. [WTF is this babble... you protected the people by killing the enemy for god's sake]The 'Zippo' raids seemed to point to a certain mindset that was set in conventional thinking." [GDI it was a freaking conventional war... what is so hard to understand about that?]

"I'd be fascinated to know how the US adapted to jungle warfare if anyone has knowledge of this? I know British teams would spends long periods playing insurgents at their own game in the jungles during the Malayan Emergency." [oh my g.... Malaya and Vietnam is like comparing a sand grain to a boulder... there were no main force divisions, equipped with tanks, 130mm mobile artillery etc. in Malaya]

JEEZZZZ……. The people of S. Vn were overwhelmingly for the government when the country fell. The requirement of the war was to FIRST defeat the invading NVA army. Isolating the SVN people from the invading army would have led the defeat of the communist effort to take over the RVN and to a viable South Vietnam as strong as South Korea.

THIS IS DEPRESSING - Apparently many people just cannot get their minds around the fact that the counter-insurgency portion of the war was minor compared to the conventional side. It’s like taking to a wall. For god’s sake look at the pictures of the allied military effort. Do you think that kind of military power was mobilized against light jungle guerilla units who were "digging their tanks and heavy artillery up out of rice fields at night", or driving them through those famous "tunnels?"

It is hopeless. Go ahead and believe the military myths about the insurgency nature of the war in Vn. You will be no different than much of the press and Johnson-McNamara government. BUT.. if you want to begin to understand, read two little thin books:

Summons of the Trumpet - U.S. Vietnam in Perspective by Col. Dave R. Palmer

and

On Strategy - A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War by Col. Harry Summers

[Hollis]

So much bloodshed could have been avoided if an open dialoge had taken place between the United States government and that of Vietnamese nationalists after the French had quit Indochina.

That and the cursed "Domino Theory".


Except for the global conflict call the cold war would not allow it to happen. Ho placed himself on the wrong side of the fence.

[Violet Fashion by Mindy]

Well not really. The political movement he led is still in power. It could be argued that he placed himself on the side of the fence that come hell or high water doesn't allow politics to dictate the running of a war and allows the war to be won at all costs and keeping his movement in power.

[Hollis]

Well not really. The political movement he led is still in power. It could be argued that he placed himself on the side of the fence that come hell or high water doesn't allow politics to dictate the running of a war and allows the war to be won at all costs and keeping his movement in power.


He was in the East's camp not the West's. The automatically sealed his fate with the West. It was all about politics. It is global not a single state conflict. There was no proletarian uprising, No popular rebellion, it was warfare with major armies, tanks, artillery, etc. SVN was defeated by a military power supported by all of the communist block countries.

Ask the Bac Biet (N-Viet-Nam) where is the flag of the Viet-Cong? What happened to the Viet-Cong when the Bac Biet conquered the South? You should read about the politics of the Bac Biet and how they viewed and used the South Viet Communist for their ends. The North threw the VC away in 1968.

The Viet Cong was betrayed and destroyed by the Bac Biet. In the end, the South Viet-Namese lost, the Viet Cong lost, the North Viet-Namese won.

[digrar]

Should have kept it a SF/AATTV war, let the Vietnamese win it for them selves, train and lead them, small patrols, lots of AO's, every AO dominated with patrols and ambushes so nothing could move without being compromised, or get into a village without being brassed up.
Add offshore fighter/bomber/casevac for extra get out of the **** support.

[TheKiwi]

Tet pretty much crippled the Viet Cong. A guy I know used to joke that after Tet, the Viet Cong consisted of 5 men and a dog. After that, the war in the south was pretty much entirely carried out by the NVA.

The invasion of 1972 showed what the ARVN could do with some airpower support from the US. The NVA sent divisions south of the DMZ and got back companies.

So to save South Vietnam, I'd say that a little US air support in 1975 would probably do the trick. Dropping (yet again) bridges into rivers (and mines into harbours) as a reminder of the costs of an invasion would have bought South Vietnam some more time. Airpower use doesn't seem to be seen in the same light as committing troops (witness Libya 1986 for example), so would probably be less politically damaging.

If they could be kept in the game until the big falling out between China and the USSR, the North Vietnamese would start to have bigger worries than invading the south. The big problem for South Vietnam would be surviving the Carter years. A South Vietnam that made it to 1981 would also have the benefit of the Reagan administration, whom certainly wouldn't have allowed it to fall.

In all likelyhood, a South Vietnam that survived into the 1980's would have undergone much the same economic transformation as Thailand, Indonesia etc have done.

[DasBoost]

Tet pretty much crippled the Viet Cong. A guy I know used to joke that after Tet, the Viet Cong consisted of 5 men and a dog. After that, the war in the south was pretty much entirely carried out by the NVA. The invasion of 1972 showed what the ARVN could do with some airpower support from the US. The NVA sent divisions south of the DMZ and got back companies.
So to save South Vietnam, I'd say that a little US air support in 1975 would probably do the trick. Dropping (yet again) bridges into rivers (and mines into harbours) as a reminder of the costs of an invasion would have bought South Vietnam some more time. Airpower use doesn't seem to be seen in the same light as committing troops (witness Libya 1986 for example), so would probably be less politically damaging.
If they could be kept in the game until the big falling out between China and the USSR, the North Vietnamese would start to have bigger worries than invading the south. The big problem for South Vietnam would be surviving the Carter years. A South Vietnam that made it to 1981 would also have the benefit of the Reagan administration, whom certainly wouldn't have allowed it to fall.
In all likelyhood, a South Vietnam that survived into the 1980's would have undergone much the same economic transformation as Thailand, Indonesia etc have done.

I was thinking along those same lines, but to allow the Vietnamese military history to be fluid and continue on into the 80's while retaining the same lineup of U.S. Presidents is what I get caught up on. If the media-war was already lost, imagine the domestic American political situation continuing into the 80's and so forth. Surely if both sides of that train of thought were carried on parallel lines, the lineup of American presidents could/would surely be different.

For the sake of carrying that line of thought onwards, what if the public opinion openly supported the conflict and the counter-culture movement was isolated or muted at best? What if the amphibious operations to cut off the NVA from its supply lines and infrastructure were successful? If the media-war could've been muted or checked and buy time for the real war to make more positive progress, things would have gone differently. Maybe not Barry Goldwater different, but different nonetheless.

Not arguing with you Kiwi, but just thinking aloud and offering some other thoughts/perspectives. p-)

[TheKiwi]

I agree with you that it is pretty damn hard to keep support for South Vietnam with the US political history it has. Watergate made pretty damn sure that there was almost no way that there could be any US support in 1975. How do you change that? Well maybe if the Watergate scandel broke a year later than in real life. You still have Nixon with a little political clout left, and no president in a political bunfight ever turned down a chance to look tough.

Cater makes it real difficult too. Look at what happend to Afghanistan in 1979 with only an Olympic boycott out of it. My opinion is that 1976 to 1980 are the real danger years for a surviving South Vietnam. You can be very sure that there will be no military training/cooperation from the US armed forces. Some of the ARVN units were by 1973 very good indeed, world class even, but the quality of the ARVN was rather uneven as borne out by the results of the fighting in 1975.

I would point out that South Vietnam never fell to a guerilla army. It took a conventional invasion with more tanks and trucks than the Wehrmacht had on June 22 1941 to take down South Vietnam.

[Laworkerbee]

The North threw the VC away in 1968

A very shrewd way to insure "Northern" administration of Vietnam when liberation was complete.

[DasBoost]

I agree with you that it is pretty damn hard to keep support for South Vietnam with the US political history it has. Watergate made pretty damn sure that there was almost no way that there could be any US support in 1975. How do you change that? Well maybe if the Watergate scandel broke a year later than in real life. You still have Nixon with a little political clout left, and no president in a political bunfight ever turned down a chance to look tough.
Cater makes it real difficult too. Look at what happend to Afghanistan in 1979 with only an Olympic boycott out of it. My opinion is that 1976 to 1980 are the real danger years for a surviving South Vietnam. You can be very sure that there will be no military training/cooperation from the US armed forces. Some of the ARVN units were by 1973 very good indeed, world class even, but the quality of the ARVN was rather uneven as borne out by the results of the fighting in 1975.
I would point out that South Vietnam never fell to a guerilla army. It took a conventional invasion with more tanks and trucks than the Wehrmacht had on June 22 1941 to take down South Vietnam.

I ran into the same conclusion... The other choices possible in the elections following Johnson and Nixon wouldn't have helped South Vietnam. I think Goldwater would have been the only one to really affect change in the conflict, especially had he not made the nuclear remarks and gotten into office. An interesting tidbit for those that saw the 'Daisy' ad with the little girl and the mushroom cloud: It was that one remark by Goldwater and that ad that sunk him. From the History Channel: "Although Goldwater discussed the possibility of using low-yield nuclear weapons to defoliate infiltration routes in Vietnam, he never actually advocated the use of nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese. Nevertheless, the Democrats easily painted Goldwater as a warmonger who would drop atomic bombs on Hanoi."He has stated that the American ground troops in Vietnam at the time were not fully supported and that the government was not prepared to go into North Vietnam and force a conclusion to the conflict.

[TheKiwi]

That could have been an interesting alternative, a full blown conventional invasion of North Vietnam during the 1960's. To be honest, it puts so many butterlies into the winds of history, I couldn;t even begin to guess where it would go. One question to ask though is what would the USSR's reaction be to the invasion of one of "their" satellites?

[Stevey1]

It’s like taking to a wall

Sir, you have my utmost respect and gratitude for your service in Vietnam. Just to address your arguments:



"I'd be fascinated to know how the US adapted to jungle warfare if anyone has knowledge of this? I know British teams would spends long periods playing insurgents at their own game in the jungles during the Malayan Emergency." [oh my g.... Malaya and Vietnam is like comparing a sand grain to a boulder... there were no main force divisions, equipped with tanks, 130mm mobile artillery etc. in Malaya]


I am fully aware that Malaya and Vietnam were completely different. You seem to have missed that I was asking a question about the history of how US teams operated in the jungle in the counter-insurgency effort, rather than making a statement on it.



it was a freaking conventional war....WTF is this babble... you protected the people by killing the enemy for god's sake


I don't remember Clausewitz framing war in these terms. I see you mention Summers' book, which led to the Weinberger Doctrine and was a force behind the development of Air-Land Doctrine. He certainly was very keen to frame the War in very conventional, Clausewitzian terms. It was always my understanding that many have come to see Summers' book as a re-assertion of the US and in that regards it's pretty controversial?

I shall have to seek out the other book you mentioned.

[budgie]

political correctness didn't exist in the 1960s did it?

[Jacknola]

Stevey1 - (note: maps included below) The Korea Solution
Re-reading your post, I can only assume that you either confused about the key issues in Vietnam, or are interested in tactical operations. Yet the original post asked how the Allies "could have won in Vietnam." Tactical operational changes would not have helped without a change in strategic direction.

Turning the war over to SF wouldn’t have solved the tactical issues because CIDG and RfPf forces could not fight the heavy NVA infantry units. A change from the adoption of the doctrine of "manuver and fire." back to "fire and manuver" would not have helped absent a change in objective and strategy. Fire and manuver gets more of your people killed ... which is against the objective of a strategy of attrition.

If I was abrupt answering your post, it was because of the frustration that comes from dealing with the myths and erroneous beliefs about that war. And what is worse, after 40 years these same myths are still presented as fact in just about every account of the war.

I am sick of reading the oft-encountered declaratives that Vietnam was an internal, small-unit, counter-insurgency, guerrilla-Mao-peoples war-based civil conflict that could not be won by the allies beause the hearts and minds, blah blah BS BS ... yet that is what is put forward by well meaning (and some not so well-meaning) but poorly informed people the world over.

Politically, Johnson and McNamara would not allow the military to fight the war in a way that would win (note: there are plenty of questions had need to be asked about the Allied military effort.. but they are secondary to the strategic questions). They insisted on "graduated response" in the air and "attrition" on the ground, seeking to cajole the Nvn into seeking peace. The NVn never wavered... every single bombing halt, or "pause," was used to reinforce the troops at the front.

Still, for all that the moment of victory did arrive after the Tet offensive defeat for the NVA and the destruction of the local VC levies.

The ARVN operation Lam Son 719 with heavy US participation could have eventually established a defense line from the S. China Sea to the Mekong. This would have cut off the NVA divisions in the tri-border and in Cambodia, shortened the line that had to be heavily garrisoned and defended by major conventional forces, and allowed the phoenix program to complete the destruction of the indigenous communists. That threat is what led the NVA to throw every asset they had into defeating the attack.

Johnsons vacillation, McNamara’s policy palsy and ego, and the press failure to see the war as it was, kept the Allies from attacking the enemy where they were the most vulnerable.

Here is a West Point map of the NVA 1972 offensive beaten back by RVN forces with aid from US air primarily. Note the 800+ mile front that had to be defended. Compare it with the 100 mile “front” that would have had to be defended if Lam Son had led to the establishment of a fortified zone along the 17th parallel. This could have lead to a Korean peace.... A map of Lam Son 719 is also included.

The Korean Solution

http://inlinethumb26.webshots.com/44889/2192471500103673033S600x600Q85.jpg (http://news.webshots.com/photo/2192471500103673033NBiHkR)

http://inlinethumb53.webshots.com/45428/2517109430103673033S600x600Q85.jpg (http://news.webshots.com/photo/2517109430103673033NRmVDY)

By the way... your comments on Summer's book are considerably off the mark in my view. His book contains no "justification" of Clatzwitz or doctrine applied to Vietnam at all. His book mostly dealt with strategic issues and its major impact lead to military input on policy and rules of engagement before committment. It probably was a linear anticedent of the Powell doctrine.

Your comments seem to me to be so at odds with the view of most thoughtful military men about that book that it makes me wonder if you actually read the book, or perhaps just read a review or synopsis of it?

A great many had/have a vested interest in promoting the view that the war could not have been won. If they admitted the truth to themselves, even in the dark of night, and their role in helping the communist were exposed, they would have to regard themseleves as traitors.

[Stevey1]

Jacknola;

Thank you for your post. Your comments and the maps are fascinating.


Re-reading your post, I can only assume that you either confused about the key issues in Vietnam, or are interested in tactical operations. Yet the original post asked how the Allies "could have won in Vietnam." Tactical operational changes would not have helped without a change in strategic direction.

That's my fault. I was typing in a hurry. Basically I was just asking as a side-note what the tactical experience of the US fighting irregulars in the COIN aspect of the war was like. I wasn't trying to argue about US tactics etc, I was just interested in the history. As you imply that should probably belong on another thread!



I am sick of reading the oft-encountered declaratives that Vietnam was an internal, small-unit, counter-insurgency, guerrilla-Mao-peoples war-based civil conflict that could not be won by the allies beause the hearts and minds, blah blah BS BS ... yet that is what is put forward by well meaning (and some not so well-meaning) but poorly informed people the world over.



I can imagine that must be really frustrating. I assume the Hollywood version of Vietnam must be greatly frustrating as well :-)


By the way... your comments on Summer's book are considerably off the mark in my view. His book contains no "justification" of Clatzwitz or doctrine applied to Vietnam at all. His book mostly dealt with strategic issues and its major impact lead to military input on policy and rules of engagement before committment. It probably was a linear anticedent of the Powell doctrine.

Your comments seem to me to be so at odds with the view of most thoughtful military men about that book that it makes me wonder if you actually read the book, or perhaps just read a review or synopsis of it?


Actually, I must admit that my knowledge of the book is from several academic articles (can't remember the authors!) that I read, which argued it was a re-assertion of what Nagl calls the traditional US 'way of war' in his book 'Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife':





‘When the United States finally did develop a national approach to the use of force in international politics, “the strategy of annihilation became characteristically the American way in war.” The American way of war is marked by a belief that the nation is at war or at peace; the binary nature of war leaves no space for political-military interface.’




Nagl referred to this US thinking as 'Jominian', binary in terms of military matters and politics, and stated that this was a bad thing in the context of Vietnam (and by implication post-Vietnam/ Summers-inspired doctrine). The articles I read basically argued that Summers' work erred too close to reaffirming the ideal of the 'absolute' in US warfare, moving away from the uncomfortable/difficult mixture of politics/warfare. Of course, most of these articles have probably distorted Summers' view, so I must get hold of a full copy of the book. My knowledge of all this is from a rushed paper I had to do on US military culture a good few years back, so obviously not ideal! :-)




I have never held military service and hold the highest respect for thsoe who have/do and am very grateful for your insight/correction.




In terms of the Korean solution: how long would the irregulars in the South be estimated to be able to offer resistance under this model?

[Jacknola]

Stevey1 - thank you for your thoughtful and insiteful response.

I highly recommend Summers' book. It is far from being Jommanian, as described in the review you quoted. And the book is quite thin... maybe 200 pages, but it will dramatically help define some of the issues... and some of the issues in Afghanistan.

What Summers did was define the cultural war-making attitude of the American people and what is required to make the people go to war, and stay at war. He was quite accurate on that issue and for someone to say it is a wrong attitude is to criticize not Summers, who elegantly described the issues, but the American public and American culture.

The relationship of the US military to the American public is a close and symbiotic one. It must be considered when America goes to war.

RE: Irregulars in the South. I assume you mean the Communist irregulars... we had our own "irregulars"... but about irregular warfare, remember the maxim: "to those who believe we should adopt the methods and weapons of the enemy, I remind how difficult it is to sting a bee.

The main force VC were destroyed in the Tet offensives (there were three of them, Feb., May, and July) in 1968. Thereafter the RVN finally began full mobilization (never actually completed). The Phoenix program had pretty much eroded the ability of the local irregulars to affect the miltary issues by early in the 1970s.

Though terrorism continued on a constantly diminishing scale, and the nusience of mines, harrassing attacks, assinations, etc., continued in certain locales, significant ideological support for the communist cause was basically finished by 1972.

Thereafter, the war was increasingly one conducted by the NVA regular army in toto.

Regards.

[TheKiwi]

Jacknola, do you think that the ARVN could have beaten back the 1975 invasion with a similar amount of support as received in 1972? And if so, would South Vietnam continue to require a similar level of support through the remainder of the 1970's? Especially if they withdrew to the line of defense proposed above.

I am still of the opinion that a South Vietnam that survived to 1981, would survive and prosper indefinately, much akin to South Korea, but it had to get through the 1970's first.

[Winger]

First and foremost, not have let the French back in. Uncle Ho may have been a communist be he was not a Stalinist until the French came back.

In the end, one can't go without placing the majority of the blame on the South Viet governments we supported. With coups and corruption that was never really brought under control it was destined to fail.

[TheKiwi]

You should read up on the history of the South Korean government. Coups and Corruption were it's motto right up into the 1980's.

Remember that the South Vietnamese governments downfall wasn't guerrillas in the countryside, it was a massive conventional invasion with thousands of tanks, artillery, trucks etc.

[Warden]

First and foremost, not have let the French back in. Uncle Ho may have been a communist be he was not a Stalinist until the French came back.

In the end, one can't go without placing the majority of the blame on the South Viet governments we supported. With coups and corruption that was never really brought under control it was destined to fail.

The French never left, the Indo chna conflict started in1946. GN Hal Moore has always said if the US had looked at the French involvemnet in vietnam they would never have got involved, but politics overides comon sense.

Jack Nola have you read Mark W Woodruffs book Unheralded Victory? Any Critique if you have.

[Winger]

The French never left, the Indo chna conflict started in1946. GN Hal Moore has always said if the US had looked at the French involvemnet in vietnam they would never have got involved, but politics overides comon sense.

Jack Nola have you read Mark W Woodruffs boom Unheralded Victory? Any Critique if you have.

They never left of their own accord but they were booted out after Japan rolled in.

[RevengeSeeker]

The USA did the best it could. They, and allies, persued an honourable cause.

But there was no way to win it, at that time. The commies promised (and later delivered) enough rice for the family. Nationalism, was also a decisive factor.

The West promised riches for the few, and poverty for the rest. If you did not agree with this idea, coercion made you irrelevant.

No way to win.

Post-1975 Vietnam was pretty much in famine until the economic reform in the mid 1980's.

I find this thread extremely interesting. I was prepared for "its all the pitiful ARVN's fault" posts but instead there turned out to be a lot of interesting and insightful takes on the matter.

[khoiey]

My dad was an officer in ARVN. After the fall of Saigon, he went to communist re-education camp for 8 years. NVA soldiers were telling him if Americans had continued the Hanoi bombings for just 1 more week (during Nixon), North VN would succumb to surrender.

When US forces drawn down, American congress choked the funds to armed ARVN. Hence, SVN lost.

VN was pretty screwed in the first place because it was really a political war between China, USSR and USA.

[TheKiwi]

Post-1975 Vietnam was pretty much in famine until the economic reform in the mid 1980's.

I find this thread extremely interesting. I was prepared for "its all the pitiful ARVN's fault" posts but instead there turned out to be a lot of interesting and insightful takes on the matter.

Can hardly blame the ARVN for falling to a greater number of tanks, trucks, artillery etc than the Wehrmacht had to invade the USSR. A number of ARVN units would have been regarded as world class - the paratroops, the Marines (not really ARVN but you know what I mean), the 1st ID. There just weren't enough of them to stop the juggernaut from the north, and the South Vietnamese economy was hard hit by the oil shocks of 1973-4 and couldn't support fielding a large enough army to stop it.

[Mastermind]

Most MP members know I was a VN vet, 1967 through September of 1968. 101st abn div. I fought mostly in the north aroud Hue.

But, this question has been a big one for me. I studied the hell out of the war over the last thirty years.

I have come to this conclusion as to the war. First...I seriously do not think the war was winnable in any understanding of the word "win". The history of the people and the geographic area leaves me with the firm conviction, this was simply something unique in warfare/politics. Tribalism, religion, politics, ethnicity, economy, and a thousand other considerations mixed into this thing to form a perfect soup that was to be digestible by the Vietnamese only.

So...the French and the US really should have left the damn thing fester to a point of bursting and to let the best side win. The "Domino" theory was just a bunch of anti-Commie crap cooked up to get the political game rolling to allow justification of spending...without much thought really as to the Vietnamese people and the suffering that ensued.

In fact, when you really take a close look at the North people, they were Communist in name and organization...but, it was such a special flavor of "communism" it was barely recognizable by the Soviets or the Chinese. It was really, Ho-ism. But, the West was just not going to see that.

The corruption in the south was something Al Capone would have envied. I read the history...in depth...and still am surprised at the outright blatancy of it. The west used this to their advantage..."Control the crook, you control the country"...to control the crooks, we had to be the biggest, baddest crooks...to the point of the US Ambassador actually ordering the assassination of the South king pin (President)...a really remarkable act of memorable disgrace.

Anyway…I could go on and on…I’ll spare you folks.

The best solution was to not get involved…as many have said here in this thread.

But, once involved…the goal being to stop the aggression of the North…there really is only one correct solution to that….to invade the North with a massive strike on land, well supported by every thing we had in our arsenal…which includes nuclear to thwart the Chinese threats of invasion.

I know. That so MacArthur-ian. But….militarily, that’s how you achieve your goals in war. You reduce the enemy will to fight. Casualties would have been high…world tensions would have escalated massively. It would have been terrible and swift. But, it would have been over in very little time….and it would (probably) have succeeded if it had been done at the earliest time. The Northern government was really not very strong in 1964…a well negotiated peace would have resulted…the US would have withdrawn immediately. Everyone would have been outraged. But, I think it would have resulted in a lasting resolution. At the first signs of the north re-invading…another invasion …and biting off more chunks of the North. Until they behaved themselves.

Yes…quite impossible at the time.

So…if that was impossible, the war we fought should have been as impossible.

The war we actually initiated should have been seen to have but one conclusion…the one it had in reality. It was a terrible mistake in t he first place and the crime was, each successive year, the powers in charge kept trying to save it with more idiotic fixes. It was like a Dr. Seuss story. There really was no way to fix it…it simply became a horror. It ended in the only way it could have ended.

Of course, there was one way of ending it…the one mentioned in the thread, “Nuke the North”. But, jeeze…realistically, that just was not going to happen and even if it had, the result would have made the US worse than the enemy they were trying to destroy.

The end was simply the “Dorian Gray” reflection of the beginning…an utter disgrace of pain, grief and stupidity. It was simply not winnable as "Win" relates to war.


In my personal opinion.

[skipperbob]

The only way for us to have "won" that war was to have stayed out of it!

[Mastermind]

The only way for us to have "won" that war was to have stayed out of it!
Thanks...you said it better than I did.

[TheKiwi]

...
The end was simply the “Dorian Gray” reflection of the beginning…an utter disgrace of pain, grief and stupidity. It was simply not winnable as "Win" relates to war.
...

A lot people at the end of the Korean War regarded that as "not won", yet today it is clear that the people of South Korea definately won.

If South Vietnam was in a similar position today, would you have regarded that as a win?

[Mastermind]

A lot people at the end of the Korean War regarded that as "not won", yet today it is clear that the people of South Korea definately won.

If South Vietnam was in a similar position today, would you have regarded that as a win?

Oh...most certainly. However, my point is that to get there, I just do not see how it would have been possible considering the contemporary circumstances.

One thing about Korea,, there was only one border to fight...Vietnam had several and they were all heavily vegetative and rugged,,,almost impossible to seal. The political situation was many times more complex.

Also, the complex make-up of the people...their numerous and very tangled alliances, economic situations, the many political and criminal elements that pulled and pushed them...

The whole VN situation was just a ragged mess.

I agree, there were probably many way to have "Won" to the favor of the South. But, those ways just were not achievable or humanly possible.

Turning the North into a parking lot was possible...but, wholly impossible politically. Look what happened after Nixon resumed the massive bombing campaigns....that worked, forcing serious negotiations for a time. But, the price was just beyond reason. And the North was clearly never goign to stop aggression...it would slow, it might even stop for a short time...but, those people demonstrated that as long as there were tow of them left to make another baby that would grow up to hold an AK-47, that war was not going to stop until the North achieved it's goals.

We, on the other hand, were never that motivated. So, the end was predictable...that is, so long as we were not going to invade with boots on the ground and be prepared to occupy a hostile people for eternity.

That's why I say it was ...or certainly should have been...obvious to anyone with savvy the best choice was to stay out of it.

[Jacknola]

Mastermind, it seems to me that you just answered the question, "how it could have been won" with an affirmative answer.

Why did South Vietnam have all those long, heavily forested, mountainous borders to defend? Oh gosh... it seems pretty evident that it was because the North Vietnamese simply ignored international frountiers and treated Indo-China as a whole..and had occupied much of Laos and eastern Cambodia.

But contrary to the North Vietnamexe, from the beginning the US treated Laos and Combodian territory as if it were made of glass... Oh.. we used some black ops, recon, and air, but never treated the Laotion-Combodian territory occupied by the North Vietnamese as enemy territory subject to war and offensive ground attack.

If we had, we could have isolated South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese army as thoroughly as the fortified 32 parrallel line sealed the Korean border. It would have proved much harder for the N. Viets to mass and supply a strong enough forceto break through a heavily defended line only about 100 miles long.

It was a political decision to allow the Laotian and Combodian santuaries, and it was McNamara's foolish ideas about "graduated response" that allowed the N. Viets over many years unopposed by opposing ground action, to build up their forces, lay the pipelines, build the roads etc., that supported the 1975 attack.

A fortrified zone from the S. China Sea to the Mekong would have allowed S. Vietnam to be another S. Korea powerhouse behind that shield. It was waffling and ineptness at the war-time top... Johnson and McNamara at the begining of the war. Later, after Tet, when Nixon first cleaned out the sanctuaries in Combodia and then wanted to cut the North Viets off in Laos in 70-71, the demo congress passsed a resolution prohibiting any US ground forces into Laos... thus Lam Son 719 went in without sufficient power to achieve the objective. First time in history a congress has tried to act like they were the CIC.

Mastermind, you accurately laid out the reasons S. Vietnam could not be defended... but in your post you did not acknowledge WHY those reasons were allowed to exist. BUT.. you did seem to hint that if those strategic geographic conditions were remedied, the war could have been won. And I believe that is the case to be made... it is true.

It was military folly and political wartime incompetence to allow the North Viets sanctuary in Cambodia and Laos, and an untouchable supplyline through those countries. The war WAS winnable.. and it would not have been a "expansion" to attack that supplyline because that part of Laos and Combodia were ALREADY occupied terrortory.

[Elfstone44]

Guess I’ll put my $.02 in. The President just made a speech about Afghanistan. In it he articulated several points about Vietnam which are simply erroneous but which are widely accepted in left as “urban legend”..i.e the war was unjust i.e. it was waged against a wide-spread insurgency..the Vietnamese people, that we had acted alone and without our allies, and that we basically were in the wrong. He is a bad historian but so is the ilk from which he learned. Look again:

.....-- The origin of the War: The war in the South was ALWAYS Northern/Communist aggression. the South Vietnamese Communist Party was ALWAYS/ALWAYS subordinate to the North Vietnamese Politburo..this was so from the very beginning..it did not change in 1954, 1964, 1975..when the Viet Cong flag, beloved by John Kerry, disappeared on the Ash heap of history. All you have to do is read the NVN press from 1954 on…there was NEVER an independent SVN communist party and NEVER an independent SVN “Liberation movement.” The agents of the NVN communist party were already in place in the South in 1954 and they would not allow anyone to be a “Vietnam nationalist” unless they were a communist subservient to the NVCP politbureau.

.....-- The nature of the War: This was a counter-insurgency right? a “guerilla war”? Wait a minute…what about the 19 NVA regular army divisions which took Saigon on 29 April 1975. Where did they come from? Thin air? What about those 130mm guns in Laos..the tank assault on Lang Vei. What about the 9th Route Army Division and its grinding fight against the US 9th Infantry Division in 1965-66..which went on for months. What about the NVA flamethrowers leveling villages defended by only Ruffpuffs? No the war was a conventional war masked in Mao’s “people’s war” clothing. But the legend of the "barefoot guerilla" and "hearts and minds" has continued to this day.

.....-- Belief in the inevitable: that there is nothing we could have done to win the war. Nothing except changing the minds of a few of the totlitarian 9 man politbureau in Hanoi…and that's who the war was directed against because the N.Vietnames people had no sayin anything...and I can think of a few things which could have done that).…

Here are a couple of ideas which could have helped change the NVCP's mind:

.....-- Obviously nuclear weapons would have annhilated NVN. But there were other options as well.

.....-- Level Hanoi: It took only 12 days of B-52 bombing in the Christmastide offensive 1972 as well as mining Haiphong Harbor to bring them to their senses.

.....-- Take out the agricultural system in the North...after all that's what they were doing in the south: They accused us for years years of bomging the Red River dikes..that was utter BS but it sure prevented us from actually doing it...which was absolutely justivied (by the way, the NVN press was exorting the people to repair those dikes, not from US bombing, or Jane Fonda sitting on an AAA gun on a dike, but from lack of maintenance of the same).

.....-- Cut the supply lines: Erwin Rommel said, “actions on enemy supply lines lead the enemy to break off offensive actions on the front” (paraphrased from “Rommel’s Papers” edited by B.H. Liddle Hart. Lam Song 719 led NVA to pull out 3 divisions in 1971 to eliminate the threat….think about it. We tied our hands and wrung them for 8 years when the solution was in our grasp.

Finally, our national objectives were..an independent and strong, democratic SVN able to resist the international subversion going on throughout the region…(and remember the war was just part of the 45 year WWIII…1946-1991…you cannot understand the slightest bit of world history during that period, be it the Olympics, race to the moon, competition in Africa..shooting wars, threatened wars, without understanding that for 45 years every square on the world chess board..student movements, intellectual property, poetry, Nobel Prize…whatever…was colored red or white!)

To this end we could have and should have won this war. Kennedy picked Vietnam rather than Laos in 1962 to make a stand because of its coastline…Lyndon Johnson adopted the first flawed strategy of "graduated response"…Nixon inherited a situation where his hands were tied…the Democratic Congress and American Press solved that problem by getting rid of him..then with apparent great pleasure handed over the freedom of Laos, Cambodia and SVN to the tender mercies of the Communists. The Killing Fields are the result and our great shame.

Yes the war could have and should have been won. We lost it for very specific reasons…We’ll lose Afghanistan for many of the same reasons (but add in the lawyer effect and a number of other mind-numbing refusals to articulate an "objective" and go for it)…and will lose more American cities as a result.

[khoiey]

Mastermind,

Don't worry, we won in the war in the present. Vietnamese communist government is now hugging the US imperialism like there is no tomorrow.

For example, Vietnamese government is now adopting English as second language. IE: They are changing Vietnamese driver's licenses to include Vietnamese and English even though their driver's license standard isn't made for international.

Many Vietnamese nationals are starting to use "OK", "playboy" and using other English words in media and in life. Quite funny that its government once idealized Americans and Vietnamese can never exist under one sky.


Most MP members know I was a VN vet, 1967 through September of 1968. 101st abn div. I fought mostly in the north aroud Hue.

But, this question has been a big one for me. I studied the hell out of the war over the last thirty years.

I have come to this conclusion as to the war. First...I seriously do not think the war was winnable in any understanding of the word "win". The history of the people and the geographic area leaves me with the firm conviction, this was simply something unique in warfare/politics. Tribalism, religion, politics, ethnicity, economy, and a thousand other considerations mixed into this thing to form a perfect soup that was to be digestible by the Vietnamese only.

So...the French and the US really should have left the damn thing fester to a point of bursting and to let the best side win. The "Domino" theory was just a bunch of anti-Commie crap cooked up to get the political game rolling to allow justification of spending...without much thought really as to the Vietnamese people and the suffering that ensued.

In fact, when you really take a close look at the North people, they were Communist in name and organization...but, it was such a special flavor of "communism" it was barely recognizable by the Soviets or the Chinese. It was really, Ho-ism. But, the West was just not going to see that.

The corruption in the south was something Al Capone would have envied. I read the history...in depth...and still am surprised at the outright blatancy of it. The west used this to their advantage..."Control the crook, you control the country"...to control the crooks, we had to be the biggest, baddest crooks...to the point of the US Ambassador actually ordering the assassination of the South king pin (President)...a really remarkable act of memorable disgrace.

Anyway…I could go on and on…I’ll spare you folks.

The best solution was to not get involved…as many have said here in this thread.

But, once involved…the goal being to stop the aggression of the North…there really is only one correct solution to that….to invade the North with a massive strike on land, well supported by every thing we had in our arsenal…which includes nuclear to thwart the Chinese threats of invasion.

I know. That so MacArthur-ian. But….militarily, that’s how you achieve your goals in war. You reduce the enemy will to fight. Casualties would have been high…world tensions would have escalated massively. It would have been terrible and swift. But, it would have been over in very little time….and it would (probably) have succeeded if it had been done at the earliest time. The Northern government was really not very strong in 1964…a well negotiated peace would have resulted…the US would have withdrawn immediately. Everyone would have been outraged. But, I think it would have resulted in a lasting resolution. At the first signs of the north re-invading…another invasion …and biting off more chunks of the North. Until they behaved themselves.

Yes…quite impossible at the time.

So…if that was impossible, the war we fought should have been as impossible.

The war we actually initiated should have been seen to have but one conclusion…the one it had in reality. It was a terrible mistake in t he first place and the crime was, each successive year, the powers in charge kept trying to save it with more idiotic fixes. It was like a Dr. Seuss story. There really was no way to fix it…it simply became a horror. It ended in the only way it could have ended.

Of course, there was one way of ending it…the one mentioned in the thread, “Nuke the North”. But, jeeze…realistically, that just was not going to happen and even if it had, the result would have made the US worse than the enemy they were trying to destroy.

The end was simply the “Dorian Gray” reflection of the beginning…an utter disgrace of pain, grief and stupidity. It was simply not winnable as "Win" relates to war.


In my personal opinion.

[Atlantic Friend]

They never left of their own accord but they were booted out after Japan rolled in.

Actually the Japanese maintained the Vichy French administration until March, 1945, and the French civilians remained.

[RevengeSeeker]

-- The War was a counter-insurgency war.. a “guerilla war”? Wait a minute…what about the 19 NVA regular army division which took Saigon on 29 April 1975. Where did they come from? Thin air?

I like this post. The clever commies apparently fooled the world..

[spirou]

My dad was an officer in ARVN. After the fall of Saigon, he went to communist re-education camp for 8 years. NVA soldiers were telling him if Americans had continued the Hanoi bombings for just 1 more week (during Nixon), North VN would succumb to surrender.

I read such ridiculous idea several times in oversea Vietnamese forums. Pls note that Air defend regiment no 276 which well equiped with C-125 missile (SA-3) arrived Vietnam by Dec 18 1972. If Americans continued, I dont know how much casualties they could bear. Moreover, did Soviet Union do nothing?

[Backpacker]

.....-- The nature of the War: This was a counter-insurgency right? a “guerilla war”? Wait a minute…what about the 19 NVA regular army divisions which took Saigon on 29 April 1975. Where did they come from? Thin air? What about those 130mm guns in Laos..the tank assault on Lang Vei. What about the 9th Route Army Division and its grinding fight against the US 9th Infantry Division in 1965-66..which went on for months. What about the NVA flamethrowers leveling villages defended by only Ruffpuffs? No the war was a conventional war masked in Mao’s “people’s war” clothing. But the legend of the "barefoot guerilla" and "hearts and minds" has continued to this day.
To quote Thomas Hammes in "the sling and the stone" on the historical revisionism, specifically of Col. Harry Summers On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War.


The common theme that comes out in all these writings...is south Vietnam was not defeated by an insurgency but rather by the conventional forces of a foreign nation.

Although the statement that we had destroyed most of the insurgents in South Vietnam is accurate, the interpretation that South Vietnam fell to a conventional, foreign invasion is not.
...
The idea that Vietnam fell to an invasion has great appeal, precisely because it simplifies the situation. It moves us out of the complex realm of insurgency and 4GM [4th generation warfare] into the relatively orderly and easy-to-understand realm of conventional war.
...
Reality
Although the conventional foreign invasion theory sounds convincing to an American reader, its fundemental flaw is that it reflects an American point of view. Viewing these events from an american point of view helps to understand what we did, but it obscures what the Vietnamese communits were doing and therefore what really happened on the ground. In contrast, the study of the war from a Viet point of view, using Maos model of a three-phased insurgency, clearly shows that the second indochina war was an insurgenct brought to its planned conclusion.
...
In his address...Ho summarized the viet minh revolution to date: "our party and government foresaw that our resistance has three stages. In the first stage... all we did was to preserve and increase our main forces. In the second stage, we have actively contended wit the enemy and prepared for the general counteroffensive. The third stage is the general counteroffensive."
...
During the late 1950's, different parts of vietnam were in different phases of the insurgency. This didn't worry Ho, because Mao had said this would be the case in virtually all insurgencies....For example, regular communist forces occupied north vietnam, the iron triangle, and portions of the highlands, which represented territory at the successful conclusion of phase III. These areas served as secure bases mao declared were necessary to prosecute phases I and II.
...
The entry of major US combat forces...shifted the correlation of forces back in favor of the south vietnames government. Unable to stand up to US forces in conventional combat, the vietnamese were forced to abandon phase III in most of the south and return to phase II. In areas of American concentration they were even forced to drop back to phase I.
...
The final phase III offensive... brought a communist victory int he second indochina war just as the campaign culminating in dien bien phu represented the decisive phase III success of the first indochina war. For the third time in as many decades, Mao's approach to war had triumphed.

History shows us that guerrilla war was not a seperate war we "won". Rather it represented phases I and II of a classic maoist insurgency

...

For the purpose of this study it is essential that we destory that myth. If we do not understand that the Vietnamese won using a variation of Mao's peoples war, we cannot see it as a logical progression in 4GW...south vietnam was not invaded by a foreign army but fell to the phase III efforts of a vietnamese insurgency

[Jacknola]

Re: Backpacker - "To quote Thomas Hammes in 'the sling and the stone' on the historical revisionism, specifically of Col. Harry Summers On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War."

Hammes has written complete and utter BS. The quote from that "book" has not one footnote, nor one piece of evidence to back up the extrodinary denial of the truth inherent in that man's screed. And the twisting and squirming of his logic, seeking to justify the end result, is obvious for anyone reading with a skeptical mind.

The invading Army was almost 100 percent the regular NVA. The same was true in 1972 when the S. Vietnamese ably resisted and turned back a smaller but full scale attack.

Only if you think that "peoples war" means "war by any means including armed invasion," and that "Vietnamese" means "any Vietnamese" and that "Phase III" means a full scale armored army attack on a country that doesn't want what you are offering, can you accept Hammes' justification for his own criminal complicity.

I can understand why he wrote this. He was either a committed communist, or he is a dupe, in denial of the atrocities commited by that ideology. To accept the truth about Vietnam's capture, would mean that by his personal actions, he is justifying the murder of millions and the enslavement of tens of millions.

GDI... words mean something. To follow this duped mouthpiece's logic, the German attack on the Soviet Union was simply "Phase III" of the Nazi revolutionary warfare doctrine.

If you are going to post in this line, but cannot tell the difference between propaganda and scholorship, then you should just STFU. To post gratuitous scribblings and rantings from the unconciousable far left wing is akin to being a troll.

If you are willing to accept this type of BS, you must be willing to accept the consequences of that action.

[Mastermind]

Good post Elfstone...

I am not convinced the war VN "Police Action" or Anti-Guerrilla War was winnable in the context of the political situation of the time, both in USA and S. Vietnam....and basically, the World.

Let me take the problem of "Winning" to the ultiame denominator. To win that war against that particular determined enemy, we (US and SVN forces and politic) would have had to start all over from scratch.

It is as if you build a house on a rotten or infirm foundation...no amount of upper structure remodeling is going to make a viable house. It is also, as far as the ground situation is concerned, rather like fighting a totally invasive cancer...one that has metastasized throughout the body. You can not cure the disease without killing the patient...remember the often quote (although a lie) statement by an American officer who supposedly said, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

The South was badly infested with corruption at just about every level. The North was more determined than ever to press it's attacks regardless of casualties and material losses. The North also presented a brillian propaganda campaign and, according to every press report of the day, was firmly united on the justification and objective of the war...the West was not. At home, we could hardly have been more disconnected...we had collapsed morally. In fact, I believe the south was suffering a serious malaise of determination and fortitude...an indifference about the outcome seemed to be expressing itself by the high numbers of civilian emigrations and military desertions. The farmers kept right on slogging behind their water buffalo and would regardless of communists or capitalists. "Freedom" was a vague concept that very few Vietnamese had...and had never had in their whole lives. They were very clannish people...and often had terrifically low regard for each other...vendettas from region to region, village to village still raged. And, their racial hatred made the US racial problem seem very mild by comparisons.

In order to "Win" in this caustic atmosphere, many actions would have to take place that were simply abhorrent to western beliefs systems. The west simply was never going to impress the people of the South without highly draconian methods..some of which would have honored Adolph Hitler.

Essentially, removing all freedoms for a time, isolating many tribal groups, allowing communists to take over vast parts of the country (luring them into traps, then killing them wholesale)...and, without any doubt, invasion with boots on the ground in the North, and suffering the ensuing casualties....but, with as much grit and determination to win as the US forces displayed against Japan in WWII.

Those things were simply not possible at the time.

As a result, the war was carried forward in the only way possible. The west was more concerned with appearing to be the "nice" guys than "winning" the war against a cold blooded, fiercely determined enemy. and, I have no question that the war would have been forced to the furthest corners of the Norther borders...even up against the Chinese. Victory there would have been a close imitation of the Victory against the Germans in Europe...to the last General, to the last Major...to the last private.

Then what?

Were we prepared to supervise the ensuing peace? If we are now having so much trouble with insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan...that is nothing compared to the constant harassment we would have suffered from the North Vietnamese Government in Exile, rushing in from the Chinese and Laotian sanctuaries. How much further were we willing to go?

It would have been like completely rebuilding your car because the tail light was broken. The cost of such an occupation/supervision would have been far beyond anything the US was going to be willing to spend....in fact, I believe the majority of all US military forces would have had to focus on Vietnam alone....for decades.

This is why I say it was un-winnable. Also why, I believe Ho Chi Min saw the conclusion as coming out in their favor if they just held on and stayed unified and focused. It was like a chess master seeing the inevitable conclusion of a chess game fifteen moves before the end. He knew...and our military leaders knew, and most of the Presidents involved knew....I think Johnson knew, most certainly McNamara knew. I think one of the main resons Johnson did not run for a second term was becasue he did not want to face the inevitable conclusiuon...that American forces would ultimately leave S. Vietnam, and that the American congress would ultimately pull the plug, leaving the south to be overwhelmed....a highly disgraceful outcome that probably could have been predicted at the very beginning.

I just do not see any other outcome for that war, at that time, in that place.

[Elfstone44]

To quote Thomas Hammes in "the sling and the stone" on the historical revisionism, specifically of Col. Harry Summers On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War.

Hooo booooy, Man that is Rich, took my breath away for a minute.

You mean to say that all the works on fighting NVA (PAVN) are fiction? The 1972 seige of An Loc when SVA rangers withstood 17,000 rounds a day is a lie? The fighting around Khe Sanh in 1968, Duc Lap in 1968, Ia Drang valley in 1966 is all a lie? The 1968 NVA atrocities in Hue is a lie? The whole "White Star" campaign in Laos from 1962-75 was a lie? The 1975 assault on Saigon was a lie? That Lam Song 719 was beaten by by Southern irregulars? Holy mackeral..that's some serious lying going on.

Tell you what, sonny, try opening two books authored by your precious North Vietnamese:

.....Our Great Spring Victory,: by Gen. Van Tien Dung, Chief of Staff, Vietnam People's Army. 275 pages and he doesn't mention the Viet Cong (SVN communists) ONCE.
.....The Sorrow of War, by Bao Ninh....goes deeply into the committment of men and material into the South.

Then to continue your reeducation, open just about any book...Start with these:

.... Summons of the Trumpet by LTG Palmer.
Check out S.L.A.Marshall's books,
.....7 firefights,
.....Battles in the Monsoon,
.....West to Cambodia.
Oh hell, go read some popular history such as
.....We Were Soldiers Once and Young (Ia Drang Valley).

There are a few Vietnam vets on this board who can tell you who they were fighting. I can assure that when I got to A-233 Ban Don in November 1966, just NW of Ban me Thout, the camp had only opened in August 1966, we had already destroyed the 20 or so VC infrastructure in the area in about one month...all/all the fighting afterwards was against regular NVN troops. I can assure you that those cross-border missions into Laos I ran in 1968 were targeted on the PAVN, not VC, Or are you calling me a liar?

You know, I realize now I'm wasting my breath. You really are a lost cause, a dinosaur that even present day North Vietnamese ordinary citizens would have a hard time accepting or understanding. You do know the Cold War ended in 1991 with the blowing apart of the Soviet Union and that communism has been consigned to the ash heap of history, don't you?

Tell you what, try taking off the Red Tinted glasses. They might be good for prepariing you for night vision (an apt description of that debased economic/political system) but it doesn't do anything for your historical perpescuity.

[RevengeSeeker]

To quote Thomas Hammes in "the sling and the stone" on the historical revisionism, specifically of Col. Harry Summers On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War.

He's over-complicating a pretty straightforward situation..

Ask any Vietnamese from that war what the difference is between a VC and a NVA and they'll tell you there is no difference. They all knew from the start as soon as they met the VC that they were Northerners in disguise. Any Viet can tell whether another Viet is from the North or the South just by hearing the way they speak (its almost completely different). This is the "Viet point-of-view".

The non-Viet point of view would be saying those northern speaking VC's were actually southern insurgents... that would make absolutely no sense to a Vietnamese..

Of course obviously there were gonna be some southerners later on who would fall to the 'great' ideology of communism and its propaganda's...

[spirou]

He's over-complicating a pretty straightforward situation..

Ask any Vietnamese from that war what the difference is between a VC and a NVA and they'll tell you there is no difference. They all knew from the start as soon as they met the VC that they were Northerners in disguise. Any Viet can tell whether another Viet is from the North or the South just by hearing the way they speak (its almost completely different). This is the "Viet point-of-view".

The non-Viet point of view would be saying those northern speaking VC's were actually southern insurgents... that would make absolutely no sense to a Vietnamese..


From the begining of the war to 1968, most VPA members in the south are southerners, for example, the battle of Ap Bac 1963. There are 3 unit in the battle:
- 1st Company, battalion no 514, commander: Nam Diep
- 1st company, battalion no 261, commander: Bay Den
- local platoon from Chau Thanh district

Commander Bay Den was born in Long Chau ward, Chau Thanh district, Vinh Long province. Other soldiers like: Do Van Trach was born in Binh Dai ward, Ben Tre province; Nguyen Van Dung: Cao Lanh, Dong Thap province; Hung: Hung Dien, Long An province...

And many more soldiers are all southerners, wanna make clear, pls go to Cai Lay district, Tien Giang province.

Since 1968, southerners were disappointed, exhausted and felt totally hopeless about the future, therefore, they gradually were replaced by northerners.

[TheKiwi]

Since 1968, southerners were disappointed, exhausted and felt totally hopeless about the future, therefore, they gradually were replaced by northerners.

They were mostly dead, thanks to orders from the north to take positions and hold them at all costs during the 1968 Tet offensives.

[Elfstone44]

From the begining of the war to 1968, most VPA members in the south are southerners, for example, the battle of Ap Bac 1963. There are 3 unit in the battle:
- 1st Company, battalion no 514, commander: Nam Diep
- 1st company, battalion no 261, commander: Bay Den
- local platoon from Chau Thanh district

Commander Bay Den was born in Long Chau ward, Chau Thanh district, Vinh Long province. Other soldiers like: Do Van Trach was born in Binh Dai ward, Ben Tre province; Nguyen Van Dung: Cao Lanh, Dong Thap province; Hung: Hung Dien, Long An province...

And many more soldiers are all southerners, wanna make clear, pls go to Cai Lay district, Tien Giang province.

Since 1968, southerners were disappointed, exhausted and felt totally hopeless about the future, therefore, they gradually were replaced by northerners.

They were still subject to the directives of the North Vietnamese Politburo. They were no more "independent" than the Norweigen SS volunteers were in WWII. They would allow no "nationalists" to exist in either North or South Vietnam except those under the command of Ho Chi Minh. Southern origin or no...they were still puppets.

[Mastermind]

He's over-complicating a pretty straightforward situation..

Ask any Vietnamese from that war what the difference is between a VC and a NVA and they'll tell you there is no difference. They all knew from the start as soon as they met the VC that they were Northerners in disguise. Any Viet can tell whether another Viet is from the North or the South just by hearing the way they speak (its almost completely different). This is the "Viet point-of-view".

The non-Viet point of view would be saying those northern speaking VC's were actually southern insurgents... that would make absolutely no sense to a Vietnamese..

Of course obviously there were gonna be some southerners later on who would fall to the 'great' ideology of communism and its propaganda's...


I have some issue with that. From my point of view, anyway. Fighting VC was really different than fighting NVA. Of course, I only fought for a few months down south, through the Tet offensive...I was just north of Saigon at Song Be....there, we encountered first class NVA units....before Tet, December of '67, we were mostly reacting to VC ambush and hit and run tactics.

After Tet, up north around Quang Tri and Hue, it was all NVA...never any sort of VC contact at all.

Now, I will give that we may have been fighting NVA dressed as VC....but they fought much differently as guerrilla forces and rather disorganized. As uniformed conventional forces, NVA were very tough opponents, well disciplined, organized, well trained and well equipped...equipped uniformly, too...not with rag-tag scrounged weapons.

If the VC were just NVA in different clothing, I would have to say, they were very differently trained, led and equipped...not the same at all.

From this one soldier's point of view, that is.

[RevengeSeeker]

You are absolutely right and I completely agree. I am sorry I was not very clear. Of course I’ve heard of US vets’ stories from Hue about how encountering fully uniformed/equipt NVA was a completely different experience from normal VC. Honestly I am in no position to say how the VC really originated, whether they really were originally Northerners sent into the south in ‘54 or just really just a bunch of native southern insurgents, but the general impression of the VC by southern Vietnamese at that time were Northerners coming into the south and recruiting people (via persuasion or as an ultimatum). So the people you fought probably really were a bunch of southern Viets with no real military training but were just ordered around by higher ranks who were probably NVA or had a few disguised NVA among them just to make sure they carry out what they were supposed to do.

I wasn’t trying to say every VC was a Northerner (but now that I reread my post I realized I was apparently saying just that). In fact I actually know a lot of good friends in Saigon today who say they fought for the VC. The VC recruited a lot of people. I just think the recruiters were Northerners and most of the ones actually doing the insurgency were the southern recruitee's . Of course that's just my take on things and apparently there's quite a few books I've read which contradict what I think and state the VC were indigineous to the south and was a unique party in its own right.

If this makes what I'm saying even more confusing... please forget I ever posted. I was mainly just trying to agree and support Elfstone44's post "the South Vietnamese Communist Party was ALWAYS/ALWAYS subordinate to the North Vietnamese Politburo..this was so from the very beginning..".

[Mastermind]

^No problem...your point of view from the in-country position means a lot. MM

[Hollis]

MM, yes VC were very rare around Quang Tri in '69. The KCS, that I worked with was VC from Quang Tri Area. I had the chance to meet his family.


Just adding to what everyone has said, the VC, for all practical purpose was no more after Tet '68.

[minotaur161]

To win the war in Vietnam all the United states and her allies had to do was dig in, perservere and to keep the pro war movement in power, ie keep the people at home in support of the cause and back their politicians. But then again insurgencies seem endless, the pros and cons are weighed up, the is it worth the lifes of our men and women worth it, question pops up again and again. Build the countries infra structure, win hearts and minds, keep casualties to a minimum and control outbursts of indiscriminate violence against civilians, (ie, units with poor discipline). The Americans, Australians, New Zealanders R.O.Ks and others effort seemed to win almost every major battle and skirmish of the war yet failed to win overall, the South Vietnamese contributed to many of these actions, as the Americans started to pull out the South Vietnamese actually started to perform at it's best but by this stage it was already too late..

[Atlantic Friend]

1965 Mine Haiphong harbor Immediately, announce exclusion zone for Military goods- ENFORCE IT.

Immediately destroy all North Vietnamese Airfields, Rail Heads, Port facilites for heavy Equipment

Indeed. Allowing an enemy sanctuary to prosper, that nullified almost every effort made to win the counterinsurgency war in the South.

[Hollis]

Counterinsurgency war was more myth than reality, Divisions of NVA with tanks and artillery is not a counterinsurgency, it is a effin war. It was the HOT part of the cold war. It was West Vs East. Amazing that most of the logistics of the war is not known. A agreement was made that all outside parties would leave North Viet-Nam and South Viet-Nam alone. The West honored that agreement the East did not. After about 2 and half years the North with full support of the communist block counties was able to over run South Vietnam in a conventional war.

A good read:

http://www.25thaviation.org/johnkerry/id27.htm


If the West lost anything is was the propaganda war.

[Murray B]

I'm sorry but I can see no way for there to have been a much better outcome in Vietnam. It is not a problem with the military but a political one. The U.S. military was asked to achieve victory buy applying precisely equal and opposite force to the enemy's. The force had to be limited to avoid escalating the conflict to include the Soviets and or China. So how does anyone win a tug of war by using a force that is exactly equal to that applied by the opposing team?

Nuclear weapons were not really an option. A single tactical nuke would most likely have resulted in a catastrophe. At the time the only defence against ICBMs was to destroy them in their early boost phase. So as soon as the tactical weapon detonated the Soviets would immediately try to destroy the U.S. strategic missiles and the U.S. would almost certainly do something similar. Of course back then each side only had a few thousand strategic weapons and not the tens of thousands that were built later.

What might have helped in Vietnam was if more of the other 150 or so countries in the world would have taken a stand against Communist expansion. It has always been a mystery to me why the U.S.A. seems to be the only contry that actively promotes democracy. Everybody else seems to want it but nobody wants to do anything to preserve it. Very strange, that.

[Niall]

What might have helped in Vietnam was if more of the other 150 or so countries in the world would have taken a stand against Communist expansion. It has always been a mystery to me why the U.S.A. seems to be the only contry that actively promotes democracy. Everybody else seems to want it but nobody wants to do anything to preserve it. Very strange, that.


300,000 South Koreans, 10,000 Phillipino, New Zealand and Thai, 49,000 Australians fought in Vietnam.
Truth is of course that in retrospect it was a pretty pointless war against nothing more than a political party in an insignificant part of the world. The North Vietnamese had the will the fight the war whilst the USA did not. The only way it would have been won is if the people in the USA were ready for death rising as fast as WW2.

[TheKiwi]

The Guerrilla war in Vietnam was won in 1968, when the North sacrificed the Viet Cong. After that, the Viet Cong faded away to nothing and the remainder of the war was fought against the North Vietnamese. South Vietnam managed to defeat with Northern invasion of 1972 with some air power assistance from the US. Had that been available in 1975, they could and would have done it again. A willingness to risk some pilots and planes is not exactly uncommon, and had Washington not been distracted/destroying itself over Watergate, it may well have been supplied. What South Vietnam didn't need (anymore) was troops from all over the Western world, it needed a guarantor of it's territorial integrity, something that the US had agreed to in 1973, but then forgot.

[Russian_dude]

The biggest waste of the V War is that the South was FAR from democratic and today's "commie" Vietnam looks like South Vietnam anyways, with lot's of capitalism. So yes. Vietnam War was a complete and utter waste of human lives and money. Although I understand the logic of fighting it back in the day.

[KoTeMoRe]

3 points:

1. All wars are political struggles first and foremost.
2. Failing to grasp 1 one will lead to the handing of literal freebees for the targeted insurgency.
3. You cannot win wars without internal transparency. In a theoretically "free and peaceful" society that means you will have to reveal a gruesome truth that ultimately will choke your efforts.

Now more on the case.

The Vietnam war was a proxy war coming right on the heels of the decolonization process. The very process was left on the hands of an inept clique relying massievely in their french habits with a very firm "class-oriented" mind. This meant that from the start the very government you had to rely on as your "happy face" was the very cause you were entangled.

Added to that the very ignorance of the situation both historical (diachronic) and synchronic and you were in for a rough ride. There were so many points the Us shouldn't had overlooked. To me the bombing campaigns of 1967 and 1972 were wrong and a real disaster (especially after Lacoste revealed the actual goal of both of them).

Off course, the same can be said about others 15 years later...

[Jurinko]

Interview with NVA general sums it up well:

http://www.grunt.com/scuttlebutt/corps-stories/vietnam/north.asp

Q: How could the Americans have won the war?

A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.


Sea routes were closed and Laos was not that wide. You were killing ants, instead of closing the hole they were coming from.

[AS50]

one wepon eas not mentioned here. you "lost" the war because of the media!
your soldiers where doing good job, the VC failed on all major operation, but your left-wing media removed the justification and believe carpet from under each soldier personally, and that gave such hope and back wind to the VC, and all they had to do is keep the scarmishing and wait more or less.
so my opinion? you had to win home first in order to fully win. end of 80's i visted there, and i had an intresting talk with someone that was high rank then (old guy) and he told me that if continue few months more they had lost the whole campain. i dont know i was not in that war so i cant judge his words, but i was watching the news, and that strucked me then and today.... just humbel opinion

[Kiwi1691]

**Winning (to me) is either an independent and peaceful South Vietnam able to defend itself with modest US support (think S. Korea) or a united (and reasonably free and democratic) Vietnam--If you have a different definition of winning, please feel free to enlighten me.

Interesting, don't forget that before the war the US helped the South become a brutal dictatorship that was led by a man that based himself on Hitler.

One of the best sources on the disgusting American intervention in Vietnam has to be john pilger. Or as I like to call him the thinking mans journalist.

http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=72

http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=76

[TheKiwi]

Hey we go again. 19 and you know everything. Didn't you learn your lesson from your last suspension. I predict that your next one isn't far away. And as for Pilger, the best friend the Khmer Rouge had.

[Mastermind]

Interesting, don't forget that before the war the US helped the South become a brutal dictatorship that was led by a man that based himself on Hitler.

One of the best sources on the disgusting American intervention in Vietnam has to be john pilger. Or as I like to call him the thinking mans journalist.

http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=72

http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=76

Yes...the VN war (US era) was rift with intrigues. However, it was so from the very beginning of the VN history. They have always been at war with their neighbors and themselves. The French, in their own silly way, seem to have managed to bring on the longest era of peace the country ever knew. Let us not forget the terrible atrocities committed by the communists and other revolutionaries all the way back to the time of the pre-Japanese occupations. What they did in Hue was beyond belief in cruelty. I saw the aftermath with my own eyes...it was pretty damn bad and obviously deliberate. If you are a serious student of the French/US war effort to stop the communist takeover, then you will know the truth of these atrocities and also understand why the allies had to make bedfellows of some pretty unsavory characters in SVN. Just as Ho had to make some disgusting deals with the communists to get help on his side. He objected many times to the outrages against the people...particularly the purges in the north...but, he was basically helpless to stop them. War breeds it's own mental illness on the participants...it degenerates humanity to gradual acceptance of misery and inhuman behavior..forcing people into an animalistic mind set. To set at a computer in a nice safe room munching on a Big Mac and criticize what happened is easy. What is hard and yet necessary to really get a grasp of what happened is to try to set your mind into the mode these people (all participants) were in at the time. It's not really possible...I know...but you should try to understand things from their points of view at the time and understand the massive pressures they were under.

[ColinP]

If I recall correctly Chin Peng in his book talked about hearing the Chinese plans for SE Asia and there was a domino theory put forward in Bejing at the time, in fact they were annoyed with the Malay chinese as they felt the insurrection was premature.

[budgie]

John Pilger argues in Distant Voices that the US did win in Vietnam. The Domino effect was stopped; SE Asia did not become communist. At the cost of letting the South Vietnamese Junta collapse, they ended the movement. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, never fell to communism which was the great fear.

[Russian_dude]

Interview with NVA general sums it up well:

http://www.grunt.com/scuttlebutt/corps-stories/vietnam/north.asp

Q: How could the Americans have won the war?



A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.


Sea routes were closed and Laos was not that wide. You were killing ants, instead of closing the hole they were coming from.


Even if they did cut the trail... The US would still have left one day and the NVA got back to business.

[Russian_dude]

John Pilger argues in Distant Voices that the US did win in Vietnam. The Domino effect was stopped; SE Asia did not become communist. At the cost of letting the South Vietnamese Junta collapse, they ended the movement. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, never fell to communism which was the great fear.

If there is one thing that the asians hate more then the gaijin... it's the other Asians. Commy Khmer Rouge fought with commie Vietnamese and the pinko god-hating Vietnamese fought with the commy Red Chinese who fought with Red Soviets who killed other commmys they didn't agree with who were in opposition to commys in Yougoslavia etc.

Cambodia is not commy today... but would it have been worse off if they were? Who do you think lives better, Commy Vietnam of Indonesia?

[condorlp2006]

He was in the East's camp not the West's. The automatically sealed his fate with the West. It was all about politics. It is global not a single state conflict. There was no proletarian uprising, No popular rebellion, it was warfare with major armies, tanks, artillery, etc. SVN was defeated by a military power supported by all of the communist block countries.

Ask the Bac Biet (N-Viet-Nam) where is the flag of the Viet-Cong? What happened to the Viet-Cong when the Bac Biet conquered the South? You should read about the politics of the Bac Biet and how they viewed and used the South Viet Communist for their ends. The North threw the VC away in 1968.

The Viet Cong was betrayed and destroyed by the Bac Biet. In the end, the South Viet-Namese lost, the Viet Cong lost, the North Viet-Namese won.

Really ? It's not the primary pointview of VN people, through 4000+ years, we are one nation, despite we have 54 brother peoples !
We are one, not a united state, not a federal,... !
I's born in Tien Giang, a province in SVN 1987.

[condorlp2006]

But I belive US'd have never won, gotten their goals on VN; because they never understand our history, our cultural.
I, in the depth of my heart, i hope the peace forever for Viet Nam and the world.
We are a small country, 4000+ years, we fought again the expansion of China to protect our freedom.
In our culture, freedom for the country 's upper the personal freedom.
US go here and want to be ruler, no way, we will fight, they must get out as Chinese.
But, US go here, wanna make friend, OK !, we are friend.
I hope anny American and anyones have not understand, travel to VN, you will see VNese love peace and so friendly.
We not forget, but we not hate American althought the bloody wars . I belive it 's the criminal of US goverment, not American.
That's one of the keys why we servive, develop despite we 're neighbour of China- a huge empire through thousands of years.

[Svetauterce]

You cant avoid a bad beat and they happen all too often it seems. You already have a really good hand and you think youve already won -- that is the most dangerous part about all of this. The best advice is to pay attention to what comes out on the table and how your opponents have been playing.

[Mastermind]

one wepon eas not mentioned here. you "lost" the war because of the media!
your soldiers where doing good job, the VC failed on all major operation, but your left-wing media removed the justification and believe carpet from under each soldier personally, and that gave such hope and back wind to the VC, and all they had to do is keep the scarmishing and wait more or less.
so my opinion? you had to win home first in order to fully win. end of 80's i visted there, and i had an intresting talk with someone that was high rank then (old guy) and he told me that if continue few months more they had lost the whole campain. i dont know i was not in that war so i cant judge his words, but i was watching the news, and that strucked me then and today.... just humbel opinion

I agree. However, the media in the US is a reflection of how the people are thinking. It is true, there were a great many communist leaning and sympathizing journos. But, overall, when the government of Johnson failed to come up with a decisive and realistic plan to "win", and fell into the folly of micromanagment of the military actions, the public really started to turn on the whole war project.

In the US, the people have got to have some faith that the government is doing a good job...not necessarily and excellent job...of playing lives into the war grinder. The people must believe there is a just reason for the cost in both blood and treasure. Eventually, it was clear, Johnson and Nixon both were not quite serious enough about a victory. Status quo was just not going to ever show a worth-the-cost at the end of it all.

This of course, let the media heathens open a gap between the government's credibility and the thousands of dead soldiers...the anti-draft movement was very quickly capitalized on by the enemy and the sympathetic US journalists. At that very moment...probably in 1968 (Tet) the US should have seen the futility of continuing. Although the enemy was utterly devastated after Tet, that was most likely the "Golden Moment" for the US to make an extrication move and declare victory and leave. They should have left as quickly as possible, shaking the hands of the SVN Gvt leaders, promising continued economic and material support and then just "OUT"....naturally, the SVN gvt would have been forced to get real about their mission of survival or to just go on, corrupt, vane, reckless and self involved and fail. They really needed a serious "scare" moment. The North would have had to take a few years to re-group and re-supply before launching another major aggression...which in my estimation, would have succeeded. But...the US, by pulling out sooner, with a valid promise of future support in event of a commie move on them might have deterred the North and their supporters.

The so-called "negotiated" peace was nothing more than the US admitting failure and exhaustion ...the US congress then pulled the plug...giving the North full license to attack without fear of US renewal of the devastating bombing.

So...in my guess, if there could have been a win at all, the opportunity was lost when the US had kept going with full military involvement after Tet instead of instigating a unilateral declaration of military victory and leaving. If the US had done that, the loss afterward, would have almost certainly been mostly placed at the feet of the idiotic SVN leadership.

[Warrigal]

The war couldn't be won under the terms it was being fought.

It was an expensive draw, but it did stem the spread of Communism.

[ColinP]

If you can claim that Vietnam "won the war" , I think it was a hollow victory, they lost something like 4 million in the fight, the country was destroyed and took 30 years to get any semblance of a economy going and now are looking for their former enemies to buy their goods. Countries that lose to the US generally do far better than those that “win”

[Creampuff]

I think, if there had been some way for military intelligence (or what ever body) to thwart the 68 Tet offensive before it got off the ground, then the outcome would have been more favorable for the allies and America. Prior to the offensive, media could honestly report, every battle been won, then over nigt, every major military installation, base and town in the south was under siege, sure the VC were destroyed piecemeal, but this was greatly offset by the damage done by media reports from the battle field as well the damage to the credibility of prominent commanders who had asked for more men and material in aiding the war effort. All this prompted the inevitable question for the public, "Why" if every battle is been won could this happen, and why continue etc. IIRC soon after Westmoreland was replaced by Abrams and not long after came Viet Namisation.

[Photographic]

If you can claim that Vietnam "won the war" , I think it was a hollow victory, they lost something like 4 million in the fight, the country was destroyed and took 30 years to get any semblance of a economy going and now are looking for their former enemies to buy their goods. Countries that lose to the US generally do far better than those that “win”

Of course, but in the end the South was overrun and the Americans left. They are still communist. There was nothing hollow about the victory. I could never get my head around the thought that once you decide to fight a war, and wage it for 10 years, you suddenly just pack up and leave once the war is going your way. Had the U.S. air support been allowed to stay I suspect they could have held their own. But if the political prize was too high to pay, why go to war in the first place?


I think, if there had been some way for military intelligence (or what ever body) to thwart the 68 Tet offensive before it got off the ground, then the outcome would have been more favorable for the allies and America. Prior to the offensive, media could honestly report, every battle been won, then over nigt, every major military installation, base and town in the south was under siege, sure the VC were destroyed piecemeal, but this was greatly offset by the damage done by media reports from the battle field as well the damage to the credibility of prominent commanders who had asked for more men and material in aiding the war effort. All this prompted the inevitable question for the public, "Why" if every battle is been won could this happen, and why continue etc. IIRC soon after Westmoreland was replaced by Abrams and not long after came Viet Namisation.

The most devastating battle for the VC was turned into an American defeat, amazing isn't it. You have to ask yourself the question if the U.S. obsession about fighting a contained war didn't insure an unwinnable war.

[Svetauterce]

You cant avoid a bad beat and they happen all too often it seems. You already have a really good hand and you think youve already won -- that is the most dangerous part about all of this. The best advice is to pay attention to what comes out on the table and how your opponents have been playing.

[Hollis]

It seems to me, a key part to understand Viet-Nam is look at the complete/whole story, The Cold War. Battles where being waged all over the world. It's finality is based on perception based on distortion. Viet-Nam was not a war unto itself it was a battle in a bigger war. That war pretty much concluded in 1989. While from a micro view one may be right, but on a global view that conclusion can be wrong. Maybe this is why, this single battle is discussed so much. Trying to determine what actually happened. If we shift focus to Central America we, again, get mixed results. Or we can look at the ME, where aspects of the cold war still festers.

Viet-Nam is moving ahead and relations with the US and Americans are just getting better. Maybe for that reason we can say, both sides won. There is peace. If we look at the Balkans, old wars never seem to end and just perpetuates a new war. Like those little mini-flame wars we get here.

[Atlantic Friend]

Probably the best chance for the defeat of Communist Vietnam was in 1949-1950, when France's High Commissioner Léon Pignon tried to play the Nationalist resistance against the Viet-Mihn.

[Creampuff]

The most devastating battle for the VC was turned into an American defeat, amazing isn't it. You have to ask yourself the question if the U.S. obsession about fighting a contained war didn't insure an unwinnable war.

So the effort in Viet-Nam, as was the case with the Cuban missile crisis, was always overshadowed with the very real possibility of escalating into full on war with the eastern block or worse a"mushroom cloud." I think seen in that light, America and her allies did an okay job in the face of that threat.

[ColinP]

Of course, but in the end the South was overrun and the Americans left. They are still communist. There was nothing hollow about the victory. I could never get my head around the thought that once you decide to fight a war, and wage it for 10 years, you suddenly just pack up and leave once the war is going your way. Had the U.S. air support been allowed to stay I suspect they could have held their own. But if the political prize was too high to pay, why go to war in the first place?



The most devastating battle for the VC was turned into an American defeat, amazing isn't it. You have to ask yourself the question if the U.S. obsession about fighting a contained war didn't insure an unwinnable war.
The US tried to stay out of the war for quite some time, they were dragged into by France's failure to defeat the North. the US could have had a chance to create a complete independent Vietnam at the end of WWII, but DeGaule somehow persuaded them to back France's position on the matter of the future of French Indochina.

I agree with your assessment that fighting a limited war against an opponent that is fighting a total war is fraught with the likelhood of failure.

[johnny yuma]

I.m combat viet vet 69-70. I was out in field awile.to me bigger q is what would we have gained . the world had changed so much look at Algeria, other African. nations they all wanted got there freedom.Im member PTSD group almost have guys believe we could have won ,I dont know!!!

[Ambassador]

So, how would we have won in Vietnam?

600,000 South Korean soldiers.

At least that is what I heard American vets say. Vietnamese vets didn't disagree.

Many Korean vets would want to fight the war one more time, this time to make it win.

[[RNZE]Sapper]

600,000 South Korean soldiers...
Many Korean vets would want to fight the war one more time, this time to make it win.

What does the Koreans have against the Vietnamese?

[Ambassador]

Sapper;6003099']What does the Koreans have against the Vietnamese?

They merely wish to finish what they couldn't at the time.

We don't have any particular dislike for the Vietnamese; we just didn't like the communist regime. It was easy to stir up nationalist sentiment to find highly motivated volunteers for this war by antagonizing these communist 'evil-doers'. Our morale and motivation was on a completely different level from American conscripts.

[Soldat_Américain]

Someone other than Westmoreland. Basically Westy was failed by the Army and he in turn screwed the pooch in an unconventional war.

[Hollis]

They merely wish to finish what they couldn't at the time.

We don't have any particular dislike for the Vietnamese; we just didn't like the communist regime. It was easy to stir up nationalist sentiment to find highly motivated volunteers for this war by antagonizing these communist 'evil-doers'. Our morale and motivation was on a completely different level from American conscripts.

Only a small % were conscripts that went to RVN, most were volunteers. A little less than 3 million Americans went. The next part the "Defeat" was not a military one, it was political one. Regardless at how tough you believe the ROK are, the end would have been the same. Washington treated the war as just another battle in the cold war. We lost that battle but won the war.

[shermbodius]

Great post Hollis and I agree that we won military just not politically.

[[RNZE]Sapper]

Only a small % were conscripts that went to RVN, most were volunteers. A little less than 3 million Americans went. The next part the "Defeat" was not a military one, it was political one. Regardless at how tough you believe the ROK are, the end would have been the same. Washington treated the war as just another battle in the cold war. We lost that battle but won the war.

Interesting concept. Like those nested Russian dolls. Won the engagement, lost the battle, won the war.

[Ambassador]

Only a small % were conscripts that went to RVN, most were volunteers. A little less than 3 million Americans went. The next part the "Defeat" was not a military one, it was political one. Regardless at how tough you believe the ROK are, the end would have been the same. Washington treated the war as just another battle in the cold war. We lost that battle but won the war.

I did not know the full efficiency and success of ROK soldiers in Vietnam myself until I heard in detail the stories of American vets who worked alongside them. The Korean vets I talked to (one of them include my oldest uncle) were actually quite humble and withdrawn about their combat history in Vietnam. The most enthusiastic they ever got into its recount was about how modern Korean weapons like Cornershot which they were truly fascinated with would have really helped save our soldiers if they were invented at the time... Then they went on about how Vietnam War changed their lives (or, how it did not change at all in some cases) when they returned home afterward, not about what happened in the war itself. The stories of our soldiers' combat achievements actually seem a lot better circulated among the American veteran community than among Korean veterans. Even our textbooks don't teach us about the Vietnam War very well.

I apologize about the conscript part if I was very mistaken; I just heard that American vets viewed their Korean counterparts to have had much different motivations for having participated in the war, and their morale and aspiration to fight appeared to have been unusually very high. But in retrospect, it may have more to do with the high number of victories that Korean forces enjoyed throughout the war. Korean forces were better known for their morale, ferocity, and highly risky but deadly tactics that they were very willing to employ at great personal risk to themselves than they were known for the 'hard' combat capabilities once a battle opened up full frontal. They weren't necessarily physically stronger or faster or better as marksmen than Americans... their unorthodox choice of tactics and personality in battle were what they thought put the Korean soldiers apart from their own forces. I don't know if they were just being emotional but they really made strong statements that if each American fought so persistently like Koreans did to the very end (they typically described this Korean personality as 'they don't back down from a good fight if they think it's right, even if death appears certain'), from the top of the chain of command to the rank and file soldiers, they easily could have won the war. And, the high efficiency and resourcefulness of Korean forces in terms of both kill-death ratio and logistics management were also a difficult trait of Korean units to ignore, which could have made the economic cost of Vietnam War somewhat easier to justify.

[Warrigal]

I.m combat viet vet 69-70. I was out in field awile.to me bigger q is what would we have gained . the world had changed so much look at Algeria, other African. nations they all wanted got there freedom.Im member PTSD group almost have guys believe we could have won ,I dont know!!!

Good luck convincing others.

[Hollis]

I did not know the full efficiency and success of ROK soldiers in Vietnam myself until I heard in detail the stories of American vets who worked alongside them. The Korean vets I talked to (one of them include my oldest uncle) were actually quite humble and withdrawn about their combat history in Vietnam.

From all that I heard, ROK were highly respected troops. Even among the US, respect could vary from unit to unit. Charlie did rate the effectiveness of those they where up against. I only knew about how they rated those in the TAoR where I was. I never met or saw any ROK, in where I was. I believe they where more South of us.

The other aspect, was how the War was viewed by those who fought in it, changed, Pre-1970, we where winning and fought that way. Post-1970, it was a holding action, not winning, not loosing, just waiting.

[Soldat_Américain]

After reading Sorley's book on Westmoreland in which he basically trashes him. And to an extent he might have been unfair...however, when you focus on the Criticism's of what happened while he was CinC MACV. He just screwed the pooch, what should I expect from a First Captain at West Point though, he seemed very all show, reminds me of McNamara in a short of way needing to quantify everything. If there was a commander that was on the ground that had known how to fight the war as we had escalated we probably would have not lost the political will.

[johnny yuma]

Dont u think better not to have entered. Look Thailand hasnt fallen. maybe candidate says bring All troops home right.Now that nam is commie way no dominos falling? Im viet vet, loyal American why do we HAVE TO always get involved in these messes?