"What Went Wrong in Vietnam" Topic

"For almost thirty years, by means financial, military, and diplomatic, the United States tried to prevent Vietnam from becoming a Communist state. Millions died in that struggle. By the time active American military engagement ended, the United States had dropped more than three times as many tons of bombs on Vietnam, a country the size of New Mexico, as the Allies dropped in all of the Second World War. At the height of the bombing, it was costing us ten dollars for every dollar of damage we inflicted. We got nothing for it.

We got nothing for pretty much everything we tried in Vietnam, and it's hard to pick out a moment in those thirty years when anti-Communist forces were on a sustainable track to prevailing. Political and military leaders misunderstood the enemy's motives; they misread conditions on the ground; they tried to beat unconventional fighters with conventional tactics; they massacred civilians. They pursued strategies that seemed designed to produce neither a victory nor a settlement, only what Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers but once a passionate supporter of American intervention, called "the stalemate machine."…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I think this falls under something similar to …

Describe the Universe in 25 words or less … be specific …

The Universe (Latin: universus) is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy.

Succinctness is no crime. Indeed, in 'Hamlet', in the second act, Polonius famously says, "Since brevity is the soul of wit / And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief…"

(It should be noted Polonius is neither succinct nor wise.)

U.S. TV networks access.

It's pretty easy to "pick out a moment in those thirty years",….1975, when our congress chose to cut off all funding to the RSVN. And that smack in the middle of an NVA offensive.

If you're going to fight a war do it to win or don't do it at all. Otherwise it's a complete travesty to the thousands of guys and their families who gave all they had to save a struggling country from communism.

If you're going to fight a war do it to win

Which begs the question as to whether the war was ever winnable….particularly in the long term.

"Which begs the question as to whether the war was ever winnable….particularly in the long term."

No, it wasn't winnable if you're not fully committed. I understand that our leaders wanted to be careful so as not to draw either China or the USSR into a larger conflict. But after losing 58,000 kia and several hundred thousand wia we were too invested to simply give up the way we did, especially after withdrawing all our combat forces from south Vietnam and turning the war over to the arvn, then cutting off all funding so they couldn't continue resistance. Thankfully that same crowd of congressmen weren't in office in the early 50's when we were fighting in Korea.

There was no taking-and-holding ground, like in previous (won) wars. It was 'take that hill, leave it, then go back later and retake it again, repeat.'
Seems like the US 'strategy' was attrition; Kill enough of'em, and they'll eventually get the idea to quit. Didn't work…

Political leadership meddling in military matters.

Let's NOT keep doing this over and over again….

Rather we should focus on modelling or gaming related content.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Could the US have defeated the opposing nationalist movement in Vietnam?

Hard to say. The only absolute fact is they lost. I still think that although the US should never have interfered, I believe they learnt quite a lot from their defeat…..I may have made this point before…..

@ Skarper. You have a definite point worth consideration.

I'm with Skarper on this one.

I was surprised at the "size of New Mexico" mention. Turns out true. I imagined, even with the narrow middle strip, the Delta and North Vietnam would make the unified country much bigger.

Probably right that there is little to be gained from such discussion…and yet, the old story of failing to learn from the errors of history.

Polonius' speech is marvelous writing…essentially get going pronto, but let me offer a few brief words of advice before you go

The Universe (Latin: universus) is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy.

That's not a description it's a definition.

The problem was that LBJ wasn't interested in winning the war militarily. His goal was to force the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table because he though he was the world's best deal maker and that he could out negotiate the Vietnamese and end the war that way.

"The Universe (Latin: universus) is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy."
That's not a description it's a definition.

Bingo !

Let's NOT keep doing this over and over again….

Bingo !

"The Universe (Latin: universus) is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy."

That's not a description it's a definition.

Bingo !

Let's NOT keep doing this over and over again….

Bingo !

Daa Bug … again !

But come to think of it … it may have been worth saying twice …

(smile)

Amicamelent
Armand

"Let's NOT keep doing this over and over again"

Is that a reference to Mogadishu, Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc ever since the Vietnam War? Only kidding….

But, with the best of intentions, so many politicians think they have a cause worth getting their young men killed….sometimes they may be right. I dunno.

.

Sometimes …

But IMO there was nothing worth dying for in Somalia, or in Iraq. A'stan … well that is another story. 9/11 was the start. But as we see in A'stan … You can't free a fish from water.

And as soon as we leave it will be like what happened in Iraq when the US troops were withdrawn. Or even in Vietnam …

They continued to fighting and the rest is history … They same will be said about A'stan.

That's not a description it's a definition.

Hmmmm.

OK, let's get back to the thread title: what went wrong (for the US) in Vietnam?*

Answer: everything!

Is that a definition or a description?

* NB everything went pretty right for the NVA & VC.

Well everything went right for the leadership, who made sure their kids were educated in Moscow rather than sent South to die.

Everything went right for the NLF movement as their war aims were achieved.

But for what must be many hundreds of thousands (at least) of the Poor Bloody Infantry of the VC and NVA, disease, malnutrition, enemy action made sure things did not universally go right.

And yes Legion 4, how I do agree. Any foreign power, however well intentioned, that steps into the internal affairs of another country, will at first be greeted with raptures, but soon become the "real enemy". Whether Northern Ireland or Iraq, the liberators become the foreign invaders…

You can't win. heck, you can't even break even.

NB everything went pretty right for the NVA & VC.

Well again we can discuss that until we are blue in the face. And again I am biased.

But as deadhead wisely points out the VC and NVA troops suffered greatly. At the massive firepower that the US could bring down on them. Estimated about 1 million losses, IIRC. But again they were not going anywhere … it was their backyard. Regardless how many losses they took.

the liberators become the foreign invaders…

One's liberator can rapidly become one's oppressor. As with one's Freedom Fighter is a terrorist/insurgent to others.

"Everything went right for the NLF" until the NVA made sure they weren't around to celebrate their victory.

Clearly I wasn't talking about casualties but ultimate victory. One side won, the other lost.

BTW, from General Westmoreland down to today, Vietnam seemed to have the Americans obsessed with casualty figures & "kill" ratios, like wargamers who have never heard of morale or other more accurate means of assessing victory.

Next you'll be telling me the Nazis (lost 7.5 million) beat the Russians (lost 27 million) in WW2.

I think it's just possible that the leadership in the USA could have protected South Vietnam long enough for it to turn into another S. Korea.

Consider what happened after Gen. Westmoreland left. I'm not thinking about US foot on the ground, but with air power alone. I believe a well supplied and trained ARVN, backed by the USAF, may have been enough.

Maybe …

Politics was the most problematic thing that went wrong with the American intervention in Vietnam. As I posted in our other Vietnam thread last month:

LBJ put in place so many political restrictions that it almost guaranteed that there would not be a military victory. Each morning, he would personally select the targets for the day's bombing runs, to the extent that USAF and Navy pilots would fly right over brand-new Soviet AA missile systems being unloaded from transports without the authority to take them out. Those same missiles would then be later used to shoot down our aircraft. Nixon wasn't much better in his handling of the war.

Victory was not impossible in military terms, but because Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon made it a political war fought on political terms, they put us in a position to lose. And we did.

And to be honest, the US should have never supported the French claim to Indochina. That flew in the face of FDR's own declarations in the Atlantic Charter against colonialism, something which Ho Chi Minh tried to get Truman to enforce.

In retrospect, the best antidote to the Stalinist/Maoist style of communism is not open warfare or travel bans. It's to throw the gates open wide and let Western citizens in to spread good cheer, truth, and the knowledge that there is a better way to happiness and fulfillment than totalitarianism. That's why we had the Voice of America (and Radio Free Europe before that), to try to mitigate the effects of Soviet states' and their puppets' efforts to cut their populations off from contact with the West. It's why, even today, North Korea rarely allows Western visitors and China tightly censors the internet and state media.

We can do a better job winning the hearts and minds by showing those populaces how good things are in the West -- plenty of food, nice cars and clothes, religious freedom (including the freedom *not* to be religious – I'm looking at you, Saudi Arabia), freedom of speech, and -- most antithetical to the 20th century communist model -- freedom of self-determination.

I recommend reading – "A Bright Shining Lie" … It may help further understanding of this tragic war. IIRC the author was Sheehan ?

But as we see the US gov't has a predilection/tendency of "inaccurate" info releases, etc. And it's not just about OPSEC, etc.

E.g. GWII … And just recently in an article IIRC, in my new Military History mag. The same has happened with the previous Admin in the WH about A'stan.

Can't believe a mutha' thing for most sources today from any direction … sadly …

I see Vietnam as a worthwhile fight. A: proved that Western forces would bleed and fight hard to stop the spread of Communism. B: Drastically improved the US Military from hard lessons learned. That military was the one that stared down the Soviets in the '80s and made Communism give up in that part of the world.

It really was a proxy war between the 3 super powers … the US, USSR and PRC during the "Cold" War …

And in the Big Picture Communism lost. But some areas are still under that burden. E.g. Cuba for one. And the PRC as it's own version of a hybrid Capitalism-Communism sort.

And as long had the former Soviet Union is under the leadership of former KGB types and their cronies/"homeboys". The Cold War 2.0 will continue.

I was invited to a military round table at local university a year or so go. As I was a grad of their ROTC program and the local chapter of Military Officers Assoc. of America's Rep. All attendees were former/Ret. military from all branches and organizations.

The thing one of the Ret. LTCs said, USMC IIRC, "The Russians Want to destroy us. The Chinese want to own us." …

I find that to be pretty accurate … still …