Why did the U.S. lose the Vietnam War?
- Thread starter JAR
- Start date
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
You left out
1. Backing an unpopular Government. Think of the US backing Saddam in a civil war. The South Vietnamese regular army and the civilian militia had no real motivation to fight. The officers were often corrupt and only out there to make money from the war. From the top down the tactic of the South Vietnamese government was to rely on the US to win the war for them.
2. Use of innapropriate military tactics, that is, relying massive superiority in fire power. This worked for set piece battles only, so the Vietnamese did everthing they could to avoid them. If they couldn't, they tried to fight in close, where massive air and artillery support would not help.
3. No real respect for the Vietnamese people. The massive rise of red light districts, drug use, corruption and perception of the Vietnamese as 'gooks' says it all.
There was no failure to take the fight up to the enemy. Ia Drang was a good example of this. The Vietnamese, however, learned quickly that they could not fight against superior firepower head on, so they did all they could to avoid this.
The draft was an issue. However, many soldiers appear to have tried to do their duty. They would have realised soon enough, when they got there, that they 'enemy' was not going to stand out there and fight them like the Germans. The enemy could be everyone from the woman working in the rice paddy to the old man riding a bike.
The amount of money spent on the war was fantastic. If money and weapons alone could have bought victory, the US would have won hands down.
The communist fighting force was definitely better motivated. They were fighting for their country.
The Vietnamisation plan had to be put in place. If the South Vietnamese would not fight, and did not support the war, then what was the point of it?
The anti-war movement only stated the obvious. In vietnam itself, there was a still massive army fighting, with all the weapons it asked for.
American soldiers, on the whole, I believe, did as they were ordered. They certainly killed many Vietnamese soldiers. If that was all that was required to win, then the US would have won easily.
The Government backed the war with massive amounts of men, weapons and supplies. The people of Vietnam still fought back.
1. Backing an unpopular Government. Think of the US backing Saddam in a civil war. The South Vietnamese regular army and the civilian militia had no real motivation to fight. The officers were often corrupt and only out there to make money from the war. From the top down the tactic of the South Vietnamese government was to rely on the US to win the war for them.
2. Use of innapropriate military tactics, that is, relying massive superiority in fire power. This worked for set piece battles only, so the Vietnamese did everthing they could to avoid them. If they couldn't, they tried to fight in close, where massive air and artillery support would not help.
3. No real respect for the Vietnamese people. The massive rise of red light districts, drug use, corruption and perception of the Vietnamese as 'gooks' says it all.
There was no failure to take the fight up to the enemy. Ia Drang was a good example of this. The Vietnamese, however, learned quickly that they could not fight against superior firepower head on, so they did all they could to avoid this.
The draft was an issue. However, many soldiers appear to have tried to do their duty. They would have realised soon enough, when they got there, that they 'enemy' was not going to stand out there and fight them like the Germans. The enemy could be everyone from the woman working in the rice paddy to the old man riding a bike.
The amount of money spent on the war was fantastic. If money and weapons alone could have bought victory, the US would have won hands down.
The communist fighting force was definitely better motivated. They were fighting for their country.
The Vietnamisation plan had to be put in place. If the South Vietnamese would not fight, and did not support the war, then what was the point of it?
The anti-war movement only stated the obvious. In vietnam itself, there was a still massive army fighting, with all the weapons it asked for.
American soldiers, on the whole, I believe, did as they were ordered. They certainly killed many Vietnamese soldiers. If that was all that was required to win, then the US would have won easily.
The Government backed the war with massive amounts of men, weapons and supplies. The people of Vietnam still fought back.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
jj said:
Why do you think you weren't supposed to win. I can't imagine the US ever having that aim in anything. Especially when it literally pours billions of dollars and thousands of lives into the effort. There is no doubt in my mind that those generals over there wanted to win.
However, the only way they could have won was to raize the whole country. Kind of self-defeating, though.
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
To: JAR
Of all your options, I think that "Because the U.S. used a police-work type strategy" is the most accurate in terms of choices and facts.
It is all but impossible to win a war without actually invading the country that is being fought, however the USA did not want to risk widening the war by sending in actual ground combat troops into North Vietnam. Therefore, the USA had to compensate for this lack by using aircraft, allies, mercenaries, secret operations, and so on.
While these elements were able to cause a good bit of trouble for the North, they were not able to stop the flow of men and material from the North to the South, they could not hold on to captured territory for any length of time, nor could they foricibly impose the will of the USA in the North. These types of objectives can only be obtained through the use of actual soldiers on the ground.
The USA knew all of this in advance, but it just goes to show just how badly the USA underestimated every aspect of the situation. Many (like Robert McNamara) had an extreme amount of faith in US military technology and thereby expected the Vietnam War to last only one year.
I hope this helps!
Of all your options, I think that "Because the U.S. used a police-work type strategy" is the most accurate in terms of choices and facts.
It is all but impossible to win a war without actually invading the country that is being fought, however the USA did not want to risk widening the war by sending in actual ground combat troops into North Vietnam. Therefore, the USA had to compensate for this lack by using aircraft, allies, mercenaries, secret operations, and so on.
While these elements were able to cause a good bit of trouble for the North, they were not able to stop the flow of men and material from the North to the South, they could not hold on to captured territory for any length of time, nor could they foricibly impose the will of the USA in the North. These types of objectives can only be obtained through the use of actual soldiers on the ground.
The USA knew all of this in advance, but it just goes to show just how badly the USA underestimated every aspect of the situation. Many (like Robert McNamara) had an extreme amount of faith in US military technology and thereby expected the Vietnam War to last only one year.
I hope this helps!
Tricky
Briefly immortal
Some of my Vietnamese friends say that it was because of American tactics. Even those who opposed the Communists were outraged when Americans would carpet bomb or napalm a village. Many South Vietnamese soldiers lost relatives to this brutal campaign and became defectors. Eventually, anti-US feelings became so strong that it was impossible to tell who our "allies" were. Vietnamese who were strongly pro-US found it safer to flee the country than to take the chance of being mistaken for Viet Cong.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Tricky said:
which gets back to the point I raised before about whose life is worth more, the civilians or the soldiers. It appears there is a US policy of, if there is a choice between a civilian dying or a soldier dying, the soldier gets priority. Now, the soldier is doing his job when fighting a war, a civilian is caught up in something through no choice of his own.
Who wins, well, the guy with the gun wins.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Maybe it is just hard for a major power to fight a homegrown force when the politicians are all in it for the wrong reasons. I mean this: how mant thousand dollar bombs did we drop on the HCM trail? Does bombing a horse trail through a jungle qualify as efficient? I am not sure any amount of military force would have been sufficient when you consider the tactical and operational objectives.
Honor to vets from both sides.
Peace,
dancing david
Honor to vets from both sides.
Peace,
dancing david
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
OK a_unique_person, I think that now I see what you are actually asking.
If the military really had its way when waging war on another nation,
then they would like to wound the soldiers and kill the civilians.
The reason for the distinction is thus:
Wounded soldiers do not fight well, if at all, and caring for them forces the enemy to expend valuable resources in order to properly treat them. Whereas personnel that are healthy or dead do not require these resources.
Civilians that are slightly to moderately injured can still do at least some, if not most of their usual workload, therefore it is best to kill the civilians in order to stop their contribution to the war effort of the enemy forces.
I hope this helps!
If the military really had its way when waging war on another nation,
then they would like to wound the soldiers and kill the civilians.
The reason for the distinction is thus:
Wounded soldiers do not fight well, if at all, and caring for them forces the enemy to expend valuable resources in order to properly treat them. Whereas personnel that are healthy or dead do not require these resources.
Civilians that are slightly to moderately injured can still do at least some, if not most of their usual workload, therefore it is best to kill the civilians in order to stop their contribution to the war effort of the enemy forces.
I hope this helps!
Doubt
Philosopher
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a_unique_person said:
AUP has a point here. (Mark this page, you won't see me write that very often.) The leadership of the Army did not understand the nature of the war they were fighting. Based on Mao's writing, there are three phases to a guerrilla conflict.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerilla
A good work to read on the subject is Basic Tactics by Mao. There are copies on the net, but all that I have found are from Marxist sources. The original english translation was done by a US Marine Corps general and has some interesting comments on changes in the original text. Also note that the Marine Corps presence in China during the '30s had a lot to do with the gung-ho concept and the marines seeing themselves as an elite force. The Chinese influence on the marines would be a subject for another thread.
http://www.maoism.org/msw/vol6/mswv6_28.htm
There are some big differences between how the Viet Kong acted and what Mao wrote about, but that is because of the different enemies that they faced.
General Giap spent most of the fight against the US in phase 2. The US tried to force set piece battles where the guerrillas would have nothing to gain since they did not have the force needed for phase 3. The one golden opportunity was the Tet offensive, which was a premature attempt by Giap to move to the third phase. The problem that the US faced during Tet was that the Viet Kong was not supposed to be able to mount that kind of attack. The end result was a loss of credibility for the US leadership.
Attacking North Vietnam would have surely lowered the level of conflict in the South, but it would probably not have won the war. We would most likely have seen the leaders in the North revert back to their own guerilla activities again, but with a much shorter supply line coming out of China. What would we have done next? Attack China? The trick to ending the war was to remove support for the guerillas. Knocking out their supplies was not going to do the job.
We had no business to bomb and kill the Vietnamese just because they wanted a form of government that the U.S. government didn't agree with. Nor did we have the right to impose the corrupt government we installed there on the Vietnamese.
Interestingly, I see today Rumsfeld saying, "No theocracy in Iraq".
The more things change, the more they stay the same....
Interestingly, I see today Rumsfeld saying, "No theocracy in Iraq".
The more things change, the more they stay the same....
rikzilla
Ninja wave: Atomic fire-breath ninja
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The VC and NVA could never win against the US military. Our logistical support system was far more advanced than anything the enemy had.
It was apparently quite common that an ill equipped VC squad subsisting on a little rice, and carrying nothing more than Chinese AK's and RPG's could expect to have $500,000 dollars worth of ordinance placed on their position.
Superior firepower was a major advantage, but it was logistics that made it possible. Personally, I would not wish to be a soldier in the army of a government at war with the US. Enemy soldiers, when faced with the deployed might of the US on a battlefield, tend to die in staggering numbers.
The US failed in Vietnam because the political will to win was simply not there. Listen closely A_U_P,...and take a lesson from what just transpired in Iraq. When there is a political will to win there is no micro-management from the White House as was seen during 'Nam. There is no safe haven allowed one's enemy. In 'Nam the enemy infiltrated and fought in the South. The North's homeland was not similarly invaded. When you allow your enemy safe haven, you have no demonstrable will to win.
I believe this is simply because of the fear of a wider and perhaps nuclear war exploding from the existing cold war. As seen in Iraq, this fear no longer exists. The US and British forces were led by professionals, and allowed to do their professional best. Obviously they performed their jobs at a very high level of efficiency as a result.
Perhaps Johnson and Nixon kept the war on a slow boil over the years because they thought sooner or later the Vietnamese would give up in the face of overwhelming firepower. Obviously, whatever they were thinking, they were wrong. This was the reason so many lives and so much money were poured into 'Nam. It is not indicative of a will to win, merely a will to spend assets unwisely.
I am not posting this to put forth an opinion that Vietnam was "right" or "just". I don't believe that was either of those things. It was a stupid and brutal waste of life and money. But it was long ago. The lessons of Vietnam have been learned...just look at the way the Army has been used in the years since 'Nam ended. We've learned wars should be avoided...but not at all costs, and that when war is entered into...that there is no substitute for victory. This means a strategy of massive application of overwhelming firepower, and a resultant swift and unambiguous conclusion, with no safe harbor for the enemy.
-zilla
It was apparently quite common that an ill equipped VC squad subsisting on a little rice, and carrying nothing more than Chinese AK's and RPG's could expect to have $500,000 dollars worth of ordinance placed on their position.
Superior firepower was a major advantage, but it was logistics that made it possible. Personally, I would not wish to be a soldier in the army of a government at war with the US. Enemy soldiers, when faced with the deployed might of the US on a battlefield, tend to die in staggering numbers.
The US failed in Vietnam because the political will to win was simply not there. Listen closely A_U_P,...and take a lesson from what just transpired in Iraq. When there is a political will to win there is no micro-management from the White House as was seen during 'Nam. There is no safe haven allowed one's enemy. In 'Nam the enemy infiltrated and fought in the South. The North's homeland was not similarly invaded. When you allow your enemy safe haven, you have no demonstrable will to win.
I believe this is simply because of the fear of a wider and perhaps nuclear war exploding from the existing cold war. As seen in Iraq, this fear no longer exists. The US and British forces were led by professionals, and allowed to do their professional best. Obviously they performed their jobs at a very high level of efficiency as a result.
Perhaps Johnson and Nixon kept the war on a slow boil over the years because they thought sooner or later the Vietnamese would give up in the face of overwhelming firepower. Obviously, whatever they were thinking, they were wrong. This was the reason so many lives and so much money were poured into 'Nam. It is not indicative of a will to win, merely a will to spend assets unwisely.
I am not posting this to put forth an opinion that Vietnam was "right" or "just". I don't believe that was either of those things. It was a stupid and brutal waste of life and money. But it was long ago. The lessons of Vietnam have been learned...just look at the way the Army has been used in the years since 'Nam ended. We've learned wars should be avoided...but not at all costs, and that when war is entered into...that there is no substitute for victory. This means a strategy of massive application of overwhelming firepower, and a resultant swift and unambiguous conclusion, with no safe harbor for the enemy.
-zilla
rikzilla said:
Well, I surely hope you're right.
On the other hand, in Iraq what do we have? We have taken the territory, mostly, pretty much, kinda, and nobody can stand up to us directly.
But the population wants us out.
That looks more familiar than I had expected.
RandFan
Mormon Atheist
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Good post AUP.
...And died, in large numbers. So large that they could not have continued indefinitely. It was a war of attrition. The North Vietnamese gambled that the U.S. would lose the will to fight before the North ran out of human fodder. The North won.a_unique_person said:
RandFan
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It should also be noted that this "action" was blown from the very beginning. It started out as a small incursion "police action" and escalated into a war. This gave North Vietnam time to adapt to US strategy and tactics. It gave the North way too much time to perfect their means of supply. We also waited too long to go to Hanoi.
If we were to fight the war today we would devise a strategy that would not give the enemy time to adapt or develop alternate supply routes. We would take the fight to the heart of the enemy and march on Hanoi and seize the city.
The war was winnable, we made to many bad assumptions and made to many mistakes.
If we were to fight the war today we would devise a strategy that would not give the enemy time to adapt or develop alternate supply routes. We would take the fight to the heart of the enemy and march on Hanoi and seize the city.
The war was winnable, we made to many bad assumptions and made to many mistakes.
Smalso
Unregistered
S
One of the things that contributed is one that is not spoken of much. Every soldier who was sent to Viet Nam knew that he was there only for a limited time. The saying was that you spend the first six months learning to survive and the second six months surviving. There was no incentive to kick butt and win the thing so we can all go home; as contrasted to WWII when everybody was there for the duration--more or less. The shorter you got, the less inclined you were to take chances. Nobody wanted to get thirty days short and get killed. I don't hold that this was a bad thing or that everybody should have been sent there for the duration. But it was a problem for which there was no apparent solution.
rikzilla
Ninja wave: Atomic fire-breath ninja
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Clancy said:
Well,
I was speaking of a purely military definition of victory. We have acheived that in Iraq already. You are speaking more along the lines of "winning the peace"...that is a job for diplomats, not soldiers.
As far as "hearts and minds" goes I doubt we'll ever win that one overall. I think it's doable within certain segments of the population tho...we'll always have enemies...but again the opposite is true, we'll have alot of friends too. Perhaps the way to win peace there while a stable government is born, is by making our presence appreciated and needed in the infrastructure rebuilding phase. As long as we're doing something they need, they'll tolerate us being there a bit longer.
But as I said...that's a job for the political types.
-z