Originally Posted by Whispering Death

No, we lost the war in Vietnam. Just because it defies explination when looking at it through a "conventional" millitary viewpoint does not mean it didn't happen. Saying we didn't lose the vietnam war because we didn't lose a major battle is like saying George Bush wasn't president in 2000 because he didn't win the popular vote. The fact we won every battle turned out to be inconsequential. Want to know why?

The doctorien of the current US army is maneuver warfare. To boil it down to extreme basics, maneuver warfare is dislocating the enemy's strengths. If someone has an impenetrable shield, you maneuver to the side and shoot him in the flank.

The NVA beat us through maneuver warfare on such a grand scale we didn't recognize it. They found that our greatest strength was millitary force or arms, but are biggest weakness was our liberal society ruled by free speach and popular democracy. Instead of attacking the giant shield that is the US Armed Forces directly, they maneuvered to attack the vulnerable naive American people. Through tactics from parading POWs on the liberal media to show how hopeless the situation is to funnelling money into "peace" groups through Russian spys the Communist alliance soundly defeated America by dislocating it's strengths and attacking its weaknesses.

It's moralle warfare... like when the US forces in 1991 broke the moralle of the Iraqi soldiers which forced them to surrender en masse. The same thing occoured on a grander scale in Vietnam, the N.Vietnaese broke the will of the American people and deluded them into abandoning their brave millitary men and surrendering.

I think your forgetting a large part of this, the American Media.

Oh I didn't explicitly state it but I assumed the American media was infered.

The N.Vietnamese played them like a fiddle. The American media was so central to their strategies and manipulations that it couldn't have even been contemplated without the media being EXACTLY the way it was.

To take this one step even further, you'll notice numerous attempts by the Iraqi resistaince to use similar tactics (parading prisoners infront of cameras; 'spectacular' combat operations etc.) but they arn't having near the same effect. The reason is the diffusion of voices in the media where you now have FOX News taking twice the ratings of CNN and other people getting their opinions from conservative talk radio etc.

This diffusion in media was not around durring vietnam and a very few select editors with an oligarchic feel to them made for a very easy target. Think of it like how you have your commands seperated over wide geographic areas in wartime strategy so even if you blow up 1st regiment HQ the batallion HQ, 2nd regiment HQ, company 1-6 HQs are all still operation. In vietnam we basically had 3 headquarters' all in the same block of New York... all you had to do was bomb that area with propoganda and you'd destroy the headquarters of American moralle. I know this last paragraph was a lot of analogy but I hope it's been insightful into how this happened.

wow, interesting!

WD the choices in the poll are specific:

The US militarily lost the Vietnam War.
The US withdrew only due to the homefront protests, but they it never lost on the military level.

Both choices refer to the war in a military context and the obvious answer is NO we did not lose the war militarily. It is illogical to say otherwise. The other answer is YES we withdrew due do the manipulation of public opinion and the subsequent change in our foreign policy. It's really quite simple.
Saying that we lost the war in Vietnam militarily is to completely ignore the facts.

I defy anyone to show me real evidence that the American military was defeated in Vietnam. Like the bumper sticker says "Vietnam: We were winning when I left". Every American Vietnam veteran can correctly and proudly proclaim that.

Ok, So is it it?

So essentially, Whispering Death, you are saying that the North Vietnamese and Vietcong beat us politically and diplomatically, but never beat us Militarily. Correct?

No Godofthunder. What I'm saying is that you can't talk about millitarily winning or losing a conflict without talking about the political and diplomatic parts of it. When you talk about WW2 it is impossible to not talk about the economic (America's sleeping giant economy) and the diplomatic (just the word "Allied" Powers). All these factors are what makes up a millitary conflict, not just force of arms.

It's also like after getting defeated by the Mongols a bunch of Roman soldiers saying, "Well their infantry never broke through our lines! They just circled around on horseback shooting arrows into us until we where all dead. They may have defeated us bow-and-arrow-illy but not sword-illy!!!" I know that is a smidge to the rediculous but it's to illustrate a point.

I can't believe how you continue to ignore the facts, Wispering Death.

The US military did not lose the VietNam War.

The US military did not lose the VietNam War.

The US military did not lose the VietNam War.

The US military did not lose the VietNam War.

THE UNITED STATES DID NOT LOSE THE WAR IN VIETNAM, THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE DID.

THE UNITED STATES DID NOT LOSE THE WAR IN VIETNAM, THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE DID.

Originally Posted by Whispering Death

No Godofthunder. What I'm saying is that you can't talk about millitarily winning or losing a conflict without talking about the political and diplomatic parts of it. When you talk about WW2 it is impossible to not talk about the economic (America's sleeping giant economy) and the diplomatic (just the word "Allied" Powers). All these factors are what makes up a millitary conflict, not just force of arms.

It's also like after getting defeated by the Mongols a bunch of Roman soldiers saying, "Well their infantry never broke through our lines! They just circled around on horseback shooting arrows into us until we where all dead. They may have defeated us bow-and-arrow-illy but not sword-illy!!!" I know that is a smidge to the rediculous but it's to illustrate a point.

Yes well that is not the quesiton being asked by the thread, now is it? Yes, if we take the USA as a whole, Vietnam was a war that we lost. Nobody is questioning that. I think that the real quesiton would be, "Was it because of failure on the US Military's part?" My answer to that is NO.

Wispering Death, now I don't want you to say something that you do not agree on: If you believe the US suffered important defeats on the ground and missed all its main military objectives vis a vis the NVA then you sure have the right to say that (and possibly back it up with facts).
But if you're saying that it is not possible to separate the military aspects from the political and diplomatic ones then just say you can't provide an answer to such a stupid question.
Of course I asked you to make an effort and try to separate the military level from the others.
Example: Italy attacks France and defeats it, invades it. After a few month occupation the Italian occupation of France start to seem an unbearable burden at the eyes of the national public opinion and the political leadership comes to the conclusion that a withdrawal is opportune hence the Italian military leaves the occupied country.
Now would you say that Italy lost the war militarily ? I was asking to make a similar effort of imagination.