Vietnam War, lost or not.

Please pick one of the two options.

  • The US militarily lost the Vietnam War.

    Votes: 25 45.5%

  • The US withdrew only due to the homefront protests, but they it never lost on the military level

    Votes: 30 54.5%
  • Total voters
    55
Aiki, from the start the politicians in DC decided they would not win the war in Vietnam. The plan was to stay there and fight a war that had no end because the American strategy didn't allow for an end in the war. Defeat was obvious.
There was no drive into North Vietnam.
Bombing campaigns into North Vietnam didn't come until much later.
Micromanagement by a bunch of Harvard assh*les in details that were tactical even.
It was never meant to be won.
It could not be won.
 
Mod Warning: OK, that's enough of the personal attacks. You can disagree all you like but keep it on a non-personal level.
 
SHERMAN said:
im probably going to repeat someone. but i cant resist.

war is a means to a political ends. hence, though im sure the US military was inflicting higher casualties on the enemy, and could defeat the enemy militarly, its irrelevent. the war was meant to contain the communist expension into south vietnam, and this failed. hence, the US lost the war, even if due to un military issues.

this dose not take an inch from what the brave men that fought there did, it just goes to show you war is a serious issue and nations shouldent commit to it unles they are sure the public can handle it.
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Sherman

Just FYI, you are quoting VON CLAUSTOWITZ who said:

"War is the extension of diplomacy by other means".

AikiRooster

On the tactical level you are right, the American Army was never defeated so therefore it didn't lose. However we failed on the strategic level, the prevention of the spread of communism which was the entire reason we went to war in the beginning. So overall Fat Frank and 13th Redneck are right the war was lost. For comparison, The French Military never surrendered after the fall of France, and kept fighting on north Africa, the USSR and the UK. But there is little doubt that they lost the war in 1940.
 
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I think we failed on many non military levels. The war was an awful time in American history, our society was fudged up at that time IMHO.
 
In the spring of 1973, the United States officially ended its military campaign in
Vietnam which brought a deliberate end to our participation on April 30, 1975.
Technically, the US did not lose the conflict in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese were
defeated by communist forces during the fall of Saigon, but the US had already
withdrawn by this time. Still, the US involvement in Vietnam from 1963 through 1975
is widely regarded as a political and strategic failure, a failure which has been examined by scholars, historians and analysts from nearly every field of endeavor.
 
I think one of the main reasons we didn't win Vietnam in a month was because the USA was (and still is) terrified of China and Russia IMHO.
 
AikiRooster said:
I think one of the main reasons we didn't win Vietnam in a month was because the USA was (and still is) terrified of China and Russia IMHO.
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Terrified? I don't know about terrified, but the idea of trying to wage a war against a nation with 1.3 billion people in their own backyard from 9,000 miles away is a bit daunting. The scope of the Vietnam War was much smaller than the Korean War and this was likely in part so not to provoke the Chinese into action.
 
Geez... if America had the hippies and journalists that were around during the Vietnam Conflict while the Korean War was going on, there wouldn't be a South Korea today.
But on top of that, strategically it was impossible to win because an all out war against North Vietnam was not allowed.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Geez... if America had the hippies and journalists that were around during the Vietnam Conflict while the Korean War was going on, there wouldn't be a South Korea today.
But on top of that, strategically it was impossible to win because an all out war against North Vietnam was not allowed.
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I've heard many WWII vets say that if we had the media in 1941 that we have today the Nazi's would still be in power in Europe because the losses sustained in that war would be totally unacceptable to today's media.
 
Damien435 said:
I've heard many WWII vets say that if we had the media in 1941 that we have today the Nazi's would still be in power in Europe because the losses sustained in that war would be totally unacceptable to today's media.
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I think problem is rather in society than in media.
 
I think the sensitivity to losses started with the first Gulf War where the US had an unrealistically low casualty count which they were expected to hang onto every war afterwards. Sometimes winning brilliantly is a bad thing.
 
No, the US went into Iraq first understanding they'd take casualties in the thousands, even for a very short war. The outstanding success in keeping casualties to the levels where it barely scratched the hundreds (many to accidents) in front of the press created an unrealistic expectation that had to be met and an impossible standard to which the US military is expected to equal. Which is why, possibly for the first time in the history of warfare, 4,000 deaths in a 5 year old war seems like an astronomical amount.
 
Lets face it the American forces did not lose the war in Vietnam, the politicians lost the war at home. The Politicians were more interested in votes than the war, so they caved in and blamed the military for it's failure.
 
LeEnfield said:
Lets face it the American forces did not lose the war in Vietnam, the politicians lost the war at home. The Politicians were more interested in votes than the war, so they caved in and blamed the military for it's failure.
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That is no better than losing it for lack of will, or ammunition or anything else. A war lost for whatever reason, is still a kick in the @rse.

More so for those who fought in it.
 
senojekips said:
That is no better than losing it for lack of will, or ammunition or anything else. A war lost for whatever reason, is still a kick in the @rse.

More so for those who fought in it.
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Exactly, its the end result that matters and little else when determining who won.
 
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