Vietnam War, lost or not.

Please pick one of the two options.


  • Total voters
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Italian Guy

Milforum Hitman
We have a certain number of threads on Viet Nam already, but one thing interests me as a civilian. Before joining these boards I had no doubts the US had lost the war in Nam. As I talked to the cool guys in here 8) though, I learned how different the general opinion might be from the actual truth of what happened on the ground. I heard many times that the US decided to withdraw only because the war was being lost at the homefront (universities, Hollywood, pacifists) and not really in VietNam. As I have some Vietnamese-American friends I'd be curious to hear your opinion on this, specially the veterans one.

I also enclose a poll. Thank you, I'm really interested.
 
Both statements are true. But as we have found out in the last 50 years all of America's enemies have attempted to win (and have succeeded at times) by targeting American popular opinion. Remember Somalia? Gulf War(1991) Saddam throught if he could just bloody our nose with a thousand or so casualtied we'd give into him. In terrorism, as a strategy, the objective is COMPLETELY non-millitary, it's to go after the hearts and minds and convince them that war is no longer worth being waged.

So even though the US won every major battle in Vietnam, it LOST the war because the strategy of the North only required funnelling money into American peace movements and parading POWs infront of cameras. For whatever reason, America is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded when it comes to 'propogandist' warfare.
 
Overall, I think the US lost the Vietnam War, even though they did their part...I think a lot of the reason why they lost was because of the media and all the people back in the states. They didn't support them in any way which is just plain crazy and stupid. When your countrys soldiers go to war, you need to support them in what they are doing. It's not their choice to go to the battlefield. It's our country's leader's choice. And it was kind of like the media and people in the states that pretty much blamed all of the brave soldiers for that choice. I think that's just plain wrong. So that's what I think....that a lot of the cause of the loss, was from the states.....discouraging the soldiers that had to go to Vietnam.
 
We lost VietNam, not the VietNam war. America won every major battle it fought and losses in the NVN army and VC are still unknown and probably never will be known. People like Walter "Crankcase" who reported just after the Tet offensive ended in disaster for North VietNam that "It is now evident to this reporter that the war in VietNam is a stalemate."

Some of the so called famous correspondents definitely had the ear of a lot of Congressmen and Cabinet who were also listening to the Fondas who were a part of the so-called popular culture.

Here are some casualty reports from the war.
http://www.vietnamwall.org/pdf/casualty.pdf
 
Thank you Missileer, now that's a great link. I already have a folder in my Documents about VN, but I didn't have this page. Added ;)
 
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Italian Guy, have you run across any information that the NVA and the North Vietnamese in general were coming to feel defeat was imminent? I don't remember where I heard the conversation but the subject was about the media negatively reporting downright lies.
 
I don't think the Vietnamese ever considered that they would lose.
Asians are a very patient people, they had experience with fighting the French colonialists, backing from other communist countries and an excellent politcal cadre.
From an Australian point of view I have always been disapointed that a country like ours that had experience fighting this type of warfare pretty much from WWII onwards was regulated to only one region in Vietnam.
The experience we had could have been used more adventageously by the USA to lesson the casualties and guide the tactics at battalion level down more sucessfully than what was used.
Always the poor cousins in USA armed forces eyes I think.
On the other hand it was nice to be on exercise reacently with Yanks and have them drool over our equipment for a change.
 
sunb! said:
USA lost Vietnam and the Vietnam War, but the veterans are still fighting.


How so? The NVA and VC lost most battles, the Tet Offensive was just them hoping to pull off another Den Ben Phu.

The U.S. won every major battle, we dominated the land, besides it wasn't just our war the Aussies and Korean's where there too.

Most civilians don't see that Veitnam could have been and was won as a tactical military battle. The real battle was political.

I think that for every US soldier that died ten NVA and VC died. (Not actual numbers, just my opinion.)
 
Missileer said:
Italian Guy, have you run across any information that the NVA and the North Vietnamese in general were coming to feel defeat was imminent? I don't remember where I heard the conversation but the subject was about the media negatively reporting downright lies.

No, not heard about that, but the media reporting flat out lies is not too absurd. Might be. Specially back then, I mean.

Cadet Seaman said:
I think that for every US soldier that died ten NVA and VC died. (Not actual numbers, just my opinion.)

Why not even higher than that?
 
Cadet Seaman said:
sunb! said:
USA lost Vietnam and the Vietnam War, but the veterans are still fighting.


How so? The NVA and VC lost most battles, the Tet Offensive was just them hoping to pull off another Den Ben Phu.

The U.S. won every major battle, we dominated the land, besides it wasn't just our war the Aussies and Korean's where there too.

Most civilians don't see that Veitnam could have been and was won as a tactical military battle. The real battle was political.

I think that for every US soldier that died ten NVA and VC died. (Not actual numbers, just my opinion.)

A war is not only about winning battles and gaining land areas, it is about those who fought and died, those who fought and are still alive and what really came out of the conflict in the political aftermath.

The US evacuated Saigon abandoning the country into communist hands. And this was exactly what they hoped to avoid.

The domino theory: If Vietnam fell under communist rule the rest of SE Asia would follow. This did not happen to that exact point but Vietnam did invade Cambodia the following years and the US could not do a :cen: to avoid that either. Thanks to Thailand the US still had a foot in the theatre but barely that.

If you look into studies on Vietnam Veterans you fill find some very interesting materials on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse - the war is over but many thousand veterans are still fighting Vietnam in their own mind.

In my humble opinion the US ran out of Vietnam defeated.
 
sunb! said:
Cadet Seaman said:
sunb! said:
USA lost Vietnam and the Vietnam War, but the veterans are still fighting.


How so? The NVA and VC lost most battles, the Tet Offensive was just them hoping to pull off another Den Ben Phu.

The U.S. won every major battle, we dominated the land, besides it wasn't just our war the Aussies and Korean's where there too.

Most civilians don't see that Veitnam could have been and was won as a tactical military battle. The real battle was political.

I think that for every US soldier that died ten NVA and VC died. (Not actual numbers, just my opinion.)

A war is not only about winning battles and gaining land areas, it is about those who fought and died, those who fought and are still alive and what really came out of the conflict in the political aftermath.

The US evacuated Saigon abandoning the country into communist hands. And this was exactly what they hoped to avoid.

The domino theory: If Vietnam fell under communist rule the rest of SE Asia would follow. This did not happen to that exact point but Vietnam did invade Cambodia the following years and the US could not do a :cen: to avoid that either. Thanks to Thailand the US still had a foot in the theatre but barely that.

If you look into studies on Vietnam Veterans you fill find some very interesting materials on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse - the war is over but many thousand veterans are still fighting Vietnam in their own mind.

In my humble opinion the US ran out of Vietnam defeated.

I'm talking tacticaly.
 
A famous saying is that, "war is merely the continuation of policy by other means,”

The US lost the Vietnam war, due to the simple reason that they failed in their political aims.
 
redcoat said:
A famous saying is that, "war is merely the continuation of policy by other means,”

The US lost the Vietnam war, due to the simple reason that they failed in their political aims.

I disagree.

There are many different parts of war.

Politically

Tactically

The war men must mentally fight when they get home.

and on....

We lost our political war, but not our tactical war.

I also might add it wasn't our fight until 1964, the French had been at it sice 45', so we had been fighting an enemy that had been fighting 20 years at the time. Altogether Veitnam was 30 years.
 
The whole arguement to me sounds like complete cowardice to face facts. Would Germany have lost the Great War if its people and army were not poverty stricken? Could you argue Japan wasnt actually defeated in battle because the atomic bombs simply convinced them it wasnt worth it?

Be realistic. War isnt always won or lost on the battlefield. When a country commits to a war and then pulls out because its not going well for them, that is a defeat.
 
Didn't the conflict end in 1973 at the Paris Peace Accords, which saw the withdrawl of North Vietnamese forces from the South, maintaing boths nations sovergnty, and the Withdrawl of US Military Forces.
The Objectives of the US, and the Aussies and Kiwi's, was to keep the South Democratic, by "forcably removing" North Vietnamese Forces.
This was achieved. So therefore, they "Won" the war. They achived their objectives.
Vietnam was united under communsim in 1975, in a different conflict. It took, 12+ years for the US and allies to keep the South Democratic, but the North a few months to conquer it.
 
Bory said:
Didn't the conflict end in 1973 at the Paris Peace Accords, which saw the withdrawl of North Vietnamese forces from the South, maintaing boths nations sovergnty, and the Withdrawl of US Military Forces.
The Objectives of the US, and the Aussies and Kiwi's, was to keep the South Democratic, by "forcably removing" North Vietnamese Forces.
This was achieved. So therefore, they "Won" the war. They achived their objectives. .

Direct US involvment in the war ended in 1973, and in 1974 USA cut the fundings to the Saigon gouvernment.

In December 1974, Congress completed passage of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 that voted to cut off all military funding to the Saigon government and made unenforceable the peace terms negotiated by Nixon.

By 1975, the South Vietnamese Army stood alone against the powerful North Vietnamese. Despite Vietnamization and the 1972 victories against the PAVN offensive, the ARVN was plagued with corruption, desertion, low wages, and lack of supplies. Then in early March the PAVN launched a powerful offensive into the poorly defended Central Highlands, splitting the Republic of Vietnam in two. President Thieu was fearful that ARVN troops in the northern provinces would be isolated due to a PAVN encirclement. He decided on a redeployment of ARVN troops from the northern provinces to the Central Highlands. But the withdrawal of South Vietnamese forces soon turned into a bloody retreat as the PAVN crossed the DMZ. While South Vietnamese forces retreated from the northern provinces, splintered South Vietnamese forces in the Central Highlands fought desperately against the PAVN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_war#The_end_of_U.S._involvement
 
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