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
chronoserpent said:
I am a Vietnamese-American, raised by Vietnamese parents who escaped from Viet Nam during the war, and I was born and raised in Southern California (Orange County, very near Little Saigon).

Never, EVER have I heard any comments against the American military effort in Viet Nam from my relatives or any other Vietnamese person.

The 1SGT of my NJROTC unit, who served a tour in Viet Nam, has always proudly said that the US military never militarily lost a battle in Viet Nam. I think that's probably an exaggeration, but from my studies of history, it's mostly true.

I don't think any blame can be put on American forces. The American military was the only thing keeping the North from overwhelming the South, and it's no surprise that once the US pulled out, the South was defeated.

Rather, in my opinion the war was lost by political micromanagement of the war (rather than leaving it to soldiers) and by American anti-war sentiment at home which magnified the political effects.
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I share your opinion, and it comes as a great satisfaction to me, you personally would have more experience on this subject than I do by your background alone.
 
plain and simple.

We did not lose Vietnam. They did not Win, if i had to say


A) Won
B) Lost
C) Neutral (No One Won)
I will say C everytime and twice on Mondays.
 
I think doing to most damage to the enemy is a success.

But really I think it was a moral defeat yet a military victory.
 
We lost under the definitions of the US war aim.

The official reason why we were in Vietnam was to set a independent and communist free South Vietnam. Did we do this in the end? No we did not. We won most of the battles in the war. However, military victories do not guarantee complete victory. Tet is a great example of this. 100,000 VC and 80,000 NVA (give or take) rose up and attacked US and RVN forces all over South Vietnam. In purely military terms, the US waxed the enemy. In political terms, the VC and NVA delt the US a fatal political blow. For 3 years, LBJ and the government had been telling the people that the US very close to victory. Then the American People get to see thousands of enemy mount a huge offensive. In my opinion, it's no surprise that the American people lost faith in the government and abandoned support for the war. America was no longer willing to stomach the fight and demanded that the US pullout.

A big problem with the American strategy in Vietnam was a general lack of waging political war against the enemy. The US conentrated most of the war effort on killing the enemy rather than protecting the civilians and winning the hearts and minds of the locals. In insurgencies, denying the enemy access to the local population is as important as searching for and destroying the enemy. Look at the USMC's CAP ([SIZE=-1]Combined Action Platoons). 7-15 Marines would move into a village, live with the locals and help the villagers defend against VC. The Marines called this "hold and defend." I am still doing research on CAP. My initial reaction is CAP was more successful than the Army's sreach and destroy tactic.

Oh, and North Vietnam won according to their war aims. Their war aims were to get rid of yet another imperial power (the US), overthrow the RVN government and unify Vietnam.

War is policy by other means
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Doody said:
We lost under the definitions of the US war aim.
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American people lost faith in the government and abandoned support for the war. America was no longer willing to stomach the fight and demanded that the US pullout.

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The US conentrated most of the war effort on killing the enemy rather than protecting the civilians and winning the hearts and minds of the locals. In insurgencies, denying the enemy access to the local population is as important as searching for and destroying the enemy.

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I don't completely disagree with you Doody ... HOWEVER ... search and destroy missions can only go so far in winning a conflict ... the US government and US military commanders decided to limit warfare to targets in South Vietnam and to ONLY pinpoint military targets in the north. Millions of tons of ordnance were jettisoned over the water that was destined for targets in the north that were never delivered on target for a variety of reasons. This ordnance COULD have been used to break the back of the north's intransigence.

Unlike WWII, the bombing over North Vietnam was NOT designed to bring them to the peace table to seek peace on an equitable basis. Had we had the cohones to do what every military man KNEW was essential to winning, B52s would have flown over North Vietnam and bombed anything in sight until they hollered 'UNCLE'. This never happened ... the single time we bombed the dikes in the north, you would think that we had just gassed a school full of kids.

THE WAR COULD HAVE BEEN WON IF THE CIVILIANS WOULD HAVE LET THE MILITARY WAGE A 'REAL' WAR INSTEAD OF A 'POLITICAL' WAR.
 
bulldogg said:
Someone's been reading Von Clausewitz.
:rockin:
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you got me :cheers:

Now here are my views on Air Power in Vietnam.

The US made a hude mistake in concentrating on North Vietnam. General Westmorland even said in 1965 that the VC only recieved 10-15% of its support from North Vietnam. The amount of external support to the VC prior to 65 was under 10%. This meant that the VC was getting most of its support from the population of South Vietnam. When the US entered the conflict, we took most of our forces and placed them to stop the North Vietnamese from infiltrating the south. Keep in mind, the VC were only getting like 15 tons of supplies from the north per a day. That is not a lot when you consider the VC numbered at least 150,000 (VC regulars and irregulars). Robert MacNamara, in his book In Retrostpect; the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,even said the US spend all its energy worring about the NVA rather than concentrating on VC irregulars. The Pentagon went as far as to not count the VC irregulars (80,000 strong) in their count of the enemy's stenth.

The US thought by destroying North Vietnam, the VC would have collapsed. I do not agree with this notion. The VC and Uncle Ho would have continued the fight with or without North Vietnam and the Communist cause. Ho accepted Communism because it aided him in unifying Vietnam.

So we dropped all kinds of bombs on the Ho Chi Mien trail in an effort to stop 15 tons of supplies per a day. We were dumping massive amounts of input into B52ing the trail and getting little output from our actions. BullDog should remember Clausewitz's views on this. Massive amounts of input does not gaurantee massive out put. One only must look at WWI for that lesson. Many times in war a little input gives massive output; German mechanized units in the begining of WWII, German Shock Troops of WWI, 300 Spartans and 3000 of thier allies holding off an Pershing Army of 1 million for 7 days, the Allied bombing of oil refineries near the end of WWII, the [SIZE=-1]Chechnyian [/SIZE]rebels taking back Grozny after the Russians siezed in during the first Russian invasion.

My point is massive air power against North Vietnam from 65-67, when North Vietnam did not give much support to the VC, would not have won Vietnam. In insurgencies, the civilian population is the center of gravity. Our efforts should have been placed there first, not the intervention of North Vietnam. That came much later.
 
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in military speaking ,the victory means occupy the land in the end.

in stratagem speaking ,if the original purpose have been achieved successfully it means victory.

if we declare cietnam win, but we should know that the cost for their victory was very high,and only the victory-itself can not compensate all the things they lost in the past.

if we declare the usa was defeated,but we should know that the usa was not defeated by the forces of the vietnam but by the poll in the united states....commen people in usa began to anti-that-war.

in my own opinion.::::
viennam win,but in high cost;usa lost,but was not defeated by the vietnam but by the commen people of the united states.
 
yingying said:
in military speaking ,the victory means occupy the land in the end.

in stratagem speaking ,if the original purpose have been achieved successfully it means victory.

if we declare cietnam win, but we should know that the cost for their victory was very high,and only the victory-itself can not compensate all the things they lost in the past.

if we declare the usa was defeated,but we should know that the usa was not defeated by the forces of the vietnam but by the poll in the united states....commen people in usa began to anti-that-war.

in my own opinion.::::
viennam win,but in high cost;usa lost,but was not defeated by the vietnam but by the commen people of the united states.
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Your English is a little hard to follow ... BUT ... I think you put the end result into a nutshell.
 
Chief Bones said:
Your English is a little hard to follow ... BUT ... I think you put the end result into a nutshell.
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what do you mean ?
in facti can not catch the point of your words.
do you say that what i said was in brief? and they are all right?
 
I don't believe the protesters had much to do with the defeat in Vietnam (the only thing they did was lower the moral of the troops). The United States of America has won very unpopular wars (The Revolution, Civil War, WWI and Korea). I believe anyone who believes that the protesters caused the defeat are dead wrong. Nixon was not a weak president however when Watergate happened we got Ford (who was very much a pansy) who refused to back SV when attacked by the North (after US troops had left once the truce was signed). The war was not lost at the tip of a gun but by the tip of a pen.
 
It has everything to do with it

There are people on this board who have posted on this topic who lived during Vietnam and some who fought in Vietnam and you are coming in here refuting what they have to say on the matter. I am just trying to establish the base of the authority of which you speak. You claim that they are "dead wrong" so you must have some ground breaking news to share for such a vociferous claim. I wait with baited breath.
:avi:
 
As enlisted people, we were told not to wear our uniforms when traveling because of the good possibility of being spat upon, hit with a hard object, beaten senseless or even killed. That wasn't the Government, that was dope smoking, vermin infested, worthless louts who eventually wound up in our education system as teachers and administraters, why hell, you may even know a few of them. Then, of course, Jane Fonda is nominated as one of the Women of the Year or some such Bravo Sierra, by the same louts.
 
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