Us Victory in Vietnam?

Firstly, how do you intend to argue your contention that the US won the Vietnam War?

Well let's see now, Vietnam was a French colony now there are no French, Americans were there for 15 years now there are none, South Vietnam was occupied by comunists and every one who suported U.S fled the country. Now I am not sure but i think North Vietnam kind of won the war. The problem is that both nations claimed that they have won, but that is obviously impocible in battle. It might be interesting to write a paprer in which you could try to explain what war meant for both nations. Try to see the war from the perspective of Vietnamese and Americans and then compare it. It was two completly different wars. For Americans it was a war against ideology and for Vietnamese it was a simple liberation war agains foreign rule which exicted in southeast Asia for many many years (a life or daeth sitution as they saw it). Today Vietnam still celebrate this victory in comunist style parades, many streets bear names of their generales, and many soldiers are regarded as heroes, while in America Vietnam is seen as a bad expiriance and nobody likes to remember it, there are no paredes, no  famus generals, but the real shame is that the soldiers who fought bravely were regarded at the time as baby killeres by many rather then heroes. U.S lost the war in all the ways one can lose the war. I have'nt read the book you mentioned but the title speaks for it self. You should find some books that are not one sided and not too patriotic, maybe from some journalists who were in Vietnam during the war. Remember there are no good guys or bad guys in this war, it rather depends from the angle you are looking at.

I do not think you defeted yourselves, I rather think it was a war imposible to win. It was fought far from home on very difficult and hostile terrene, and remember it lasted twice as long then WWII. It was to expencive to keep so many soldiers and equipment far from home for such a long time. Something like Iraq today. 60000 American soldier were killed in Vietnam. Imagine watching the same news report from Vietnam over and over again saying we are wining and then watching body bags, funerals, and protests. It went on for eight years until it become just to tiresome. Vietnamese knew there are no match in an open battle, they were smart and patient and that's what brought them victory at the end.  

The argument of Victory in Vietnam is interesting and multi-faceted. Some ideas I have gone through.

It was a victory tactically, the US forces obtained a far higher body count per soldier lost than their adversaries and did not lose a major pitched battle. Given the VAST assymetry of military resources, which strongly favoured the Americans, this is hardly surprising.

It was a defeat in terms of the objectives. The US objectives were to contain communism and that meant keeping the South within US alignment. Speaking in these strategic terms, the US and their allies absolutely failed despite superior military and economic resources.

It was a partial loss in the wider strategic sense, because the dominos did partly begin to fall - Laos and Cambodia also fell to communist influence. The sheer devastation the Americans wrought in Indochina was enough to convince other southeast Asian nations to adopt repressive measures to root out communism, but they would likely have done so anyway out of concern for preserving their own regime. The Phillipines are an example of where the Americans (after a number of tries) got it right. So in the geopolitical sense, it was a defeat (though not as bad as it could have been, most of SE Asia remained outside the communist sphere).

Domestically, it can only be considered a defeat. LBJ's desire to create the "Great Society" suffered heavily because of the political and economic strain of the war. This period in America witnessed the flourishing of new drug use, social upheaval, discrediting of the office of President, failure to fully implement social welfare on a par with other Western nations, and a range of other issues - all of which had a greater or lesser relation to the costs of protracted engagement in Vietnam.

I do basically agree with your tactical analysis of the situation, the North Vietnamese escalated the conflict to a conventional military engagement before it was wise to do so, and so suffered heavy (though not terminal) losses.

However, the US could have achieved far more than they did had they more intelligently analysed the situation. The existence of a peaceful and aligned and anti-Chinese socialist North, with a compliant puppet dictator South, were from the earliest stages a strong possibility which should have been pursued. Overall, in terms of the return on investment in military, financial, diplomatic and political resources, the outcome can only be considered a defeat. The French won most of their battles, and obtained a higher kill ratio, too.


Edited by Constantine XI - 17-Mar-2009 at 04:54

 

US could have won? maybe, but not the way they led this war. the South Vietnamese government was corrupt and could have offered the Vietnamese no alternative to the north. even if the US would have conquered North Vietnam (which was almost impossible considdering their AA defenses), they would have fought on from within and from Laos & Cambodia. and about those pitched battles. i mean yes you can say the Tet Offensive was a failure but the Communists were able to conduct such a grand operation sucessfully on sucha  large scale and even prepare for it in secret (and it was not the last such offensive). the US never had such a large offensive and all other offensives eventually achieved nothing either. and about body counts. well, youc an believe that the US killed more Commies than vice versa or maybe not. if you watch Full metal jacket, you'll get the basic idea that one single VC was able not to defeat but delay a platoon at little cost and may even inflict casualties. the same is true for boobie traps. though it remains apparent truth that the US tactically won each battle in Vietnam, so did Pyrrhos in Italy. it is also noteworthy that the Commies apparently won most engagements vs the South Vietnamese and the ARVN had considderable desertions.

Originally posted by Singidunum no  famus generals

the contemporary American tanks are called Abrams, aren't they?

no but all Nimitz class carriers are named after presidents (or senators) except the first Nimitz herself.

Originally posted by rockgod214 My arguement will be that we defeated the North Vietnamese militarily but we defeated ourselves

Just to make a difference, who won: USSR or Germany? The losses the SU suffered were larger than the Third Reich's. Yet the Red Army moved in and occupied Germany. That's how they won. The Winter War (to get assymetric). Again soviet losses were far larger than Finland's. But the USSR won the war.

no he simply (and smartly) just narrowed the victory conditions to a point where the US can claim victory. a war of limited objectives indeed.