Us Victory in Vietnam?

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

The US won many battles, but they lost the war. They had logistics difficulties, morale problems, and difficulty committing to a war of that much intensity for that long of a duration when they had pressing concerns elsewhere. It's like saying that the Soviets won in Afghanistan. Clearly, they did not. 

Even at the strictly military level, it is false. The Tet Offensive only marked the maturation of North Vietnamese forces into a conventional army and was hardly the last offensive they would conduct. The Easter Offensive came later, a conventional military offensive, came after - so one cannot conclude that the Tet broke the North Vietnamese, their offensives actually became more sophisticated and conventional in its aftermath.

As students in military studies are taught, war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means. It is a political activity and its objectives are political. Failure to achieve an objective is defeat, and the US certainly failed to realize its political objectives in Vietnam. It was such an overwhelming failure, that more people died in the American intervention than did in the Cambodian massacres under Pol Pot (not to mention that American intervention, and particularly its attacks on border villages, helped to propel Pol Pot to power - who was eventually toppled by none other than the North Vietnamese). The Easter Offensive was certainly costly, but it was a marginal victory for the NVA: they had gained new territory in the south (about 10% of the country was taken), and the US could not dislodge them. They began to regroup for the next offensive, and the US wisely withdrew.

The situation was completely unstable and the American position untenable. It was a decisive victory for state communism, and not just in Vietnam: the war weakened American support at the global level and state communism exploited it relentlessly in key areas such as central and south america and the middle east.

Americans like to console themselves with this myth of a "domestic" defeat (as if the home front can somehow be unrelated to the war) and it is, in essence, an American Dolchstoßlegende, almost identical to the German Dolchstoßlegende that was born (and eventually culminated in the Nazi seizure of power) when the November Revolution brought in the Weimar Republic and signed Versailles in the face of an untenable war. The theories were pretty much the same; "we've been stabbed in the back by politicians and leftists, we could have won if not for the traitors in our midst" except that the American version mostly didn't feature Jews, at least, not by the 80s (in the 70s it certainly did, eg John Birch Society etc).

No doubt, a new Dolchstoßlegende will be created in the wake of Iraq ...

Originally posted by Panther Personally, i really don't want too see Iraqis suffer anymore than they already have. I am really hoping they succeed in ruling themselves!

What you probably mean is, you are hoping a US-friendly regime takes power in Iraq - which is seriously unlikely. The current regime is unstable precisely because it is too amenable to American interests. What will you say when an anti-American regime takes power in Iraq and restores order?

Claiming the US won in Vietnam is like claiming Hannibal won in Italy, Germany won at Jutland and the British won in Afghanistan in the 19th century.

Vietnam won!

Originally posted by MythTR Us lost. But hollywood didn't miss the thing, they created rambo xD

I hope that's a joke.  If it's not you should watch Rambo (real name First Blood) again because that movie is not about Vietnam, it's about the treatment of vets when they come back from Vietnam.  Better Hollywood representations of Vietnam would be Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, and Platoon.

While those movies are good, I mentioned Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket because all three came out with in 5 years of First Blood not because I think they are great movies (and I do).  I also chose them because they are actually about Vietnam and not some vet going bananas in some small town in Colorado.

Originally posted by King John While those movies are good, I mentioned Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket because all three came out with in 5 years of First Blood not because I think they are great movies (and I do).  I also chose them because they are actually about Vietnam and not some vet going bananas in some small town in Colorado.

The point of the Rambo series (A vehicle for it's star also, i might add.), wasn't just to point out a SF vet going nuts in some US town. It was a reaction to the perceived treatment of vets from Vietnam by the general public. It served too highlight a problem and not meant to be seen as a problematic feature of the participants from the war. Missing in actions series was kind of used in the same way, too highlight any possible POW's left behind! Platoon and Apocalypse Now were the polar opposites of the other two mentioned above, highlighting US soldiers behaving badly in a time of war.

Most movies like those mentioned above are meant to convey a message while "trying to be" entertaining. Regretfully in time and aside from one or two movies here and there, i found myself getting more enjoyment and entertainment out of the "Terminator" series, then any Hollywood historical/war movie that has been put out in the last forty years!

the question of who won or at least came out ahead has been a long one. i think it's important to understand first and foremost the fact that vietnam was a proxy war in a much bigger war,...communism. america had the c.i.a. and different covert ops in vietnam before the war began. the fact that it in some words was never to be really one only sustained. what a better question might be is what were casualties on each side, who spent more on defense and who was hurt the most in the end. the u.s. spents big budgets on this war and many americans died as well as vietnamese. the viet cong style of guerilla warfare was brutal on american forces. more heed should of been seen on what had happen with the french who were governing occupants in the vietnam territory. when you look at all this and the negative image of this war i would say it hurt the u.s. more than vietnam, considering we had many more wars to fight before the end of the cold war{thanks gorbichev!haha}the truth is like kennedy said it could have been avoided jfk and lbj both think i knew soon enough that the war could be a bigger fiasco than predicted.

Call it a draw.

Hindsight is 20/20, at the time people didn't know that the world wouldn't be going up in flames in the near future, and the survival imperative is pretty strong for most people.  Having Soviet IRBMs based 80 miles and 5 minutes flight time from Washington by a Soviet Empire that never did demobilize after WW II and showed every sign of willingness to confront western interests globally tended to radicalize a nation that had a long history of isolationism.