The United States won the Vietnam War

[Transcend]

Originally posted by steelehc



Not quite. What about the Tet offensive? We lost that one.

As for the Romans, I really don't know enough about them to make any educated remarks, but I would have to disagree with you. Ditto for the British. However, I would be open to debate about this.

Steele

Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the NORTH VIETNAMESE. None of their military objectives were achieved, their own casualties were horrendous, and Vietcongs lost most of their military units. But it had achieved an unexpected result: it destroyed the American public's confidence in the Johnson's Administration. Since America lost the will to continue the fight, the War was lost from that point on.

As for Romans, they had several major military disasters. The first one was caused by Hannibal at Cannae in 216BC. In a single afternoon, at least 50% of the Roman military were destroyed. It was a wonder that Rome survived that debacle after all.
The second disaster happened at Teutoburger Forest in 9AD, at the height of Roman imperial power. The loss of three legions equaled 10% of its total military force.
The final disaster occured at Adrianople in 378AD, and it was this defeat that sealed the fate for the West Roman Empire. Eventhough it was the East Romans who lost their entire field army, the wall of Constantinople eventually bounced off the barbarians to the West.

America has never suffered defeats in the same magnitude as Romans. Washington was burned down in 1812, but the personnel losses were almost negligible, and Andrew Jackson crushed the main British force at New Orleans a few years later.

[Viper2263]

Originally posted by kolpo


Using tanks agains jungle guerillia?

Ever heard of a metaphor? Yes we would have decisively won had we declared war.

[Plan Austral]

Originally posted by Dissident
it has to do more than deaths. The U.S. never lost a single battle. Including the Tet offensive. All ground was retaken shortly after Tet began.

How can a country win every battle yet lose a war?

Ask Annibal.

[Saint Marcus]

How can a country win every battle yet lose a war?

Read up on your Greek myths.

[Maj]

Had Hitler not invaded the Soviet Union and known about D-Day before hand then Germany very well would have come out conquerers of Europe.

Had Japan known about the Midway invasion and taken appropriate counter-measures then very likely it would have been the Americans who would have ended up losing their carrier fleet.

Get over the fact that the United States is not the omnipotent lord of warfare that so many make it out to be. Militaries make mistakes and so do the politicians behind them. There is no doubt that the United States has the largest, most technologically advanced military in the world. There is also no doubt that generals and admirals are limited in knowledge and that their decisions are based on the facts they possess, the goals they wish to achieve and the risk assessment putting those two together will produce. Sometimes they make the wrong decision. If there was no risk, there would be no chance of losing.

I was at the video store the other day and saw the DVD for "Platoon" on sale. Underneath the movie's title was a caption that read something like "When American soldiers lost their innocence". Given the overwhelming mental and physical stresses placed on many of the American troops in Vietnam, the carnage they witnessed and took part in, I can see how that statement would be true. Yet had the caption read "When American soldiers slaughtered hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent peasants" how far from the truth would it be?

If you wish to hold to the belief that the United States military is unrivaled and undefeated in its history then may your perspective guide you to that conclusion. Perspective I suppose, IS everything.

[steelehc]

Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the NORTH VIETNAMESE. None of their military objectives were achieved, their own casualties were horrendous, and Vietcongs lost most of their military units. But it had achieved an unexpected result: it destroyed the American public's confidence in the Johnson's Administration. Since America lost the will to continue the fight, the War was lost from that point on.

Thats what I meant by defeat. However, they overran many of our units, and pushed us back a long ways (even if temporarily).

Originally posted by Maj
Had Hitler not invaded the Soviet Union and known about D-Day before hand then Germany very well would have come out conquerers of Europe.

Had Japan known about the Midway invasion and taken appropriate counter-measures then very likely it would have been the Americans who would have ended up losing their carrier fleet.

Perspective I suppose, IS everything.

Had Hitler not invaded Russia, then Russia would have invaded Germany. They were both gearing up for war against each-other, they both hated each-other, and had drawn up war plans to prosecute the war all the way to Berlin or Moscow, as the case may be.

Had Japan known about the Midway trap (invasion?!?) and taken countermeasures, and sunk every American carrier, and destroyed every American plane, the battle would have been fought again in six months to a year, with a numerical advantage for the American fleet. By 1944, we were launching an aircraft carrier every three weeks.

Perspective is almost everything. Judgement, and conclusion are important as well.

Steele

[Dis]

I'm reasonably sure american tanks can wipe out roman legions at the height of their power

as long as sid meier isn't controlling things

Yeah I know I'm twisting words. I never said American was the greatest power relative to the technology at the time. I said America was the greatest military power the world has ever seen. I stand by that remark .

[Dis]

no not another Midway turning point suppoter.

Midway was not the turning point of the war in the pacific. The turning point was Dec 7,1941. japan lost the war as soon as they attacked the U.S.

Japan was never a threat. They were a pitiful small island nation. How anyone could possibly think Japan could defend against the U.S. is beyond me. They simply did not have the resources to outmatch the U.S. They lost the war they day they started it against the U.S.

I admit at the time, people considered it a turning point. But the U.S. overestimated Japanese forces severely. Kind of like how we overestimated Iraqi forces in the gulf war. They weren't as fierce as we feared.

[Eroberer]

Dissident, I'll agree with you on the grounds that it probably pisses the Euros off. We did indeed accomplish just about every goal we went in with, which was to halt the spread of communism. We even managed to make it so the communists that took over Vietnam after the cease-fire could not make a good economy, and they have not managed to be very successful to this date. They were left in a position to be assimilated, which is just now starting!

So in conclusion, we have never lost a war, and are thus the greatest military power the world has ever seen.

[Eroberer]

Also, we did meet a great many of our objectives and came close to the rest. The intention was not to kill every commie, just to distabalize the region. Or something along those lines anyway.

The objectives of the commies were much easier. That's why they were able to "accomplish" these goals (or come close).

How would you say we lost when their country was left in utter ruin, and that was very close to our primary objective? What'd the commies do to us, anyway? ....oh, nothing!

[Dis]

I'm going to delve into this a little further. And I'll do it in a little less of a troll way

First of all I stand by the military met its objectives. They won the battles they had to, and held the land they had to. That is a clear cut issue.

Next we go into politics. What was the objective going into the war? This is not clear, and hence was a major problem of the war. But some of you guys arguments are as ridiculous as mine . Just because today we don't occupy Vietnam doesn't mean we lost. It was never our country to begin with. It is a sovereign nation. Our objective was not to hold the land and treat it like it was our territory.

But what then was the objective? Stop the spread of communism? Yes communism did spread to Cambodian and Laos. But we didn't care about those nations . We cared about Thailand and Singapore to the south. Did we stop the spread of communism? No.

But I don't think that was ever an objective of the Vietnam war. This is just the BS that politicians state in their speeches. What politicians really wanted was to show the commies that the U.S. wouldn't back down from a fight.

Yes you heard me right. This really was a playground shouting match. It had nothing to do with the spread of communism. the U.S. didn't give a f*ck about those 3 nations (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos).

In my opinion, the politican wanted to show the Communists (mainly Russia) that they can't roll over countries without any opposition. That we wouldn't back down from a fight. This was the objective in the 60's.

Now lets roll the clock over to 1972 election year. The objective have changed. The objective was no longer to stand up to a bully, but find a way out of the war. America had made its stand and proven its point. Now a way was needed to leave a country that was never ours to begin with. This was accomplished in 1973.

yes the war for the U.S. ended in 1973. The S. Vietnamese were the ones that lost the war, not the United States. In the next 2 years the S. Vietnamese were conquered by the N. Vietnamese.

This was never America's war to begin with. It was S. Vietnam's war. They are the losers, not the U.S. We accomplished our objective of standing up to a bully. It just so happens that our objectives changed over 5 years of war.

[Goingonit]

Originally posted by Dissident
But I don't think that was ever an objective of the Vietnam war. This is just the BS that politicians state in their speeches. What politicians really wanted was to show the commies that the U.S. wouldn't back down from a fight.

Well, what you managed to do was show the Commies that if you ever did get into a fight, your people would support the other side! I wouldn't call that winning...

[Dis]

that was only Jane Fonda. How we let her back in the country I will never know.

[Dr Strangelove]

Think of Vietnam as being one part of a global confict. The demoralization caused by our protracted involvement made the US government rethink its strategy. After the withdrawal from Vietnam the US government became much more cautious about deploying American troops. The communist block on the other hand stepped up their efforts, becoming involved in nearly a dozen fights in Africa alone, not to mention aggression in Asia and South America, as well as funding terrorist activities in the developed countries of Europe and the Pacific rim. In the early 1970s America's prestige had declined and our system of alliances nearly collapsed, but by frightening everybody the Communists snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

We learned something from Vietnam. They didn't. So I say, yes, the United States did win Vietnam.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Dissident
But what then was the objective? Stop the spread of communism? Yes communism did spread to Cambodian and Laos. But we didn't care about those nations . We cared about Thailand and Singapore to the south. Did we stop the spread of communism? No.

Stop trying to rewrite history. The US didn't care about Singapore. In the 1960s, Singapore was a two-bit backwater of no significance. As for Thailand, there was never any significant communist threat there. The Thais are staunchly royalist.

The United States wanted to stop communism in Vietnam, and they failed.

Repeat after me: The United States was defeated in Vietnam. The United States lost the war and the Vietnamese won. This is a simple fact and no matter how much you grasp for straws, it won't change the obvious fact that the United States lost.

The American troops and officers were incompetent and despite having massive amounts of firepower, they lost to a bunch of peasants armed with AK-47 and other basic weapons.

America's defeat in Vietnam showed the world that a superpower could be defeated by a people's army. The Vietnamese victory was the start of a string of defeats for the US. American supported governments collapsed in Cambodia, Laos, Iran, Nicaragua, to name but a few.

The one saving grace for the US is that the American military woke up from their hubris. After WWII, the American military began to believe that they were invincible. Vietnam showed them that this was not true; that even the "greatest" military power could lose in the battlefield. Since then, the American military has reformed itself and has tried to learn the lessons from their defeat. As a result, the American military is far superior to what it was in the 1960s.

Instead of denying the truth, Americans should acknowledge the valour and skill of the Vietnamese. They should acknowledge that the American military failed in Vietnam. If the Americans refuse to accept the facts then they are bound to repeat the mistakes of the past.