Could America Have Won the Vietnam War?

[cgannon64]

Could America have won the Vietnam War? Before I give you my arguement for why we could not have, I must give you a quote by Hitler: "For the Third Reich to win, the enemy must become (like) the Third Reich." This quote is very interesting, because I beleive it summed up what was happening during Vietnam: we were becoming like the enemy to beat the enemy.

Now, when I say 'win' I do not simply mean conquer North Vietnam or establish a friendly government there. By win, I mean doing those things while keeping America's ideals alive.

I personally think that we could not have won without becoming the enemy. I think America would have to have become a totalitarian state to win. My reasons for thinking so: Martial Law was established in Ohio for a short time. The National Guard killed innocent students, simply turning and opening fire on crowds, on windows. Operation Chaos made government investigations of 7800 Americans. Protest groups everywhere were becoming militant. I think if we stayed in Vietnam any longer, anarchy would start erupting in many places, and soon we would become like our enemy, eliminating free press, jailing people for no good reason, overall destruction of what America stands (or stood for...).

Do you people agree/disagree with me? Am I saying what has already been said?

[Frankychan]

Uh oh, I feel a flame war coming on...

Um...well....to answer you-no, I don't think we coulda won unless we dropped the A or H-bomb on 'em.

But I'll just get outta here before the s*** hits the fan.

[cgannon64]

I've never been in a real flame war!

By the way, you're right, we could have nuked Vietnam, but that would be the ultimate destruction of American morals: nuking a third-world country.

But, is that the ultimate destruction of American morals? I think MyLai was a huge failure for what we stand for---killing innocent civilans, raping innocent women.

By the way I have just been reading about the Vietnam War recently (can you tell), so this seems to be a hot topic in my mind. The problem I hear most is that the enemy was too well mixed---a common example is a woman with a baby, who when asked if there were any Viet Cong in the area replied no, only to have the truck ride over the road and explode.

Vietnam makes me shudder. NOt just for the pure sadness of it all, but for the fact that people thought it was a good idea.

[notyoueither]

I've heard assertions that the US spent enough on Vietnam to a: pave the entire country, or b: hire the Sicilians and the Triads to put a hit on every single person in the north and south.

With those sorts of resources, I'm sure it should have been possible for imaginative leadership to find ways of winning. The Brits 'won' in Malaysia.

[cgannon64]

Notyoueither---I think you are referring to a joke among the soldiers there (I don't find it quite funny). It went something like this: "The best way to win the war is too load all the friendlies on a boat, bomb the entire peninsula, pave it with concrete, then sink the boat."

You're right though, the military spending on Vietnam was huge.

[Bosh]

yeah, more bombs were dropped in vietnam than in WW II, don't see how they could have won with the South Vietnamese government though, it was just far too inept, unpopular and corrupt.

[Pekka]

Tough question. Maybe.. but Americans didn't have the full support of their gov and people, so that contributes a lot to what happened. North Vietnamese were ruthless and tough to beat. Maybe they were almost impossible to beat by the usual methods, so nuking would have been the only way to really take their cards. Maybe.
Or maybe using the same tactics as they did.. Bah, I know too little of this subject, I just like the movies made from that war .

[Capt Dizle]

Vietnam is a prime example of the stupidity of fighting a limited war. We could have won if we had hit them hard early. Our leaders lacked the political will to fight total war.

[Thrawn05]

Forgive me if I didn't grow up during that era... but I think I should says somthing.


We COULD (noticed I said COULD) have if the US did both of these things:

1: Allow the military to pick targets... not the pres.

2: STOP at the parallel line. That was a big mistake, and our egos got in the way of our better judgement.


If the two occured, then Vietnam would be like Korea... Northa and South. At least some people over there would have a democracy.


Just my 2 cents... I know this is a touchy subject.

[cgannon64]

Thrawn---I didn't live in that era either, but I find it very interesting to see the military mistakes and our culture begin to slide into anarchy before we stopped it.

I think the Vietnamese there knew the land too well and, I think, even today, still are/were the ultimate masters of guerrilla war. The fact that they could "beat", or at least make a stalemate with the most powerful nation in the world is quite a feat.

Yes, more bombs were dropped on Vietnam in one year (I think) than in all of WW2. And most of these bombs proved useless. THe classic example is where an American bomb destroyed a bridge, only to find the next day that Vietnamese peasents had built one out of sandbags.

I also find their tunnel system there to be amazing. Wasn't it 2 million miles long or something? Really an ingenious way to make guerrilla tactics all that more effective.

[SlowwHand]

Since you're new here I'll say it again.

Without question. Had the war been run by the military, instead of politicians, it would have been a whole different ball game.

I won't say what you can do with you're "military mistakes" ...mistake.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Since you're new here I'll say it again.

Without question. Had the war been run by the military, instead of politicians, it would have been a whole different ball game.

I won't say what you can do with you're "military mistakes" ...mistake.

I know, I read. I just wanted to opin as well.

[cgannon64]

"Since I'm new?"

Has there been a thread about this before? If yes, I'm quite sorry, don't mean to rehash an old thread. I was going to post this at CFC, then here, but that site is down, so I decided to reverse the order. Sorry, but was this even directed at me? If not, sorry...

The question I ask myself is WHETHER we actually wanted to win. I think that war made us realize something---we should only fight when victory is guarenteed, and it is not our mission to battle communism on all fronts. You may throw Grenada and those things at me, but those were VERY short wars.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by cgannon64
You may throw Grenada and those things at me, but those were VERY short wars.

How short? I thought the Gulf War the shortest (~3 days (6 months preps then 3 days it was over))

[SlowwHand]

"Has there been a thread about this before? "

Yes. Redundantly. But if you don't have answers, I guess that's all that really matters in the long run.
Hell. My dad and mom and their parents knew how to eat with a fork, but they taught me anyway.