Could America Have Won the Vietnam War?

[Garth Vader]

That's interesting because the movie didn't show the NVA as using artillery. It mostly showed them trying to overwhelm with numbers, and having problems dealing with US artillery.

[Ned]

IIRC from the show, I also beleive the NVA HQ was across the border as well. That last charge in the movie where the US soldiers took the NVA HQ did not happen.

[joseph1944]

Originally posted by Ned
I thought the following would be interesting on the causes of our military intervention in Vietnam.

From Halbertson's book,



Also, in the initial stages of planning our intervention in 1961, Bundy, Rostow and other called for an invasion of NV if they directly interveneD in the South. They also suggested the use of nuclear weapons if the Chinese invaded.

By the time the final plans were approved in Nov '61, the planned US response to a direct NV intervention was limited to increasing our force level in SV and bombing the North.

It seems that Kennedy's plan was actually carried out by Johnson.

However just before Kennedy was killed some said he was then thinking about pulling out all together because of Diem corruption.

[Ned]

joseph1944, Yes, but he had Diem assassinated in Nov. 1. That fixed that problem. Kennedy himself was assassinated just three weeks later.

Here is a quote from an interview conducted with NBC news on Sept. 9.

Mr. BRINKLEY. With so much of our prestige, money, so on, committed in South Viet-Nam, why can't we exercise a little more influence there, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT. We have some influence. We have some influence and we are attempting to carry it out. I think we don't—we can't expect these countries to do everything the way we want to do them" They have their own interest, their own personalities, their own tradition. We can't make everyone in our image, and there are a good many people who don't want to go in our image. In addition, we have ancient struggles between countries. In the case of India and Pakistan, we wound like to have them settle Kashmir. That is our view of the best way to defend the subcontinent against communism. But that struggle between India and Pakistan is more important to a good many people in that area than the struggle against the Communists. We would like to have Cambodia, Thailand, and South Viet-Nam all in harmony, but there are ancient differences there. We can't make the world over, but we can influence the world. The fact of the matter is that with the assistance of the United States and SEATO [Southeast Asia Treaty Organization], Southeast Asia and indeed all of Asia has been maintained independent against a powerful forces the Chinese Communists. What I am concerned about is that Americans will get impatient and say, because they don't like events in Southeast Asia or they don't like the Government in Saigon, that we should withdraw. That only makes it easy for the Communists. I think we should stay

We should use our influence in as effective a way as we can, but we should not withdraw

[Sikander]

Seeing how there is so much ignorance about the war as related on this thread, I suggest that some of you do some reading. There are numerous books on the subject, but I suggest starting with an overview. Even books written by journalists (like Karnow's "The 10,000 Day War) will give you a good base to start from.

Once you have a grasp of the political sequence of events you can move to institutional histories ("Vietnam: The Death of an American Army" is pretty good) and finally campaign and battle histories. "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young" is a good battle history, though it is relatively useless for drawing strategic or political conclusions. In fact, while individual, campaign and battle histories abound, the war was fought over such a vast area with vastly different terrain and other local features, and over such a long period of time, these histories are almost useless except for filling in the gaps once you have a very good handle on the big picture. There were some big battles, but any single battle had almost no effect on the direction of the war at large.

Those who are relying on your high school history courses are going to be misled, as there is so much political baggage still associated with the war that the tiny amount of time spent on the subject is likely to be about as enlightening as watching a half-hour history channel treatment, or a movie. ("The bullsh!t piled up so fast in Vietnam that you needed wings to stay above it.") This was an extremely complicated war, and even those of us who lived through it are very likely to be confused / misled without some serious study of the conflict after the fact.

[Ned]

Sikander, I was high school and college through the height of the war and remember the progression of events fairly well. However, what I didn't know at the time was what was contained in the Pentagon papers, which can be found on the web. A fascinating read.

[TheStinger]

The way i see vietnam is as one of the battles od the cold war, the US lost that one but won the war

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
That's interesting because the movie didn't show the NVA as using artillery. It mostly showed them trying to overwhelm with numbers, and having problems dealing with US artillery.

The NVA arty was lagging behind, as were their AA MGs which would have been particularly useful vs the American helicopters. The NVA HQ wasn't attacked by American forces on the ground, but was hit by a B-52 strike later. The American force on the ground was lifted out for the most part after the action shown in the movie, and another battalion lifted in. This bn walked overland to get away from the B-52 strike the next day and was ambushed by the NVA, resulting in heavy losses to both sides. The American kill ratio in this action was much lower than in the initial action.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ned
Sikander, I was high school and college through the height of the war and remember the progression of events fairly well. However, what I didn't know at the time was what was contained in the Pentagon papers, which can be found on the web. A fascinating read.

I tried to follow the war via news reports as best as I could while it was going on, but my studies after the war showed me that there was a lot going on that the vast majority of the military as well as civilian population were completely unaware of. Only those working at the higher echelons on both sides had a good view of the war, and often they were not all that aware of what the view from the enemy camp looked like. For the vast majority of the civilian population the war was of overwhelming complexity, while for a vast majority of the military population the war consisted of the actions in their own area of operation, which varied considerably from year to year and area to area. The conflict in Laos and Cambodia in particular remained very hazy to almost all but those directly involved.

[uh Clem]

Only those working at the higher echelons on both sides had a good view of the war

Really??? Are you sure this is what you mean to say? It's always seemed to me that the higher you went, the less people knew, at least on this side. Just my impression.

[Ned]

Sikander, then you remember that war strategy was a major topic of debate in both the '64 and '68 elections. Goldwater continually challeged Johnson to declare what is strategy was, while he himself argued that the only acceptable strategy was to have a clear path to victory. Johnson never directly answered Goldwater's question, but instead simply called him a warmonger, and repeatedly ran adds of a little girl plucking daisies as voice in the background slowly counted down. When the count reached zero, BOOM - a nuclear weapon exploded.

Johnson won handily. But four years later, he essentially resigned because of his failed "strategy" in Vietnam.

In the '68 campaign, Kennedy came out against the war, Humphrey backed the status quo, and Nixon had his elusive plan to end the war honorably - but with no details. Nixon won, but barely, showing that the people wanted the war over, but on an honorable basis.

As you can find on the web, the whole war strategy was formulated in 1961 and was still being implemented until January 1969 when Nixon took over. There was no component in the plan that provided a clear path to military victory in the event of NV intervention. The plan always presupposed another negotiated peace like the Geneva accords of 1954. Every escallation was intended to "send a message" to NV. It was not intended to achieve victory.

Vietnam was FUBAR. Those advising Kennedy in '61 to either not get involved at all with our military, or have a plan to invade the North in case of their directed intervention were obviously right. If you were to ask Kissinger who wrote the book on the Cold War in 1959, the former strategy was the right one - we should have simply supply SV with aid, but no more.

[uh Clem]

You know that Nixon never actually said that he had a "secret plan" to end the war in 1968, right? Urban legend.

[Capt Dizle]

uh oh..

We are experiencing technical difficulties. ..

[Ned]

Originally posted by uh Clem
You know that Nixon never actually said that he had a "secret plan" to end the war in 1968, right? Urban legend.

Yes he did say that - and repeatedly. He refused to give details. But he promised to end the war honorably. That is why he was elected.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned
Those advising Kennedy in '61 to either not get involved at all with our military, or have a plan to invade the North in case of their directed intervention were obviously right.

How many advisors said don't send in troops?