AHC:PRevent the AMerican "Doltchstosslegende" After the Vietnam war

[RousseauX]

Originally Posted by Matt Wiser

You're assuming, of course, that the Soviets were willing to risk WW III over a SEA Client-State. They were not. Both sides still remembered October, 1962, and how about this? The Soviets still have a strategic inferority vs. the U.S. and they knew it. Khrushchev was sacked in Oct '64 for partially because he risked the Soviet Union's existence over Cuba when the Soviets were still strategically inferior to the U.S. There's no way that Brezhnev and Kosygin are going to repeat Khrushchev's mistake over Cuba in North Vietnam.

I thought we were gonna stop with the "could we have won" thing.

[Ninja Bear]

Originally Posted by BlondieBC

It is actually the core of what is being asked. All "stabbed in back" beliefs come from the belief that the war could have been won, but was not because some additional means to win the war was not used. By not going big (max conventional effort), JFK/LBJ insured that any loss would have some "stabbed in the back" believers.

IMO, there is no way to do a "limited war" that results in a loss, and not have to deal with some "stabbed in back" efforts. Even when countries went all out (Germany in WW1), the "stabbed in the back" belief arose. The Germans and Austrians made some poor decisions, but they gave 100%. The USA was less than 3% of max effort (500K Vietnam versus 15,000K in WW2). It is understandable how the public looks for scapegoats/responsible-parties. Most people I know blame people in Washington, but others blame the peace movement/leftists/socialist/Fonda, etc.

No, "stabbed-in-the-back" and similar legends arise when any war is lost. The only thing that makes them more or less pervasive is the number of people that had a stake in victory, because they are essentially ass-covering; they don't have to have any basis in reality. As you mentioned, Germany employed every means they had at their disposal and still lost, and the Dolchstoßlegende was much stronger there than any American stab-in-the-back myth was after Vietnam or has ever been since, simply because there were more people that needed to justify failure; the ever-popular Lost Cause was similar in origin and in scope.

A "stabbed-in-the-back" myth that is not pervasive can only be achieved through failure in an extremely limited war ("they weren't worth our trouble") or through a war seen as unwinnable for an extended period of time ("we're just fighting a rear-guard action, helping the free Vietnamese escape"). In both cases, there is no need for a myth because there is no need for ass-covering, so none will arise. Failure is expected and, therefore, acceptable.

I am specifically ruling out victory as an option because the US has no compelling reason to maintain it, which will create an eventual stab-in-the-back legend along the lines of "who lost China?" or "who lost Iran?," which is what we are trying to avoid. A long-term victory for the US in Vietnam is impossible. Even in the case of total US conquest of NVN without being militarily contested by the Soviets or Chinese, the Saigon government will still have almost zero legitimacy and almost zero ability to engage in combat against its internal and external enemies, of which it will have plenty due to its uncanny ability to piss off everybody. It will have to be maintained at the points of American bayonets, much more so than Korea, which the US has little reason to continue to provide to anywhere close to the same level as it did in Korea because Vietnam is not a dagger pointed at the heart of a major US ally.

Once the US leaves, the opposition groups will be in a race to see which one can overthrow the Saigon government, which will, even in the best case, be seen as a regime imposed by colonialist foreigners by only a large minority of the population. The Soviets and the Chinese, meanwhile, will be in a race to stuff their favorite opposition groups to the gills with arms and ammunition should they need it and will be able to do so to a degree that they were not willing to when it would risk provoking the US. The only thing a US military victory might do is allow the Shah to take warning that he's not untouchable from the collapsing house of cards that was the Saigon regime, and this only if the US looks at the balance sheet early enough.

So how do we maintain US apathy in Vietnam? Seems to me that we can keep the US presence restricted to advisors from the start, we can spread the idea that SVN has no stomach for its own war and that the US has no business fighting it for them, or we can start another major war elsewhere that requires the US's full attention. Any ideas?

[pnyckqx]

Originally Posted by BlondieBC

It is actually the core of what is being asked. All "stabbed in back" beliefs come from the belief that the war could have been won, but was not because some additional means to win the war was not used. By not going big (max conventional effort), JFK/LBJ insured that any loss would have some "stabbed in the back" believers.

And here, good people, lies the answer to the question that Sarge was asking.

It is the belief that the war could have been won that causes the perception that we were somehow stabbed in the back.

Eliminate the belief that the war could have been won, you eliminate the problem.

Now the question becomes how do you do that?

Originally Posted by BlondieBC

IMO, there is no way to do a "limited war" that results in a loss, and not have to deal with some "stabbed in back" efforts. Even when countries went all out (Germany in WW1), the "stabbed in the back" belief arose. The Germans and Austrians made some poor decisions, but they gave 100%. The USA was less than 3% of max effort (500K Vietnam versus 15,000K in WW2). It is understandable how the public looks for scapegoats/responsible-parties. Most people I know blame people in Washington, but others blame the peace movement/leftists/socialist/Fonda, etc.

Partially true, but irrelevant.

The comparison of troop numbers of WWII vs. Vietnam is meaningless. The US had troops deployed to several different theaters during WWII, and the 500k+ troops in the Vietnam era were limited to Vietnam, a significantly smaller geographic area.

The only way that i know of to remove the belief is to publicise good information at least as much as the bad, the Goebles factor in reverse. If a lie told often enough will be believed, how much more the truth?

That is the failure of both the Military and the Government with respect to the US involvement in Vietnam.

The Chinese rediscovered the same thing that we found out concerning the Vietnamese in the Late 70's when the PLA got the snot beat out of them by the same Vietnamese that the Americans faced. For the Chinese it was an inexcusably stupid mistake...they'd dealt with the Vietnamese for centuries and knew what they were getting into.

What is relevant is that the war indeed could have been won. HOWEVER, in order to win that war, we'd have had to take measures that were:

1. Contrary to US Interests in the region
2. Brutal --Would have placed our nation and military in a position where we'd have had to apologise to the Nazis for their brutality and inhumanity.
   
3. Excessive --Vietnam would have been pretty useless to anyone as a radioactive or otherwise depopulated desert.
   

That wasn't going to happen. Thank God that it did not happen.

Soooo...the truth of what our mission in the region was, and who we are as a people needs to counter the Vietnam era lost causers.

Closer to the point of the OP Sarge?

[Matt Wiser]

Cutting the trail and blockading the North would not have resulted in such an outcome. The object here is not the conquest of the North, nor turning it into a depopulated wasteland. It's to convince the North to give up the war. And as was mentioned in that earlier thread, when Giap himself said in a 1990s interview that if Westmoreland's proposed "Go North" operation had been implemented, it could very well have forced the North to do just that. That operation was the North's worst fear, according to Giap, and he wondered why it was never mounted. And he just laughed at the reasons why: the fear of a wider war involving the Soviets and/or Chinese. "You were too cautious." He knew there was no chance of Soviet or Chinese intervention. And as someone else mentioned in that thread: it's kind of hard to argue with the man who beat you.

[GarethC]

The shortest answer I can think of is:

a) Work very hard (probably through French media outlets) to publicise the events and outcome of the Sino-Vietnamese conflict, so that it is possible for the narrative to be "we lost because the Vietnamese are just damned good at fighting in Vietnam, look what they did to the PLA."

b) Have a successful outcome to Operation Eagle Claw, the Delta attempt to extract the embassy hostages in Tehran, and have the Carter administration pull out all the propaganda stops to publicise and celebrate the military as a result. That may not be enough for Carter to defeat Reagan in 1980 - at the time I would have said it would have been, but I think I read something in the last year or so that suggested Reagan was probably going to win anyway.

Regardless of who is president in 1981, though, if wishy-washy peacenik Carter can use the US military to victorious and unambiguously heroic effect (rescuing hostages who were accorded diplomatic immunity by the predecessor-in-interest government to their captors is pretty white-hat stuff), then I think it becomes a lot easier to ask "if we could deliver this incredible mission now, why couldn't we succeed in SEA?" and find that the point of failure is in the White House and Pentagon. In particular, there will be voices in the military and DoD who will be insulated from failure in Vietnam by success in Tehran, and who will be free to point blame at Westmoreland and McNamara.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by pnyckqx

And here, good people, lies the answer to the question that Sarge was asking.

It is the belief that the war could have been won that causes the perception that we were somehow stabbed in the back.

Eliminate the belief that the war could have been won, you eliminate the problem.

Now the question becomes how do you do that?

Partially true, but irrelevant.

The comparison of troop numbers of WWII vs. Vietnam is meaningless. The US had troops deployed to several different theaters during WWII, and the 500k+ troops in the Vietnam era were limited to Vietnam, a significantly smaller geographic area.

The only way that i know of to remove the belief is to publicise good information at least as much as the bad, the Goebles factor in reverse. If a lie told often enough will be believed, how much more the truth?

That is the failure of both the Military and the Government with respect to the US involvement in Vietnam.

The Chinese rediscovered the same thing that we found out concerning the Vietnamese in the Late 70's when the PLA got the snot beat out of them by the same Vietnamese that the Americans faced. For the Chinese it was an inexcusably stupid mistake...they'd dealt with the Vietnamese for centuries and knew what they were getting into.

What is relevant is that the war indeed could have been won. HOWEVER, in order to win that war, we'd have had to take measures that were:

1. Contrary to US Interests in the region
2. Brutal --Would have placed our nation and military in a position where we'd have had to apologise to the Nazis for their brutality and inhumanity.
   
3. Excessive --Vietnam would have been pretty useless to anyone as a radioactive or otherwise depopulated desert.
   

That wasn't going to happen. Thank God that it did not happen.

Soooo...the truth of what our mission in the region was, and who we are as a people needs to counter the Vietnam era lost causers.

Closer to the point of the OP Sarge?

I feel like dancing and singing spirituals in glad thanks for this summation, thank you.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by Matt Wiser

Cutting the trail and blockading the North would not have resulted in such an outcome. The object here is not the conquest of the North, nor turning it into a depopulated wasteland. It's to convince the North to give up the war. And as was mentioned in that earlier thread, when Giap himself said in a 1990s interview that if Westmoreland's proposed "Go North" operation had been implemented, it could very well have forced the North to do just that. That operation was the North's worst fear, according to Giap, and he wondered why it was never mounted. And he just laughed at the reasons why: the fear of a wider war involving the Soviets and/or Chinese. "You were too cautious." He knew there was no chance of Soviet or Chinese intervention. And as someone else mentioned in that thread: it's kind of hard to argue with the man who beat you.

Matt Wiser,I did not ask how could the war have been won. I know that victory in any fundamental sense was impossible. I asked how to avoid the idiotic infantile backward and self serving "Doltchstosslegende" that not just a few AMericans seem to subscribe to.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by Ninja Bear

Snip

I don't see the "stabbed in back" myth as common in my experience in the USA. I see mostly the LBJ is incompetent reason. I grew up in a republican, rural area. Most people accepted Goldwater would have simply won.

So I don't buy into your analysis, because I don't accept your facts. It maybe true in another state, just not where I lived. And no one talks about Vietnam any more. It has been 7 years since I last heard a person bring it up in detail, and it was about his experience as a sniper. The emotional part of seeing who you killed got to him after 30 or so shots.

It has been at least a decade since anyone discussed the politics of Nam in any detail with me.

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by pnyckqx

Now the question becomes how do you do that?

Give a max effort. The only possible way, and then often will not work. Or don't fight the war.

The comparison of troop numbers of WWII vs. Vietnam is meaningless. The US had troops deployed to several different theaters during WWII, and the 500k+ troops in the Vietnam era were limited to Vietnam, a significantly smaller geographic area.

The only way that i know of to remove the belief is to publicise good information at least as much as the bad, the Goebles factor in reverse. If a lie told often enough will be believed, how much more the truth?

That is the failure of both the Military and the Government with respect to the US involvement in Vietnam.

The Chinese rediscovered the same thing that we found out concerning the Vietnamese in the Late 70's when the PLA got the snot beat out of them by the same Vietnamese that the Americans faced. For the Chinese it was an inexcusably stupid mistake...they'd dealt with the Vietnamese for centuries and knew what they were getting into.

What is relevant is that the war indeed could have been won. HOWEVER, in order to win that war, we'd have had to take measures that were:
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1. Contrary to US Interests in the region
2. Brutal --Would have placed our nation and military in a position where we'd have had to apologise to the Nazis for their brutality and inhumanity.
   
3. Excessive --Vietnam would have been pretty useless to anyone as a radioactive or otherwise depopulated desert.
   

That wasn't going to happen. Thank God that it did not happen.

Soooo...the truth of what our mission in the region was, and who we are as a people needs to counter the Vietnam era lost causers.

Closer to the point of the OP Sarge?

It is relevant to show we did not give a max effort. 3%, 30%, 50%. It does not matter. Unless 100% and you get loss, you get stabbed-in-back.

[SergeantHeretic]

BlondieBC, the level of effort is completly irrelvent when your ally is a comically coorupt, absurdly incompatent and fecklessly stupid kleptocray that is POSITIVE they wil lnever have to fight their own war.

Put it another way,

"It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're working with turkeys."

[RousseauX]

Originally Posted by BlondieBC

Give a max effort. The only possible way, and then often will not work. Or don't fight the war.



It is relevant to show we did not give a max effort. 3%, 30%, 50%. It does not matter. Unless 100% and you get loss, you get stabbed-in-back.

The thing is it's really easy to "show" we didn't give it "100%".

All you have to do is say "well if we had more troops", or as Matt has being doing in this thread 'well, if we just started playing escalation poker with the Soviets no way they were gonna call on us". What you need, assuming OTL's version of the war, is to get rid of the mainstream's desire to rewrite the history of the war.

[pnyckqx]

Originally Posted by GarethC

The shortest answer I can think of is:

a) Work very hard (probably through French media outlets) to publicise the events and outcome of the Sino-Vietnamese conflict, so that it is possible for the narrative to be "we lost because the Vietnamese are just damned good at fighting in Vietnam, look what they did to the PLA."

This.

Along with the statement, "Hey, this is exactly like what would happen to somebody who invaded CONUS, except their KIA figures would be substantially higher.

Originally Posted by GarethC

b) Have a successful outcome to Operation Eagle Claw, the Delta attempt to extract the embassy hostages in Tehran, and have the Carter administration pull out all the propaganda stops to publicise and celebrate the military as a result. That may not be enough for Carter to defeat Reagan in 1980 - at the time I would have said it would have been, but I think I read something in the last year or so that suggested Reagan was probably going to win anyway.

That would have required Somebody besides Charlie Beckwith in command, --Col. Arthur "Bull" Simons comes to mind--and it would have required the Goldwater-Nichols legislation years before it happened. Besides, the ABSOLUTE LAST THING that Detachment Delta needed or wanted was publicity. It makes their job much more difficult. From what i knew of the operation and the operational planning, Carter understood that, even though the political realities forced him to put Col. Beckwith in front of the press after the operation went bust.

Originally Posted by GarethC

Regardless of who is president in 1981, though, if wishy-washy peacenik Carter can use the US military to victorious and unambiguously heroic effect (rescuing hostages who were accorded diplomatic immunity by the predecessor-in-interest government to their captors is pretty white-hat stuff), then I think it becomes a lot easier to ask "if we could deliver this incredible mission now, why couldn't we succeed in SEA?" and find that the point of failure is in the White House and Pentagon. In particular, there will be voices in the military and DoD who will be insulated from failure in Vietnam by success in Tehran, and who will be free to point blame at Westmoreland and McNamara.

DISCLAIMER: i have no use for Carter, and did not vote for him, and believe the country was much better off with him as a one term President.

That said, to characterise him as some sort of pacifist is far from the mark. Carter could be downright frightening when he needed to be. Every wonder why the Iranians DID NOTHING when Operation Eagle Claw became public? As i got older, i came to understand the difficulties that Carter labored under. In particular, the economy was heaving and grabbing at it's chest because the bills were coming due from our 12 year adventure in Vietnam. --we had to pay for it somehow. Do i think Carter made the right decisions? No. But whether Carter or Ford --Remember the WIN (WHIP INFLATION NOW) buttons??-- the economy was going to tank when the bills for the war came due.

The lesson of Operation Eagle Claw, the formation of Delta (something i still oppose, at least the way it was done), got lost in the noise generated in the country.

That lesson was to soberly realise that we LOST in Vietnam, not just the war, individual battles too, and we would see more of the Vietnam style conflicts in our future --Can you spell Afghanistan? And that we needed a much stronger COIN component to our military. --Delta isn't designed for that-- as well as the ability to integrate that COIN capability into our conventional forces.

It would have saved us a lot of grief in places like Somalia.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by RousseauX

The thing is it's really easy to "show" we didn't give it "100%".

All you have to do is say "well if we had more troops", or as Matt has being doing in this thread 'well, if we just started playing escalation poker with the Soviets no way they were gonna call on us". What you need, assuming OTL's version of the war, is to get rid of the mainstream's desire to rewrite the history of the war.

Oh, for fuck's sake,

This thread is not about "Could we have won the Vietnam war! This thread is about after the war ends, how to prevent the rise of a "Lost cause" or Dotchstosslegende".

There, can you al lread that, is are the words big enough for everyone to see them?

[RousseauX]

Originally Posted by SergeantHeretic

Oh, for fuck's sake,

Did you actually read my post?

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by RousseauX

Did you actually read my post?

I saw the first half, then I kind of switched off, sorry about that.

[pnyckqx]

Originally Posted by BlondieBC

Give a max effort. The only possible way, and then often will not work. Or don't fight the war.



It is relevant to show we did not give a max effort. 3%, 30%, 50%. It does not matter. Unless 100% and you get loss, you get stabbed-in-back.

So how are US regional interests served with the glowing Indochina desert occupying the land that used to be called Vietnam? THAT is your 100% effort.

Believe it or not, there are some goals that cannot be accomplished with military force.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by pnyckqx

So how are US regional interests served with the glowing Indochina desert occupying the land that used to be called Vietnam? THAT is your 100% effort.

Believe it or not, there are some goals that cannot be accomplished with military force.

Exactly my point.

Sometimes, souting, "We jus' need a bigger hammer, CLem." is not going to get that engine fixed.

[RousseauX]

I think getting rid of the Yom Kippur war and the ensuing energy crisis might help.

Also obviously avoid Iranian crisis ~1979, which could have being avoided entirely had the US not pulled the rug from under the Shah by having Saudis lowering oil prices, or just not give permission for the Shah to raise them and then sell him weapons paid for with the revenue in the first place.

Essentially if America did quite well after 1972, as oppose to horribly, Vietnam might be connected to the end of a nightmare instead of being part of a bigger one.

[SergeantHeretic]

Originally Posted by RousseauX

I think getting rid of the Yom Kippur war and the ensuing energy crisis might help.

Also obviously avoid Iranian crisis ~1979, which could have being avoided entirely had the US not pulled the rug from under the Shah by having Saudis lowering oil prices, or just not give permission for the Shah to raise them and then sell him weapons paid for with the revenue in the first place.

Essentially if America did quite well after 1972, as oppose to horribly, Vietnam might be connected to the end of a nightmare instead of being part of a bigger one.

The problem is, though, that the economic heart attack we had i nthe late seventies was as a direct result of the bills coming in from Uncle Sam's Vietnamese Adventure. How do you prevent that?"

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by RousseauX

I think getting rid of the Yom Kippur war and the ensuing energy crisis might help.

Also obviously avoid Iranian crisis ~1979, which could have being avoided entirely had the US not pulled the rug from under the Shah by having Saudis lowering oil prices, or just not give permission for the Shah to raise them and then sell him weapons paid for with the revenue in the first place.

Essentially if America did quite well after 1972, as oppose to horribly, Vietnam might be connected to the end of a nightmare instead of being part of a bigger one.

The problem is that really possible? If the US, for whatever reason, doesn't do the 1954 coup, it might butterfly things like Vietnam for all we know.

Here's a solution though, have the PLA intervene.

Specifically, have the US invade North Vietnam, and then get beaten. You can't deny losing a conventional war the same way, and the real problem with Vietnam was a lack of losses in tactical battles. Hence, having the US definitely lose in a tactical battle will change this.