wi NO LARGE SCALE US ground forces in Viet Nam

[Derek Jackson]

This could have heppend with John Kennedy getting better advice, OR LBJ gettimg better advice, or maybe Johnson dying naturally or murdered on Novevenmber 22. That could have given you McCoirmack or maybe Robert Kennedy or Humphrey. Would there have been less strife and more of a Great Society in the late 1960s.

Would the USA have been less targetted by the left.

As before I ask about the 1968 election in such a scenario

 

[Maburo]

Vietnamese liberation would have been much swifter and less bloody, and Laos and Cambodia too would have avoided being bombed into oblivion. Does the US still support Pol Pot in this world?

As for the effects in the US, no big anti war movement would emerge right then, but I feel this effect would just be postponed until Americas next military adventure. All the technology and journalism is all there and ready to show the world the images of what modern warfare looks like by this point in history, it just wouldn't be in Vietnam. In fact, without being knees deep in the quagmire that was Vietnam, I can see the US being much more willing to actively intervene with troops in Angola or Nicaragua. El Che Guevara famously said that "two, three, many Vietnams" would serve to undermine US hegemony. The US also knew this, and knew they could not afford to get involved in another Vietnam like situaiton during the cold war. Without the example of Vietnam, Angola or Nicaragua would have likely become this worlds "Vietnam", and the anti war and hippie movements would have started then, as images reached american audiences.

 

[raharris1973]

Vietnamese liberation would have been much swifter and less bloody, and Laos and Cambodia too would have avoided being bombed into oblivion. Does the US still support Pol Pot in this world?

As for the effects in the US, no big anti war movement would emerge right then, but I feel this effect would just be postponed until Americas next military adventure. All the technology and journalism is all there and ready to show the world the images of what modern warfare looks like by this point in history, it just wouldn't be in Vietnam. In fact, without being knees deep in the quagmire that was Vietnam, I can see the US being much more willing to actively intervene with troops in Angola or Nicaragua. El Che Guevara famously said that "two, three, many Vietnams" would serve to undermine US hegemony. The US also knew this, and knew they could not afford to get involved in another Vietnam like situaiton during the cold war. Without the example of Vietnam, Angola or Nicaragua would have likely become this worlds "Vietnam", and the anti war and hippie movements would have started then, as images reached american audiences.

But does the US escalate to Vietnam-level type troop numbers, face Vietnam level casualties, fight Vietnam lengths of time (8 years) to make settlements with opponents poised to take over upon American departure? Do the MPLA in Angola, or the Sandinistas in Nicaragua have the local support, local demographic base, external replenishment to survive assaults from American forces and bribes of the population from American aid programs, and the ability to keep inflicting newsworthy casualties every week/month to be read on American television?

The Vietnamese Communists made a great effort and were good at what they did, despite some mistakes, but it wasn't easy, and they had to employ all the demographic and geographic assets they had to prevail.

 

[jmc247]

These posts assume a loss. The U.S. could have won in NAM by focusing on a very small COIN footprint while not messing up South Vietnamese politics or going big from the air on the North and mining the harbors like we did during Linebacker.

 

[raharris1973]

So what I am suggesting, in agreement with Maburo, is that in a Cold War context, the US would likely get itself involved in other "dirty" and "ugly" wars. And there even would be some dissident anti-war movements contesting the legitimacy of these fights and people in polite company "raising questions" about various tactics, actions, or allies in them.

But contra Maburo, I don't think the local opponents will have the staying power and cause the damage to also appear to be "winning" these wars or to raise draft calls to the level that run of the mill young men think getting sent off to fight and die in one of these struggles is probable. So that could easily prevent any antiwar movement from getting "big". The US could "win" some of these wars, for certain values of winning. Just win ugly and dirty. Anti-war movements would be pretty marginal and unpopular, like the anti-Central America involvement movements and the Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1980s.

 

[Giant Man Eating Rabbits]

This could have heppend with John Kennedy getting better advice, OR LBJ gettimg better advice, or maybe Johnson dying naturally or murdered on Novevenmber 22. That could have given you McCoirmack or maybe Robert Kennedy or Humphrey. Would there have been less strife and more of a Great Society in the late 1960s.

Would the USA have been less targetted by the left.

As before I ask about the 1968 election in such a scenario

Are you thinking about British-style campaigns such as the Malaya Emergency and Borneo?

If so it's a win-win for the US. Didn't the US ask advice or were going to do likewise and decided against it?

 

[raharris1973]

These posts assume a loss. The U.S. could have won in NAM by focusing on a very small COIN footprint while not messing up South Vietnamese politics or going big from the air on the North and mining the harbors like we did during Linebacker.

These winning plans assume cooperation from the enemy or backers of the enemy. Like against the go-small, COIN approach and don't mess with Diem - well there's always the Communist option of escalating pressures and firepower on the Communist side with greater infiltration of manpower (including northern) down the trails to the south and pressure on the DMZ, and SVN politics was internally messed up.

Against going big from the air and mining the harbors, those could be setbacks if the enemy doesn't exercise counter-moves, but the enemy could have supplies unloaded in far southern Chinese ports instead of North Vietnamese or Cambodian and then transshipped and ported by land. USSR and PRC could increase support to air defenses and employment of repair crews and supplies of goods whose production is disrupted.

 

[raharris1973]

Are you thinking about British-style campaigns such as the Malaya Emergency and Borneo?

If so it's a win-win for the US. Didn't the US ask advice or were going to do likewise and decided against it?

The thing about an outside power "picking" a conventional war or COIN or some other approach is that it takes both sides to determine the nature of the war. It is not a unilateral decision. I alluded in post #5 to ways that the Vietnamese Communists could use reinforcements and firepower to undermine and blast away at American sponsored painstaking "inkspot" Countinsurgency work. Bowling things over with force majeure is an option the lightly armed and more isolated Malayan ChiCom insurgents and insurgent groups Borneo supported across the wilderness of a loosely populated island did not have.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

Without the example of Vietnam, Angola or Nicaragua would have likely become this worlds "Vietnam", and the anti war and hippie movements would have started then, as images reached american audiences.

But does the US escalate to Vietnam-level type troop numbers, face Vietnam level casualties, fight Vietnam lengths of time (8 years) to make settlements with opponents poised to take over upon American departure? Do the MPLA in Angola, or the Sandinistas in Nicaragua have the local support, local demographic base, external replenishment to survive assaults from American forces and bribes of the population from American aid programs, and the ability to keep inflicting newsworthy casualties every week/month to be read on American television?

The Vietnamese Communists made a great effort and were good at what they did, despite some mistakes, but it wasn't easy, and they had to employ all the demographic and geographic assets they had to prevail.

I would argue that the MPLA and Sandanistas did not have as much fortitude and tenacity as the Vietnamese Communists.

 

[Maburo]

But does the US escalate to Vietnam-level type troop numbers, face Vietnam level casualties, fight Vietnam lengths of time (8 years) to make settlements with opponents poised to take over upon American departure? Do the MPLA in Angola, or the Sandinistas in Nicaragua have the local support, local demographic base, external replenishment to survive assaults from American forces and bribes of the population from American aid programs, and the ability to keep inflicting newsworthy casualties every week/month to be read on American television?

Its true that the US isn't guaranteed to loose the first next war they are involved in. But, like the Vietnamese with the French, the Angolans had been fighting the Portuguese for years, I doubt they'd just roll over for the US.

 

[muddyleathers]

The Vietnamese had been fighting for generations by the time the US got involved. And they had a genius for a military leader. Plus land border with ideaological supporters. Trying to supply Central American insurgents to the level that the Vietnamese received would have been a whole different level of difficult.

If the US hadn't required the troop numbers to sustain the conflict, when would the draft have ended? True, there would be no protests, or dodgers, but how long before they decide to give it up? Absent another similar conflict with similar issues, could we see the draft still in effect today?

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I would argue that the MPLA and Sandanistas did not have as much fortitude and tenacity as the Vietnamese Communists.

Wait then how did the Sandinistas win

 

[vetinari]

Australian involvement in the Vietnam war was a given, once the US declared it was more interested in European matters. Australia was a very frightened country, terrified of Indonesia which they perceived very much as, "Communist fellow-travellers". Their invasion of West New Guinea and Borneo sealed the matter, they convinced the Americans to intervene in South Vietnam, they convinced themselves that Vietnam was the way to get America to honour their promise under the ANZUS Pact to defend Australia and New Zealand. The Kiwis were less concerned and so less worried by America's lack of concrete help. What American posters have to remember is that Vietnam involved far more than just the US and the South's Government. Who can name the US Allies which sent forces to South Vietnam? Anyone?

Their were Taiwanese, there were Thai, there were Australia and there were New Zealanders, there were West Germans. On the North's side their were Chinese, Cuban, East German, Czech, Russians. All nations intimately involved. All forgotten about in the American rush to forget them.

 

[AHFan]

Imagine the US accepting the 1963 election and working with Ho Chi Minh. IIRC. Ho Chi Minh worked with the US during WW II. The US may be able to get the political party's name changed from communist to social-Democrat, or something like that. Through aid, trade, diplomacy and cultural exchange we may develop an ally.

 

[GDIS Pathe]

Democrats get hammered for 'losing' South Vietnam, for going back on JFK/LBJ's/the party's prior commitments on matter once Saigon falls in 66 or 67 or 68, that combined with widespread civil unrest in major urban areas, white backlash to civil rights, and George Wallace's 3rd party splinter gets you, more likely then not, a law and order Republican in 1968.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Are you thinking about British-style campaigns such as the Malaya Emergency and Borneo?

If so it's a win-win for the US. Didn't the US ask advice or were going to do likewise and decided against it?

By the time the US intervened on large scale the VC were defeating the ARVN in pitched infantry battles. Battalion and brigade size. The ARVN was losing a battalion a week, rendered ineffective in these losing shootouts. This caused Macnamara & his crewe to think the war had transited to a conventional stage where conventional US forces could curb stomp the VC Main Force battalions and win the war by 1966. 67 at the latest. MacNamarra was partially right, it was the wrong part that screwed the effort as a whole.

A separate issue was the failure/s of the S VN government. Diems policies encouraged a lot of Vietnamese to support the VC & Communists. The subsequent revolving door governments & coups did nothing to strengthen the anti Communists. The Theiu-Ky regime had to many fundamental weaknesses. Among those was that the Communists had deeply infiltrated the Saigon governments and ARVN. Policy was sabotaged from within, and military security/secrecy near non existstant.

 

[gladiator8085]

Australian involvement in the Vietnam war was a given, once the US declared it was more interested in European matters. Australia was a very frightened country, terrified of Indonesia which they perceived very much as, "Communist fellow-travellers". Their invasion of West New Guinea and Borneo sealed the matter, they convinced the Americans to intervene in South Vietnam, they convinced themselves that Vietnam was the way to get America to honour their promise under the ANZUS Pact to defend Australia and New Zealand. The Kiwis were less concerned and so less worried by America's lack of concrete help. What American posters have to remember is that Vietnam involved far more than just the US and the South's Government. Who can name the US Allies which sent forces to South Vietnam? Anyone?

Their were Taiwanese, there were Thai, there were Australia and there were New Zealanders, there were West Germans. On the North's side their were Chinese, Cuban, East German, Czech, Russians. All nations intimately involved. All forgotten about in the American rush to forget them.

Not to mention IIRC there were also some South Korean units deployed to South Vietnam

 

[Fulton 44]

With no Vietnam, there is no massive US "revulsion" against wars in the third world and we probably go in heavy against the USSR in Afghanistan, go into Angola, or try to retake Cuba.

 

[vetinari]

With no Vietnam, there is no massive US "revulsion" against wars in the third world and we probably go in heavy against the USSR in Afghanistan, go into Angola, or try to retake Cuba.

You cannot "retake Cuba" without abrogating the US-USSR Agreement concerning Cuba which ended the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US declared they were not interested in invading Cuba.

 

[TDM]

These posts assume a loss. The U.S. could have won in NAM by focusing on a very small COIN footprint while not messing up South Vietnamese politics or going big from the air on the North and mining the harbors like we did during Linebacker.

Are you thinking about British-style campaigns such as the Malaya Emergency and Borneo?

If so it's a win-win for the US. Didn't the US ask advice or were going to do likewise and decided against it?

The thing is you can't just take what happened in one situation and say well we'll do that in a different situation and expect it to happen like it did in the original one,


This is the summary from wiki comparing Malaya to Vietnam (it has this section because the comparison is made so often), and I've included the similarities as well because there are actually some interesting ones that fly in the face of how this comparison is often used! (I've put in bold the most relevent IMO)

Differences​

• The MNLA never numbered more than about 8,000 fulltime guerrillas, but the People's Army of (North) Vietnam fielded over a quarter-million soldiers, in addition to roughly 100,000 National Liberation Front (or Vietcong) guerrillas.
• North Korea,[94] Cuba[95] and the People's Republic of China (PRC) provided military hardware, logistical support, personnel and training to North Vietnam, whereas the MNLA received no material support, weapons or training from any foreign government or party.
• North Vietnam's shared border with its ally China (PRC) allowed for continuous assistance and provided a safe haven for communist forces, but Malaya's only land border is with non-communist Thailand.
• Britain did not approach the Emergency as a conventional conflict and quickly implemented an effective intelligence strategy, led by the Malayan Police Special Branch, and a systematic hearts and minds operation, both of which proved effective against the largely political aims of the guerrilla movement.[96][97]
• The British military recognised that in a low-intensity war, individual soldiers' skill and endurance were of far greater importance than overwhelming firepower (artillery, air support, etc.). Even though many British soldiers were conscripted National Servicemen, the necessary skills and attitudes were taught at a Jungle Warfare School, which also developed the optimum tactics based on experience gained in the field.[98]
• Vietnam was less ethnically fragmentated than Malaya. During the Emergency, most MNLA members were ethnically Chinese and drew support from sections of the Chinese community.[99] However, most of the more numerous indigenous Malays, many of whom were animated by anti-Chinese sentiments, largely remained loyal to the government and enlisted in high numbers into the security services.[100]

Similarities​

The United States in Vietnam were highly influenced by Britain's military strategies during the Malayan Emergency and the two wars shared many similarities. Some examples are listed below.

• Both countries used Agent Orange. Britain pioneered the use of Agent Orange as a weapon of war during the Malayan Emergency. This fact was used by the United States as a justification to use Agent Orange in Vietnam.
• Both the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force used widespread saturation bombing.
• Both countries frequently used internment camps. In Malaya, internment camps called "New villages" were built by the British colonial occupation to imprison approximately 400,000 rural peasants. The United States attempted to replicate the New Villages with their Strategic Hamlet Program. However, the Strategic Hamlets were unsuccessful in segregating communist guerrillas from their civilian supporters.
• Both countries made use of incendiary weapons, including flamethrowers and incendiary grenades.
• Both the Malayan and Vietnamese communists recruited women as fighters due to their beliefs in gender equality. Women served as generals in both communist armies, with notable examples being Lee Meng in Malaya and Nguyễn Thị Định in Vietnam.
• Both the Malayan and Vietnamese communists were led by veterans of WWII who had been trained by their future enemies. The British trained and funded the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army whose veterans would go onto resist the British colonial occupation, and the United States trained Vietnamese communists to fight against Japan during WWII.

​

However two other big differences:

1). Vietnam they had already beaten a colonial master (France),

2). there is also no equivalent to North Vietnam in Malaya