Was a North Vietnamese victory in the Vietnam War inevitable?

[Darzin]

I wonder if a south, South Vietnam might be viable, basically Saigon and the Mekong delta, you'd need to have a perimeter far enough north of Saigon to prevent shelling, but it leaves the richest most productive parts in South Vietnam while giving up hard to police jungle. the Mekong delta is flat open land which makes it harder for the Viet Cong to hide there and it's a much smaller areas to control.

 

[htgriffin]

I wonder if a south, South Vietnam might be viable, basically Saigon and the Mekong delta, you'd need to have a perimeter far enough north of Saigon to prevent shelling, but it leaves the richest most productive parts in South Vietnam while giving up hard to police jungle. the Mekong delta is flat open land which makes it harder for the Viet Cong to hide there and it's a much smaller areas to control.

In short, if not quite a PRC/PoC level partition at least writing off the bulk of the country for the commies.

For Maximum Irony, have Saigon become/remain an iron-fisted Junta.

 

[dandan_noodles]

My pet theory for improving the situation long term is fourfold. First, never agree to Laotian 'neutrality'; second, don't overthrow Diem (for all his problems, decided better than the revolving door of coups that followed); third, create a relatively solid front extending along ~Route 9 from the sea to the Mekong (eight divisions was considered enough for this); lastly, fund and oversee the expansion of the Thai army to secure Vietnam's strategic flank. The southern insurgency was highly dependent on supplies and manpower moved in from the north, so without the highways and oil pipelines of the Ho Chi Minh trail running right up to the wide western border of the RVN, the NLF is going to be significantly less effective. As the Southern insurgency withers on the vine, more ARVN units can get freed up for a strategic reserve, or else take the place of withdrawn American units on the northern cordon. Fighting on a shortened front between the sea and the Mekong, ARVN forces can be drawn up for defense in depth, making them more resilient against the conventional offensives of the NVA.

 

[Darzin]

Why did the US ever agree to Laotian neutrality in the first place? In hindsight it seem an obvious way to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and it was partially occupied by North Vietnam anyway.

 

[dandan_noodles]

Why did the US ever agree to Laotian neutrality in the first place? In hindsight it seem an obvious way to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and it was partially occupied by North Vietnam anyway.

As I understand it, Eisenhower was in his lame duck phase, so even though he thought it was strategically vital to keep the communists out of Laos, he was unwilling to take decisive action; Kennedy and Congress didn't have a ton of confidence in the Laotians, and the communists offered to accept a neutralist government (though since they already had key strategic areas of the country under control, they were kind of talking out both sides of their mouth). The Chinese and the Soviets had supported the neutral government against the rightists, so it seemed a way to avoid intervention in Laos, deescalate tensions with the Soviets, and avoid looking like he'd given up Laos to the communists. In hindsight, I think it was a major miscalculation, but it didn't seem completely insane at the time.