I didn't know you were a Vietnam war veteran.
A whole lot of Vietnamese were killed, I'm not sure what else was accomplished.
Dolchstoßlegende? That's a surprisingly apt description.
AHC: Make the USA feasibly win the Vietnam War
- Thread starter Adonnus
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A whole lot of Vietnamese were killed, I'm not sure what else was accomplished.
Ia Drang, Khe Sahn, Long Tan, Tet are the first examples that spring to mind of US and allied battle victories over the VC and NVA - there are many others big and small. Tet in particular while a PR coup was a military disaster for the communists.
Realpolitik
Banned
Ah yes, sorry for not giving a shout out to the kiwis. 
But as Clausewitz said, war is politics by other means. Victories can only take you so far-you need a competent game plan and "good politics" and good PR as well. Not to mention the will to do what it takes, the ability to be honest about whether it is worth it BEFORE starting the mess, and being blunt with the people about your goals and what it will take. The problems in PR wouldn't have been near as bad(at least) if the credibility gap never occurred, if Johnson had been more honest and clear. He didn't want to distract from the big stuff for him-the Great Society, Civil Rights and thought he could do everything on the "cheap" and just bluff the American people until it all worked out OK, which of course it wasn't going to. This was a big error.
He was putting domestic tactics in foreign policy, which was a big no-no. Ironically, Nixon did the opposite. There is also one other yin yang difference I think. Johnson was way too optimistic, trusting of others, and confident in himself. An idealist in office, albeit a wily, ruthless politician achieving these idealist goals. He thought he could do everything well, even stuff like foreign policy that he wasn't interested in or suited to. Nixon was the opposite-way too pessimistic, untrusting of the people-a classic "realist". He expected the worst out of people and often got it as a result. His ability to be unsentimental and to deal with people while KNOWING they will still hate and be in competition with you was great in foreign policy(whereas Johnson wanted to win everybody over, and thought he could treat Ho like a Congressman), but domestically, with "enemies" blown out of proportion... that led to stuff like the Plumbers. He treated everybody like a foreign enemy.
I remember one quote that Phil Caputo made in the 90s to an aging Vo Nguyen Giap, when he pointed out the Americans won pretty much all the battles. Giap replied, "Yes, they did. And in the end, it didn't make any difference." A similar conversation came during the fall of Saigon from a Marines officer to an NVA officer, I believe.
But as Clausewitz said, war is politics by other means. Victories can only take you so far-you need a competent game plan and "good politics" and good PR as well. Not to mention the will to do what it takes, the ability to be honest about whether it is worth it BEFORE starting the mess, and being blunt with the people about your goals and what it will take. The problems in PR wouldn't have been near as bad(at least) if the credibility gap never occurred, if Johnson had been more honest and clear. He didn't want to distract from the big stuff for him-the Great Society, Civil Rights and thought he could do everything on the "cheap" and just bluff the American people until it all worked out OK, which of course it wasn't going to. This was a big error.
He was putting domestic tactics in foreign policy, which was a big no-no. Ironically, Nixon did the opposite. There is also one other yin yang difference I think. Johnson was way too optimistic, trusting of others, and confident in himself. An idealist in office, albeit a wily, ruthless politician achieving these idealist goals. He thought he could do everything well, even stuff like foreign policy that he wasn't interested in or suited to. Nixon was the opposite-way too pessimistic, untrusting of the people-a classic "realist". He expected the worst out of people and often got it as a result. His ability to be unsentimental and to deal with people while KNOWING they will still hate and be in competition with you was great in foreign policy(whereas Johnson wanted to win everybody over, and thought he could treat Ho like a Congressman), but domestically, with "enemies" blown out of proportion... that led to stuff like the Plumbers. He treated everybody like a foreign enemy.
I remember one quote that Phil Caputo made in the 90s to an aging Vo Nguyen Giap, when he pointed out the Americans won pretty much all the battles. Giap replied, "Yes, they did. And in the end, it didn't make any difference." A similar conversation came during the fall of Saigon from a Marines officer to an NVA officer, I believe.
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Riain
Banned
Ah yes, sorry for not giving a shout out to the kiwis.
.
The Kiwis were great in Vietnam, unless you had to go on R & R after them. They tended to smash things up when they went on leave and the RAR coy after them would find a bunch of places closed due to damage and seriously pissed off locals. However I suspect that some of this whinging is sour grapes because the Kiwis got in first and left nothing for the Aussies to smash.
Realpolitik
Banned
A little extreme(for one thing, Germany had no hope in fall of 1918. Saigon did, if a questionable one, until Watergate), but definitely there are overtones of it in right wing circles. I think this had consequences in Iraq. The controversy over withdrawal, the idea of "winning hearts and minds" and overthrowing dictators... thinking that all we needed was more men, more men. Again-I think the Fall of Saigon and the rise of Reagan are connected. Conservatism often tends to flourish in defeated nations, ones that are beset by crisis about identity. Obviously, it's about more than that, but I do think that what happened in Vietnam fed the new movement in the GOP and the renewed patriotism in the 80s. Look at stuff like Rambo, Red Dawn, etc. The idea of the "liberal" media and the rise of FOX as an "alternative".
Heck, it still is seen today.
Of course, the left wingers tend to have their own myths about the war, including the nature of North Vietnam being some heroic third world "resistance", and the very idealistic view of the antiwar movement and the "kids". Many stereotypical "hard hat" types didn't like Vietnam, but loathed the people who protested it and tended to blow it up into a blanket condemnation of "American imperialism" and seemed to want their country defeated, and seemed to be utterly self righteous and obnoxious. And refusing to contemplate the idea that, yes, cutting off funding led to serious consequences for a lot of Indochinese. And the media did have a role in it all, not always positive(but also not always negative. Johnson was lying to the people, and the media can't remain that submissive in a democracy. Vietnam also revealed the massive abuses of the American security state, pre Vietnam, and during it). Reading the NYT and Washington Post in the spring of 1975 about the future of Indochina is cringe inducing.
One can reject the stab in the back or the idea of "the hippies lost us the war and caused the Khmer Rouge" while admitting that.
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Realpolitik
Banned
I expect that the previous post will not win me a lot of love with dedicated, ideological Democrats and Republicans.
I meant "more men" in the context of Vietnam.
I meant "more men" in the context of Vietnam.
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to win the war militarily, we'd first have to win it politically... in that we'd need to have a decent government in SV, something at least semi-honest and that gave the people better lives, so they'd be willing to fight for it. Without that, any amount of military action is rather pointless in the long run. When your bitter enemy to the north (who are well known to be no slouches when it comes to brutality) starts looking better than the local government, you're not going to win...
Since relations normalized in 1997, trade with Vietnam has taken off. Now there are Burger Kings in Hanoi (soon Mcdonalds) the Vietnamese are growing increaseingly addicted to American products.
Vietnam is looking to the United States and US aligned nations for assurances against an increaseingly aggressive China, we might see a US aligned, Anti-(Chinese)communist, Semi-Capitalist regime ruleing a unified Vietnam in the coming decades
True Its past the deadline, but it would be a win to me
Vietnam is looking to the United States and US aligned nations for assurances against an increaseingly aggressive China, we might see a US aligned, Anti-(Chinese)communist, Semi-Capitalist regime ruleing a unified Vietnam in the coming decades
True Its past the deadline, but it would be a win to me
Realpolitik
Banned
As I've stated before, it is ironically the type of regime that would have been very much approved of back in the day.
Not sure what you mean here, but per OTL, South Korea was the second largest contributor of forces in South Vietnam, averaging almost 50,000 troops deployed in any given year, and they had a reputation for being both highly effective and incredibly violent.
It's a possible solution to the American problem of not being able to send US troops to Vietnam; if South Korea is under its control, real or nominal, perhaps South Korea can start being the main fighting force in Vietnam with US support.
It was really more of the other way around, in Vietnam, from my understanding. The Koreans sent such a large number of soldiers as part of their dedication to maintaining good relations with the United States, but they were hardly subservient about it: they maintained independent commands, had the United States cover a large portion of their expenditures in the conflict, gained reciprocal US aid for economic and military modernization, etc. It was their way of helping to keep tight with the US (who were needed should the North ever decide to go south, again) and, incidentally, acquire combat-experience for some military formations that would be useful in the event of war in Korea.
South Korea was highly unlikely to have ever deployed enough forces to take over for the United States in any serious capacity, but if they did, one can expect the tempo of action and level of violence only to increase, given how often South Korean counter-insurgency strategy involved massive retaliation. The number of notable massacres attributed to Korean forces in Vietnam is quite high. And at a time when their entire military consisted of only about 600,000 men, 50,000 is already a significant contribution. Any larger might well risk compromising the security of South Korea against North Korea.
They sure did
Australian and New Zealander forces, thanks to Malaysia and Indonesia, understood real counterinsurgency a lot more effectively then the us did.
Resettlement that was done in a nurturing rather than haphazard coercive manner helped. That said many had attachments to ancestral land.
Australian and New Zealander forces, thanks to Malaysia and Indonesia, understood real counterinsurgency a lot more effectively then the us did.
Resettlement that was done in a nurturing rather than haphazard coercive manner helped. That said many had attachments to ancestral land.
deathscompanion1
Banned
The Australian and New Zealand could focus on their comparatively small areas of responsibility and put a lot of time and thought into how to match the exact requirements of their situations.
The South Koreans went all Third Reich/Soviet "if you resist we will murder you so shut up and sit down".
I don't think that the US Forces could really take either course being too big and public to openly massacre as standard policy and having a much wider and more complicated area of responsibility.
I think the best POD is a better defined set of objectives and Diem not being killed with a larger and more aggressive bombing command from towards the beginning aimed at shattering the North. I think that this combination might give the peace faction in Hanoi the advantage.
Given say five years of relative peace South Vietnam might be in a much better position and vitally American supplies and Logistics likely to be forthcoming meaning round 2 could well be a decisive win for the South.
The South Koreans went all Third Reich/Soviet "if you resist we will murder you so shut up and sit down".
I don't think that the US Forces could really take either course being too big and public to openly massacre as standard policy and having a much wider and more complicated area of responsibility.
I think the best POD is a better defined set of objectives and Diem not being killed with a larger and more aggressive bombing command from towards the beginning aimed at shattering the North. I think that this combination might give the peace faction in Hanoi the advantage.
Given say five years of relative peace South Vietnam might be in a much better position and vitally American supplies and Logistics likely to be forthcoming meaning round 2 could well be a decisive win for the South.
Two possible types of victory...diplotmatic and military
Diplomatic victory
I am no historian so forgive me if a couple of my facts are incorrect.
My understanding is that when the French were trying to reclaim Indochina that the US could have stepped in at that point and stopped French colonialism. It is my further understanding that the US intervened against European colonialism in the Middle East in the 1950's (preventing French and British action in the Suez Canal). The US also intervened preventing the Dutch from reclaiming the Dutch East Indies.
So, the US could have gained a Vietnam ally by working out a settlement by which the French leave Indochina. The US may have actually gained an ally in Ho Chi Minh.
Military victory
Absent US diplomatic intervention in the French Indochina war, the US could have gained military victory by:
(1) Intervening militarily when the French were fighting in Indochina.
(2) Engaging in a larger ground war as discussed earlier in this thread. That is, an invasion of North Vietnam. This may have involved a war with the Soviet navy and Chinese ground forces. The US may have had to use tactical nuclear weapons.
(3) Encouraging China to stay out. We could have reminded China that the USSR would have a large naval base to their south and would have potential Soviet troops on their southern border. Nixon may have been able to work out a neutral zone in which no US or Chinese forces would be allowed to enter.
We need to remember that China invaded soon after the US left Vietnam.
Diplomatic victory
I am no historian so forgive me if a couple of my facts are incorrect.
My understanding is that when the French were trying to reclaim Indochina that the US could have stepped in at that point and stopped French colonialism. It is my further understanding that the US intervened against European colonialism in the Middle East in the 1950's (preventing French and British action in the Suez Canal). The US also intervened preventing the Dutch from reclaiming the Dutch East Indies.
So, the US could have gained a Vietnam ally by working out a settlement by which the French leave Indochina. The US may have actually gained an ally in Ho Chi Minh.
Military victory
Absent US diplomatic intervention in the French Indochina war, the US could have gained military victory by:
(1) Intervening militarily when the French were fighting in Indochina.
(2) Engaging in a larger ground war as discussed earlier in this thread. That is, an invasion of North Vietnam. This may have involved a war with the Soviet navy and Chinese ground forces. The US may have had to use tactical nuclear weapons.
(3) Encouraging China to stay out. We could have reminded China that the USSR would have a large naval base to their south and would have potential Soviet troops on their southern border. Nixon may have been able to work out a neutral zone in which no US or Chinese forces would be allowed to enter.
We need to remember that China invaded soon after the US left Vietnam.
it seems to be a common theme on here that if the US actually invaded NV, the Chinese and Russians would send troops/it's war/nuclear death for everyone. Really? I can't see that Russia would do anything other than protest bitterly in the UN. Why would they throw their nation into the fire for NV? It's just not that important, anymore than SV was for the USA; it's important for political prestige/the Cold War in general, but not that important. China has more of a concern, with everything going on right next door to them. Still though, are they going to risk WW3 over it?
redlightning
Banned
Have the US withdraw most of its advisers and instead replace it with massive funding and selling of weapons to the South. A quagmire that lasts into the 1980s might be achievable.