So I'm doing nothing on a Sunday watching Vietnam in HD on history. And whenever I think of how the U.S. could possibly win the war my only real thought of anything there working is if the U.S. bit the bullet and invaded the north. So, what do you guys think would happen if the US invaded in 1966 or before tet?
AHC WI: US invades north vietnam
- Thread starter Ethan387
- Start date
1966 would be better. By the time Tet was about to happen Giap expected such would happen and already fortified much of the southern part of North Vietnam in anticipation.
Rostow was the one pushing for an incursion into North Vietnam above the DMZ IIRC. Westmoreland wanted to go into Laos to clear out sanctuaries and cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail.
The biggest issue would be convincing Johnson to agree to such and provide the adequate amount of forces needed to successfully do such, when all he wanted was the bare minimum.
Rostow was the one pushing for an incursion into North Vietnam above the DMZ IIRC. Westmoreland wanted to go into Laos to clear out sanctuaries and cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail.
The biggest issue would be convincing Johnson to agree to such and provide the adequate amount of forces needed to successfully do such, when all he wanted was the bare minimum.
I think this would be much better of than OTL. If Westmoreland gets his offensive when he originally wanted it, then the NVA wouldn't have been dug in as they were on the eve of Tet. The invasion would force the NVA to respond conventionally, and Westy would get the war he wants and be able to overwhelm them with massive firepower. Tet also would be butterflied away.
After the initial offensive is achieved, I'm not so sure. Johnson would have to leverage withdrawal from above the DMZ with Hanoi no longer entering neutral territory to attack the South, and cease aiding the Viet Cong. They still would also have to mop up the VC still present, and also the elements that got cut off from the trail.
Does it give the US and Saigon much more leverage? Absolutely, but it doesn't guarantee victory. So while the VC wouldn't be shattered because of no Tet offensive, the NVA would be in less shape to invade.
"From beginning to end it [Rolling Thunder] was a pure air campign--though the possibility of supplementing it by a ground invasion was often discussed in Washington, D.C., nothing ever came of the idea. Had it been realized, then almost certainly the outcome would have been an even larger and less controllable insurgency." Martin Van Creveld, *The Age of Airpower*, p. 187 https://books.google.com/books?id=SUdAJE8FRi8C&pg=PA387
ThePest179
Banned
Are they out to conquer all of North Vietnam, or get them to stop support of the VC and smash them up a bit to make them less of a threat? The former would just result in a more hellish war, one that would be won with mountains of corpses or one side giving up, the latter would make things easier to win the war long-term, as a big contributer to the insurgency would be out of the picture and the US could focus more on COIN.
These are the common assumptions. I think post war Vietnamese sources support all that. Their defense plans circa 1965 - 1975 cover this, as do their post war recollections. However...
There are some bits from that era, untouched by post war handling which suggest the N Vietnamese government was very worried about a US invasion though 1966 or 1967. Further these atedilluvian bits indicate the actual strategy of N VN would have been to swiftly negotiate a cease fire, and a peace if necessary. Their rational in those years was their army was in no way ready to resist what they thought would be a invading army. Air defense lacked sophistication, depth, and staying power. The regular army was not fully mobilized, trained or armed as it existed a few years later. Support by China & the distant USSR was still uncertain.
If getting the US Army to pack up and leave required throwing the VC under bus & signing a unfavorable treaty thats what Ho & Co. would do.
For one take on this I'd suggest Frances Fitzgeralds 'Fire in the Lake'. Published in 1972 it reflects research conducted back when every major offensive the NVA had attempted had militarily failed & when the historical narrative of the leaders was not yet one of a invincible Vietnamese communist peoples army. Fitzgerald goes so far as to mention a few sources for this alternative take on the N VN attitude towards a US invasion circa 1964-66. I'll leave it to the reader to judge the usefulness or accuracy of those.