Can the US win the Vietnam War

As in, complete our objective to ensure the continuation of South Vietnam? I think so. The United States probably could have forced a ceasefire with a more direct approach. It probably would have made things worse for the U.S. in the long run, though. Butterflies might start up a similarly hopeless war in, say, Thailand, Indonesia, or India. Propping up the regime for the next few decades might also prove to be a money sink. The more you actively try to crush communism, the more political firepower it appears to give hard-left movements. Southeast Asia would eventually look like the Middle East does today: total chaos.
 
Creighton Abrams from the beginning with Clear and Hold/Hearts and Minds helps a lot. Westmoreland's Search and Destroy missions really didn't accomplish that much, however high the body count was. Not that Westmoreland was a total incompetent, but he just did not understand how to win a guerrilla war.
 
I think this is very unlikely. The United State and South Vietnam were largely viewed as just another imperial occupier by most Vietnamese, while Ho Chi Minh had been a constant advocate for independence, fighting the French, Japanese, and Americans. Even if the US beat North Vietnam militarily, guerilla warfare would continue, and the Vietnamese guerillas were among the most successful and skilled guerilla insurgencies in history. To be honest, it'd be similar to OTL, with American forces getting bled out by counterinsurgeny warfare, an anti-war movement cropping up, and eventually America pulls out, which would most likely eventually lead to the fall of the Republic of Vietnam.

I think this statistic was from "Unheralded Victory" by Mark Woodruff. I believe he states that by mid 1969, 80% of the Viet Cong were essentially NVA soldiers that marched down the Ho Chi Minh trail and were put under the VC.
 
Creighton Abrams from the beginning with Clear and Hold/Hearts and Minds helps a lot. Westmoreland's Search and Destroy missions really didn't accomplish that much, however high the body count was. Not that Westmoreland was a total incompetent, but he just did not understand how to win a guerrilla war.

I assume that you are talking about the CAP program. This is definitely important, but at the same time, spreading manpower across the countless villages allows the NVA and VC to mass their troops at will. They can easily destroy American units piece meal.
 
It should be noted that the security in South Vietnam after 1972 was far better than Afghanistan at it's best. VC threat was over and gone. It was a Blitzkrieg that did them in.

RVN would still be here today, had the US upheld it's Treaty obligations and repeated it's airpower performance of 1972. If there was one thing the USAF and USN was good at, was smashing Soviet style conventional forces in the field, even in the malaise era.
In all fairness, my understanding is that the NVAF performed at least as well as the USAF/USNAF in terms of kill ratio, so this may not have been such a good idea for preserving our pilots' lives. The skies over Vietnam were not a "turkey shoot" like the latter half of the Pacific air war or the first two-thirds of Barbarossa for the Luftwaffe.
 
In all fairness, my understanding is that the NVAF performed at least as well as the USAF/USNAF in terms of kill ratio, so this may not have been such a good idea for preserving our pilots' lives. The skies over Vietnam were not a "turkey shoot" like the latter half of the Pacific air war or the first two-thirds of Barbarossa for the Luftwaffe.

On April 16, the first B-52 strike was flown against targets to the North. By July 21, the B-52s had flown 164 missions north of
the DMZ, with no losses to SAMs or MIGs.

Arc Light Missions south of the DMZ were completely unaffected by MiGs or SA-2s, of course

Were there losses?
yes.
But considering what the B-52s did with Linebacker I and the ArcLights, it was a fail on part of the North. The offensive was crushed, and Giap lost his job over it.
There's no other way to look at it
 

longsword14

Banned
I think this is very unlikely. The United State and South Vietnam were largely viewed as just another imperial occupier by most Vietnamese
Many disliked their overlords in the South, but they were not fans of the North either.
while Ho Chi Minh had been a constant advocate for independence, fighting the French, Japanese, and Americans.
Viet Minh did not even exist during Japanese occupation, so despite propaganda, he did not resist Japan in any meaningful sense.
The communists were hardly the only ones that desired independence. But, simply gaining independence was never enough for them. Ho Chi Minh, a true communist, wanted not only independence but also a radical overhaul of society.
Even if the US beat North Vietnam militarily, guerilla warfare would continue, and the Vietnamese guerillas were among the most successful and skilled guerilla insurgencies in history.
Guerillas are not a magic button for victory. A stable native power, say SV, has no choice but to carry on and keep counterinsurgency on until it becomes a minute problem. Unlike a foreign power trying to do this same task, a native power does not ever stop. Irregular forces have a horrible track record of actually winning.
with American forces getting bled out by counterinsurgeny warfare, an anti-war movement cropping up, and eventually America pulls out, which would most likely eventually lead to the fall of the Republic of Vietnam.
A smaller land contingent, better managed could get the same scenario as that in 1972, but with assurance of heavy support in case of a communist invasion. Can you describe a situation where insurgencies were going to collapse Saigon ?
 
The US had no clear objective or goal in Vietnam beyond "stabilize the government," and the only strategy really deployed was just to have soldiers fuck around on random patrols and rack up bodycounts on the nightly news to make them look like they were winning. It's hard to win a war that doesn't have a victory condition beyond maintaining the status quo.

The only way to win is to have somebody other than Ngo Dinh Diem running the show in South Vietnam, somebody who wasn't trying to impose a catholic theocracy on a majority buddhist country. And the way to do that would be if the 1955 referendum election wasn't blatantly rigged in Diem's favor. And at this point it's not so much winning as it is not playing.
 
:teary:
People still peddle this nonsense.
Please.

1) was SVN not majority buddhist?
2) Was the Ðiem clique not catholic, and more importantly politically catholic?

I would appreciate your response with recent scholarly papers, or approved scholarly monographs.

yours,
Sam R.
 

longsword14

Banned
2) Was the Ðiem clique not catholic, and more importantly politically catholic?
Rich of you to demand papers.
Diem often banked on people stark against the Communists which meant dealing with certain section of the population that would have Christians in it. The whole Buddhist angle has also been put out of context in the sense that the support often gained by him from other sects is ignored.
To conclude, being Buddhist or generally non-Christian was not a great red mark for Diem, being a sympathiser or generally against his consolidation was.
 
Rich of you to demand papers.
Diem often banked on people stark against the Communists which meant dealing with certain section of the population that would have Christians in it. The whole Buddhist angle has also been put out of context in the sense that the support often gained by him from other sects is ignored.
To conclude, being Buddhist or generally non-Christian was not a great red mark for Diem, being a sympathiser or generally against his consolidation was.

Kind of a non-answer there.
 
The fact remains that Diem’s election in 1955 had a voter turnout greater than 100%, and his opposition was legally barred from campaigning.

The way to avoid that is for the CIA not to put their thumb on the scale in Diem’s favor in that election, and even if Diem is still elected in a fair and free election, apply pressure for the 1956 unification referendum that was called for by the Geneva Accords.

But again, that’s “the only winning move is not to play” territory.
 
Rich of you to demand papers.

Your assertions are going against 20 years of scholarly reading on my part. Its not fucking rich mate, it is down right proletarian.

Diem often banked on people stark against the Communists which meant dealing with certain section of the population that would have Christians in it. The whole Buddhist angle has also been put out of context in the sense that the support often gained by him from other sects is ignored. To conclude, being Buddhist or generally non-Christian was not a great red mark for Diem, being a sympathiser or generally against his consolidation was.

Well excepting the massacres, population movements, property movements. Ðiem wasn't particularly good at manipulating the south western sects in my reading, leading to sect-NFL coalitions.

yours,
Sam R.
 
I don't think having a perfect political system is a prerequisite for avoiding a communist takeover. It's not as if all the countries in SEA who survived communist insurgency were shining lights of transparency and good government. For example Indonesias military ruthlessly crushed the communist party and then General Suharto took over the country. Thailand had a bunch of coups and outlasted the communist threats.

This makes me think that a military solution to Sth Vietnams communist problems are possible, if not actually attractive and easy.
 
Top