Can the US win the Vietnam War

Is it Genocide to willingly walk into the maw of Moloch? And the Communists were killing more villagers that the South ever did with the terrorism campaign

That's very poetic. But a quick search doesn't turn up any clear evidence that the South Vietnamese population was so thoroughly depopulated of combat age males that the Viet Cong would have found it difficult or impossible to regenerate. There were certainly massive numbers of casualties, but no sign of the social collapse that this level of depopulation would have required. Can you back up your argument? It's an interesting one.
 
Pol Pot was also supported by Margaret Thatcher. After she knew what he was.

Indeed, indeed.

Don't get me wrong: Communist Vietnam of the era and the regime they installed after their invasion of Cambodia were...well, Communist dictatorships. But at least they didn't shoot people for wearing glasses...
 
That's very poetic. But a quick search doesn't turn up any clear evidence that the South Vietnamese population was so thoroughly depopulated of combat age males that the Viet Cong would have found it difficult or impossible to regenerate. There were certainly massive numbers of casualties, but no sign of the social collapse that this level of depopulation would have required. Can you back up your argument? It's an interesting one.

If the South was so flush with willing VC volunteers, where were they after 1971? the Southern cadres were near non-existent at that point, thus resistance in the South was being NVA manned, and more importantly run by the North, and for the goals of the North after that point.

Or regale me with the tales of all what the actual VC was doing during Easter offensive thru the fall of Saigon
 
That dealing with Pol Pot didn't do a thing against the USSR, they weren't the target
Propping up Pol Pot (a) was a middle finger to the USSR's bloc, which was the entire point, and why the USSR-backed Vietnam invaded, and (b) allowed him to murder a shitload of people because Pol Pot was a fucking psychopath.

You're kind of way off-base.
 
Propping up Pol Pot (a) was a middle finger to the USSR's bloc, which was the entire point, and why the USSR-backed Vietnam invaded, and (b) allowed him to murder a shitload of people because Pol Pot was a fucking psychopath.

You're kind of way off-base.

Monster that he was, didn't effect what the USSR was doing anywhere in the world. it was pure, evil spite against Vietnam, a burning bag of dogshit on their doorstep, that they had to take care of.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
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.
You realize that Diem was ousted in a coup in 1963 right? Things got worse from there on out, not better.
 
except no political base, and woudn't last a week
No political base is a good thing. All of South Vietnam's established politicians were lying thieving crooks and everybody knew it. Honestly Random Peasant Dude would probably last a couple years just because the US put him there and nobody wants to piss off the big dog.
 
No political base is a good thing. All of South Vietnam's established politicians were lying thieving crooks and everybody knew it. Honestly Random Peasant Dude would probably last a couple years just because the US put him there and nobody wants to piss off the big dog.

Despite Communist claims, the RVN government were not US puppets. They had Political Generals for exactly the US did in the 1860s. The most the US could do was turn a blind eye to coups, or even at most, exclaim a Henry II style 'Will no one rid me of this meddlesome President?' as with Diem
 
Despite Communist claims, the RVN government were not US puppets. They had Political Generals for exactly the US did in the 1860s. The most the US could do was turn a blind eye to coups, or even at most, exclaim a Henry II style 'Will no one rid me of this meddlesome President?' as with Diem
The US didn't give a shit about the coups because they could temporarily help with PR and all the thieves were solid US toadies because the commies wanted their blood. Again, it's all about the geopolitical rivalry with the Russians. As long as South Vietnam worked with America they were our allies no matter who was in charge this week.
 
Could the US have won the Vietnam war?
(Creating a stable Republic of Vietnam)


There are two strategies I have in mind. The first is marching on Hanoi. The objective would be to either take it over entirely, or to cripple it enough so that it could not reinforce or supply combat operations by VC or NVA forces south of the DMZ. I do not know much about USSR or Chinese commitment to North Vietnam, but I feel that this would lead to a major escalation.

This would require build up for a year and about 1.5 million troops at the border ready to march into North Vietnam untill they reach Hanoi. This will mean total war. It will devastate Vietnam as a country for decades. At will also tenfold the casualties for the Americans and civilians.

But they could have won then.
 
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