No Tet Offensive

MrHola

Banned
Let’s say Nguyen Chi Thanh has his heart attack a year earlier, meaning he dies in July 7, 1966. This either cancels the Tet Offensive or delays it. This could very well restore LBJ’s trust enough that he runs for reelection in the elections of 1968. I assume that LBJ is defeated by Nixon. What next?
 
Wasn't the Tet Offensive a pyrrhic victory for the US, basically destroying any US faith in a victory and ending the majority of US support for the war? No Tet Offensive I guess means more people stay on the fence involving the war, leading to...a stalemate, a Korea-syle ceasefire agreement perhaps?
 

bard32

Banned
Good point. The Tet Offensive was a Pyrrhic victory. It did break us of the will
to win in Vietnam. Not that we could have done so anyway. Every conqueror of
Vietnam has failed. If the Tet Offensive was either cancelled, or postponed, then Khe Sanh, wouldn't have happened. General Ngo Din Giap, the commander of the PAVN, also known as the NVA, to our troops, would have
had to push it back to either 1969 or 1970.
 
a stronger viet cong? lbj winning in 68 and deciding to end the war one and for all by invading laos and cutting the ho chi mhen trail...lom song with american troops
 
The Tet Offence was such a military triumph for the US that the Viet Cong as a functioning Iraq style insurgency was broken and finished for the remaining war.

Given the US could win conventional battles all day and twice on Sundays, that made the rest of the war a non-issue. No North Vietnamese troops were going to beat the US and even the South Vietnamese (at least, backed by US Air) could stop them.

However, it also woke up the public to the war in Viet Nam and served as the deciding factor in the following areas: McCarthy's (seen as a) victory in New Hampshire which lead to RFK's entry into the Presidential race; meanwhile it brought Walter Cronkite to make a rare opinion on air serving as the deciding factor in driving LBJ out of the primary race.

In political terms no Tet means LBJ wins the Democratic nomination, and defeats Nixon in the fall. In military terms the continuing existance of the Viet Cong make it very hard for the US to translate conventional victory into deterring the North Vietnamese.


It is, in essence, quite a mixed bag. Politically and in the realm of public opinion LBJ has four more years. However the Viet Cong as continuing-to-exist insurgency means the Americans will probably adopt hardcore counter-insurgency techniques and really step up the pressure.

In short, Viet Nam is going to get really bad.
 
The Tet Offence was such a military triumph for the US that the Viet Cong as a functioning Iraq style insurgency was broken and finished for the remaining war.

Given the US could win conventional battles all day and twice on Sundays, that made the rest of the war a non-issue. No North Vietnamese troops were going to beat the US and even the South Vietnamese (at least, backed by US Air) could stop them.

However, it also woke up the public to the war in Viet Nam and served as the deciding factor in the following areas: McCarthy's (seen as a) victory in New Hampshire which lead to RFK's entry into the Presidential race; meanwhile it brought Walter Cronkite to make a rare opinion on air serving as the deciding factor in driving LBJ out of the primary race.

In political terms no Tet means LBJ wins the Democratic nomination, and defeats Nixon in the fall. In military terms the continuing existance of the Viet Cong make it very hard for the US to translate conventional victory into deterring the North Vietnamese.


It is, in essence, quite a mixed bag. Politically and in the realm of public opinion LBJ has four more years. However the Viet Cong as continuing-to-exist insurgency means the Americans will probably adopt hardcore counter-insurgency techniques and really step up the pressure.

In short, Viet Nam is going to get really bad.

Is that to say that the US isn't going to try another Tet-style offensive? I'd think that, due to the fighting insurgencies, which we weren't to good at, we'd try some sort of massive blitz toward Hanoi...which would probably collapse, but would do enough damage that the Vietnam War would become the exact same as the Korean War before it.

Think of the long term effects though. Supposing the best is a divided Vietnam, communism in the rest of Indochina changes. Laos may still become communist, but a more confident US will never let the Khmer Rouge come to power in Cambodia, especially not as a neighbor to their ally in South Vietnam. No Khmer Rouge means no "killing fields" and several million people aren't executed. All and all, perhaps a better 20th century in Asia...
 
can we still have some of the actions during that time period? like ditch the troop sapping general offinsive but still attack the american embasy (this times with more training,numbers,firepower and support....maybe even a ramped campagn of assasination in saigon
 
Is that to say that the US isn't going to try another Tet-style offensive? I'd think that, due to the fighting insurgencies, which we weren't to good at, we'd try some sort of massive blitz toward Hanoi...which would probably collapse, but would do enough damage that the Vietnam War would become the exact same as the Korean War before it.

Think of the long term effects though. Supposing the best is a divided Vietnam, communism in the rest of Indochina changes. Laos may still become communist, but a more confident US will never let the Khmer Rouge come to power in Cambodia, especially not as a neighbor to their ally in South Vietnam. No Khmer Rouge means no "killing fields" and several million people aren't executed. All and all, perhaps a better 20th century in Asia...

Well, considering it was the North Vietnamese who launched the Tet Offence I'm not sure it's entirely up to the US.

The best possible outcome for Viet Nam, with a POD starting in 1968, is for the Tet to happen as it did historically but have it viewed as a success in the USA. The USA can than follow the Nixon/RFK Vietnamization plan and have it work as it did IOTL (until Watergate cut off support to the South Vietnamese). Tet being viewed favourably also means we avoid Nixon's concurrent extend the war plan which didn't help much.

As mentioned this avoids Pol Pot, the boat people, and the various effects in SEAsia that came from the collapse of South Vietnam.

The next best possible outcome is simply to have RFK live, win the nomination, win the general, and implement Vietnamization faster and earlier than Nixon did. RFK isn't going to have Watergate, and so (like Taiwan & South Korea) the South Vietnamese will have the money, weapons, and quiet (air power, special ops) military assistance they need to stay stable and beat the North Vietnamese if they invade.


However this timeline supposes no Tet, which leaves the US forces in the unhappy position of failing to beat the Viet Cong without stepping it up (and thus, probably, kicking off the PR backlash that Tet caused IOTL) and having the North Vietnamese win by proxy.

If there is an analogue to Tet sometime soon and it also causes the destruction of the Viet Cong and it does not trigger the Viet Nam backlash in the US that the OTL Tet did… than sure, things could work out well.

However the most likely outcome from no Tet is a Viet Nam war where the US cannot pull out (Viet Cong), cannot win, and it gets more and more brutal.
 
Is that to say that the US isn't going to try another Tet-style offensive? I'd think that, due to the fighting insurgencies, which we weren't to good at, we'd try some sort of massive blitz toward Hanoi...which would probably collapse, but would do enough damage that the Vietnam War would become the exact same as the Korean War before it.

Think of the long term effects though. Supposing the best is a divided Vietnam, communism in the rest of Indochina changes. Laos may still become communist, but a more confident US will never let the Khmer Rouge come to power in Cambodia, especially not as a neighbor to their ally in South Vietnam. No Khmer Rouge means no "killing fields" and several million people aren't executed. All and all, perhaps a better 20th century in Asia...

OK, that was MY bad, make US=North-Vietnam, Hanoi=Saigon, and the end scenario look something like after the Chinese joined the Korean War. Everything afterwards still applies. I'm sorry, I'm just off today...
 

Xen

Banned
all I see this doing is making the war go longer and maybe have robert kennedy not run for president when he did

Which means he doesnt get shot by some nut job, and runs for President in 1972 or 1976, and possibly get elected then. Thats good in my book
 
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