"Surges" in Vietnam

WI the US and Allies conducted surges in Vietnam the way they have done in Iraq and Afghanistan?
 
I was under the impression of a steadyish buildup and then a decline rather than certain limited periods where extra troops are pushed in and then withdrawn.
 
The surges in today's wars are only limited for political reasons, and the only reason that's happening is because people in the military want to avoid another Vietnam. If Vietnam hasn't happened yet, the military isn't going to be thinking in the same terms politically, and are going to do what they did OTL, which is to keep demanding more and more troops.

Besides, an Iraq-style surge wouldn't have worked in Vietnam, just as it isn't working in Afghanistan. Divide and bribe doesn't work as well in national liberation struggles.
 
Besides, an Iraq-style surge wouldn't have worked in Vietnam, just as it isn't working in Afghanistan. Divide and bribe doesn't work as well in national liberation struggles.

Divide and bribe can work if the national liberation struggle is composed of corrupt elements. Look at Angola in the 1980s. Whatever the VC were, they weren't corrupt. Also they were fighting in mountainous jungle terrain, or at least the North Vietnamese were. They had a border with China and the support of the Soviet Union. And the U.S. was using draftees, not an all-volunteer professional army; this was fueling popular opposition to the war on a scale far beyond anything seen post-9/11. Finally, the Vietnamese were smart enough to restrict their attacks on Americans to Vietnam itself; they never tried to launch terror attacks on American home soil or on American embassies or bases remote from the theater of conflict.

The decision by LBJ to send in huge numbers of draftees to support a corrupt South Vietnamese regime that lacked the will to reform itself and take the steps necessary to win, set the U.S. up for the defeat disguised as "Vietnamization."
 

Deleted member 1487

Finally, the Vietnamese were smart enough to restrict their attacks on Americans to Vietnam itself; they never tried to launch terror attacks on American home soil or on American embassies or bases remote from the theater of conflict.

Indeed, this is perhaps the most important element in a national liberation struggle: avoiding escalation. The Gulf Tonkin incident was actually staged according to an NSA, as there were no NVN vessels in the area at the time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident
"In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded[7] that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there may not have been any North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated:
t is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.[8]"
 
WI the US and Allies conducted surges in Vietnam the way they have done in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Wouldn't matter. The only way the US was going to 'win' that war would have been to continue to back Ho Chi Min's nationalists (as we had done during WWII when he was fighting the Japanese occupation).
 
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