The American-Vietnam War an ALT

The Americans became truly interested in IndoChina only after the Korean War. The British had nothing to do with it.

Agreed regarding the Americans; Churchill's motive was to protect all European colonies from American intervention, not any one.
 
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So in Kissinger's book "On China" he discusses many things including the pivot and the unofficial alliance between the USA and China vs USSR. However it was very clear that Mao did not want a united Vietnam. However he did not want to South Vietnam force on the border (SV takes over NV). He liked their division. Using this formula i could see a weaker NV unable to inflict major damage on SV existing for a long time.

Its funny i can give you alot of information on the Byz empire but on the Vietnam war even though i lived thru it i know much less.

So for this to work you would need :
1. Linebacker 2 to destroy the infrastructure of NV
2. No Watergate (aid would have been forthcoming for the SV (not troops) ) which killed financial support
3. A more stable gov in 72 - 75 -- which was developing

I trust nothing that man says but I can see the logic to Mao's desire. I am pretty sure the Chinese always moved (when opportunity presented itself) into the Red River Valley but never chose to conquer as far south the Mekong.

When it became apparent that Dulles/Diem would not hold the unification elections of 1956 Ho Chi Minh sought to get UN recognition for the North as The Republic of Vietnam and it was Khrushchev who blocked the nomination. Some historians believe it was Khrushchev (early on, before things went sour in '60) trying to curry favor with us, others that he too desired a divided Vietnam.
 
The only way i see the US have victory in Vietnam is 3 million troops at the border and marching north untill they reach Hanoi. Brutal, criminal, horrendous. But, victory.

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Unfortunately, short of this, almost nothing will truly work in this theater.

President Johnson had as his agenda his Great Society plan for his presidency, and he absolutely had no desire whatsoever to lead the United States in a massive regional war in Southeast Asia. He was however obligated somewhat by the SEATO treaty, in which it would look really bad if we did not provide any aide to our South Vietnam allies against communist aggression. Also, being the mid 1960s, the United States government and military during this era was deeply paranoid about the ‘dominos falling’ in Southeast Asia. This means that there was no way we could be completely disengaged from this conflict.

Basically, this is my justification why we had to be involved in this conflict, and in at least a limited capacity. Obviously, the problem is that the path chosen resulted in the collapse of south Vietnam in 1975, with 58,000 Americans killed.

Before mentioning my ideas, I would like to say that in operation Linebacker 2, we finally took some real action against Haiphong harbor (mining) and and the B52 raids were actually starting to overwhelm the North Vietnamese surface to air missile defenses....but unfortunately by this point, it was too little too late, and this conflict was basically already a lost cause. Kissinger and company had negotiated a real shameful exit plan (at least from South Vietnam’s perspective).

So then the real question is (given the guidelines of a limited scope campaign) is there any alternate strategies that could have been more effective, either in reducing the number of American casualties, or maintaining South Vietnam (or some portion of South Vietnamese territory) beyond 1975?

I myself believe the entire concept of Search and Destroy was flawed. The body count mathematics did nothing to really protect the South Vietnamese people, and only served to make the military leadership (falsely) believe that they were making actual progress.

I would rather have seen an emphasis on clearing and holding territory throughout South Vietnam, and using highly integrated combat ‘units’. This means fully integrated US and South Vietnamese combat units. This strategy also requires protecting the boarders from infiltration, which is no small feat given the geography of the region. Ultimately, the purpose of this strategy is to place more emphasis on the South Vietnamese (ARVN) to defend their country.

I am aware that open lines of communication (to the NVA and Vietcong) are a immense problem here, because the NVA are waging a total war, and don’t care how long it takes and what borders they cross, etc. Unfortunately, the US would never operate by those rules (or lack thereof), and like I said, the Johnson administration was never going to commit to a wider regional conflict.
 
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Unfortunately, short of this, almost nothing will truly work in this theater.

President Johnson had as his agenda his Great Society plan for his presidency, and he absolutely had no desire whatsoever to lead the United States in a massive regional war in Southeast Asia. He was however obligated somewhat by the SEATO treaty, in which it would look really bad if we did not provide any aide to our South Vietnam allies against communist aggression. Also, being the mid 1960s, the United States government and military during this era was deeply paranoid about the ‘dominos falling’ in Southeast Asia. This means that there was no way we could be completely disengaged from this conflict.

Basically, this is my justification why we had to be involved in this conflict, and in at least a limited capacity. Obviously, the problem is that the path chosen resulted in the collapse of south Vietnam in 1975, with 58,000 Americans killed.

Johnson commited to the Vietnam War because if victorious he would be a president that liberated a country from Communism. Then he would be releected. Thats all presidents think about you know, all of them. Again, the flaw in it was that the Vietnam war was a war for independence, communism had nothing to do with it, not to the Vietnamese anyway. There is no justification of involvement in the war.

Before mentioning my ideas, I would like to say that in operation Linebacker 2, we finally took some real action against Haiphong harbor (mining) and and the B52 raids were actually starting to overwhelm the North Vietnamese surface to air missile defenses....but unfortunately by this point, it was too little too late, and this conflict was basically already a lost cause. Kissinger and company had negotiated a real shameful exit plan (at least from South Vietnam’s perspective).

Linebacker 2 was already at a point where the war was lost, it was just done to delay the Communists from total war. This to allow Nixon to safe face, again, so he could have a chance of being reelected. If it was up to Nixon he would have nuked Hanoi, i just know he would have, he didn't care about Vietnam, if there was any chance of victory and the US public believed it for just 1 second, Hanoi would have ceased to exist(this is a personal opinion, i hardly see any references anywhere about the possibility of the use of nukes or direct terror bombing of Hanoi). Unfortunately for him the US public was done with the war, the die was cast, he had no choice but to end it. But, every excuse they could think of to still do damage to the communists which some Americans(also high at the top) had come to hate, they did it. Nixon was a war criminal.

So then the real question is (given the guidelines of a limited scope campaign) is there any alternate strategies that could have been more effective, either in reducing the number of American casualties, or maintaining South Vietnam (or some portion of South Vietnamese territory) beyond 1975?

I myself believe the entire concept of Search and Destroy was flawed. The body count mathematics did nothing to really protect the South Vietnamese people, and only served to make the military leadership (falsely) believe that they were making actual progress.

Agreed. They failed to look at the big picture, failed in al ot of things. The body count fluke is what haunted the Johnson administration and eventually led to McNamara's doubts about the way they conducted the war and led to the eventual fall of Johnson.

I would rather have seen an emphasis on clearing and holding territory throughout South Vietnam, and using highly integrated combat ‘units’. This means fully integrated US and South Vietnamese combat units. This strategy also requires protecting the boarders from infiltration, which is no small feat given the geography of the region. Ultimately, the purpose of this strategy is to place more emphasis on the South Vietnamese (ARVN) to defend their country.

This is nearly impossible, the NVA was going through Cambodia and Laos to get into South Vietnam, the trail was well maintained, extremely hard to map and nearly impossible to block. No amount of units or air power would be able to cover the entire erea and prevent infiltration. Its like running a blockade at sea with nothing but aircraft carriers whilst the enemy uses submarines.
 
Unfortunately for him the US public was done with the war, the die was cast, he had no choice but to end it.


I think what really supports your point here was the American reaction to withdrawal '73 as compared with '68.

What Nixon got in '73 "Peace with Honor" was the same deal that LBJ had on the table(s) back in '68, but back then we were calling it "cut and run."

By '73 Americans were so tired of that war that the Hawks were ready to accept any fig-leaf of respect thrown their way, "peace with honor" and the Doves just as exhausted chose not to rub their noses in it, just content to let it end. I grew up with the war, ten years old when it started and 18 when it ended; in the end it was almost profound how quietly the whole thing came to an end. You often hear how there were no parades and such, damn there was almost no reaction at all, short of a quiet sigh of relief and then almost overnight total forgetfulness; a conspiracy of silence.
 
I think what really supports your point here was the American reaction to withdrawal '73 as compared with '68.

What Nixon got in '73 "Peace with Honor" was the same deal that LBJ had on the table(s) back in '68, but back then we were calling it "cut and run."

By '73 Americans were so tired of that war that the Hawks were ready to accept any fig-leaf of respect thrown their way, "peace with honor" and the Doves just as exhausted chose not to rub their noses in it, just content to let it end. I grew up with the war, ten years old when it started and 18 when it ended; in the end it was almost profound how quietly the whole thing came to an end. You often hear how there were no parades and such, damn there was almost no reaction at all, short of a quiet sigh of relief and then almost overnight total forgetfulness; a conspiracy of silence.

Right, thats what Linebacker 2 and other operations were for, to give time so they can save face enough. When i tihnk about it Nixon and Johnson handled it reversed. Johnson was fighting the war and secretly tried to make peace whilst Nixon openly declared he wanted to make peace but secrelty hoped for escalation and kept on attacking them, more devastating than anything Johnson had planned.

I wonder, if you grew up with it, what were your feelings when Saigon fell?
 
Right, thats what Linebacker 2 and other operations were for, to give time so they can save face enough. When i tihnk about it Nixon and Johnson handled it reversed. Johnson was fighting the war and secretly tried to make peace whilst Nixon openly declared he wanted to make peace but secrelty hoped for escalation and kept on attacking them, more devastating than anything Johnson had planned.

I wonder, if you grew up with it, what were your feelings when Saigon fell?

You point about Nixon and LBJ in reverse is interesting; I too believe that Nixon actually thought he could win that war and only quit because it was an election year.

Oh! That's an interesting question with a very short answer. By that time I was 20 years old and it was nothing more than a news blurp that turned my head for a moment. I watched it on TV (like I had watched the whole war) and turned away without any reaction. Just another news story, nothing really! I remember watching the tank crash the gate of the Imperial Palace (or some such imagine) and then Ford giving a speech, but when he got two or three sentences in and I just walked away.

You know, today many blame Congress for abandoning SVN in '75, I won't address that issue here, but I can assure you, at the time Congress paid no political price for that action.

Sorry I know that is not much of an answer, but that's how it went down for many of us, the fall of Saigon got the headline for one day. I am sure the Vets had a different reaction.

P.S. I just got to add this, when they held the conscription lottery in 1970, it was to apply for '71-'73 - my birthday was February 26th, my number #365! Talk about having a horse shoe shoved up your ass for luck!
 
Oh! That's an interesting question with a very short answer. By that time I was 20 years old and it was nothing more than a news blurp that turned my head for a moment. I watched it on TV (like I had watched the whole war) and turned away without any reaction. Just another news story, nothing really! I remember watching the tank crash the gate of the Imperial Palace (or some such imagine) and then Ford giving a speech, but when he got two or three sentences in and I just walked away.

That actually surprises and saddens me. I can imagine its weird to think about, confusing even. But was your reaction a sort of denial caused by shame? This is no way a personal question btw, and if you don't want to answer i can understand, i just want to grasp the feeling of the Americans towards those images.
 
That actually surprises and saddens me. I can imagine its weird to think about, confusing even. But was your reaction a sort of denial caused by shame? This is no way a personal question btw, and if you don't want to answer i can understand, i just want to grasp the feeling of the Americans towards those images.

I think you need to pose that question to a Vet or a spouse/parent of a Vet. -- There was in America, even at the height of the war, a disconnect from the war for most people; unless you had a family member directly involved with the war it was for the most part just something you watched on TV. I had a cousin who came of age in '66, just when you didn't want to, but coming out of the New Jersey suburbs he was well educated and immediately joined the Navy (one of several ways to avoid the war) and ended up a radiomen in the China Sea, on a battle cruiser protecting an aircraft carrier. His exposure to the war was limited (he use to lean on the railing of his ship and photograph the junks being blown out of the water as they would try to attack the carriers.)

Once he did his year, the war once again, for my entire extended family, reverted back to being just something on TV.

You need to understand, this "disconnect" I am referring to was exactly what LBJ/Nixon wanted! They chose not to make Vietnam a national effort, and LBJ in particular, early on never asked the American people to step up to win the war. He wanted it to remain a side-show to his 'great society.' He wanted what he called, "an exotic little war fought by professionals" -- by the time the war expanded into what it actually was, there was so much confusion among the American people as to what their role was.

You hear so much today about the war resistance by 'hippies' but the truth is, the government never properly prepared America for what Vietnam would morph into, and the resistance to the war went far beyond just draft dodging hippies. There was a whole underlying middle-class, middle-age resistance to the war no one wants to talk about. Every male role model in my life, my father, my uncles, all my high school coaches were either WWII or Korean War Vets. I was raised by the G.I. Generation, but when I graduated high school in 1972 and talked about enlisting ALL these men said to me things like: "what would you want to do that for; stay the hell away from that mess; don't be stupid, go to college" -- I am not saying there were not men who supported the war, there were many (especially early on) who enlisted and asked to serve in combat, but as time worn on those numbers began to dwindle and by the time you get to 1975 and the fall of Saigon the American people no longer trusted their government and didn't consider that war their war, it was just another mistake their government had made.

I am trying to figure out how to say it: to most Americans the Vietnam War was a war the American government was fighting and not a war the American people were fighting. By the time the war became a full blown war you felt like you were being asked to support the government, not the war. And when it became obvious that the government had been lying all along and was still constantly lying to you about the war (and other things) the people found it harder and harder to support the government (and thus the war.)

I think you need to ask a vet this question; or at least a vet's family member, there you will find the commitment you expect and likely get a very different answer to your question.
 
The only way to 'win' is to never fight it in the first place. South Vietnam was a failed state from the get go, and while facing with a radical nationalistic hardliner North.

@Emperor Norton I sums it up nicely.

Let the planned 1956 election take place and Uncle Ho would have won in a landslide.

Vietnam war a unwinnable war, for France and for the USA.
 
I agree with you regarding Ho and China, ("It's better to eat the French dung for 100 years than Chinese dung for 1000 years") -- but I doubt Mao would have cared whether Ho cared; it wouldn't have surprised me if Mao had Ho removed. I just don't believe Mao lets us advance any further into Asia. - When Mao moved into North Korea I suspect he acted unilaterally, of course that is something we could never possibly know; but MacArthur had North Korea at bay driven to the extreme northeast corner of its territory and on the verge of collapse. I suspect it was Mao's call, not the North Koreans.

Why do you feel the two wars can't be compared? I think they are very similar in many ways.

First, the two wars are similar in that they involve communist countries on China’s southern border, with a western-supported anti-communist government below an artificially contrived demarcation line. But that’s about it.

One of the real differences here is the geography, for the NVA in Southeast Asia gave them the advantage of indirect lines of communication (ie. Trail networks) that work to the advantage of a committed communist nation that doesn’t care what borders they cross! And it helps when you have the US not willing or committed to an all out regional war because we’re concerned about not interfering with the governments of Laos and Cambodia, and how the Chinese and Soviet Union might react. Compare this to Kim Il Sung launching a conventional invasion (across a very well defined line... the 38th parallel... with ocean on either side) that basically pissed off the United Nations.

The other big difference is the type of warfare: Kim launching a convention invasion (tanks, artillery, troops, etc) versus the smarter Uncle Ho using an strategy of escalating insurgency and infiltration, so it seems to be just a civil war to the western powers. Then he ramped up as we ramped up. So the strategy of warfare was very different (at least until about the time Nixon took office and we started to draw down).
 
The only way to 'win' is to never fight it in the first place. South Vietnam was a failed state from the get go, and while facing with a radical nationalistic hardliner North.

@Emperor Norton I sums it up nicely.

Let the planned 1956 election take place and Uncle Ho would have won in a landslide.

Vietnam war a unwinnable war, for France and for the USA.

Yes Uncle Ho wins in a landslide had the powers at be pushed for elections back then!

Also, analyzing this now, the situation was truely hopeless (and I believe Johnson understood this conflict would be a bad fight for us to get involved with from the getgo ... he didn’t like the idea of American boys doin’ the fight’n asian boys ought to be doin).

However, when you say this is unwinable, that’s all very nice in retrospect, but if you start from the Kennedy presidency with American military advisors present in country and under fire, then what decision does Johnson make when he becomes president? With the intelligence available, and in the grander scheme of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, do we cut and run, or further engage? And how do you justify your action?
 
Yes Uncle Ho wins in a landslide had the powers at be pushed for elections back then!

Also, analyzing this now, the situation was truely hopeless (and I believe Johnson understood this conflict would be a bad fight for us to get involved with from the getgo ... he didn’t like the idea of American boys doin’ the fight’n asian boys ought to be doin).

However, when you say this is unwinable, that’s all very nice in retrospect, but if you start from the Kennedy presidency with American military advisors present in country and under fire, then what decision does Johnson make when he becomes president? With the intelligence available, and in the grander scheme of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, do we cut and run, or further engage? And how do you justify your action?

I watched Vietnam War a while back and not only does it shows how unwinnable it was, but also had the US had chances to stay out, or get the Hades when it could. We dragged our feet in supporting the Freach. We thought Diem was doomed to fail and was ready to leave when he was successful. JFK deeply regretted the coup that killed Diem. The South would have fallen by 65 without American boots on the ground.
 
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