Was a North Vietnamese victory in the Vietnam War inevitable?

In a recent thread in which I asked about a 1968 ceasefire to end the Vietnam War, two contributors made these comments.


The problem is that the peace talks were never actual peace talks. They were all delays for the US to keep face for when the time came to withdraw. The North Vietnamese were never going to hold to it, not matter what it was going to say. All they wanted was the US out of it. The South Vietnamese could never keep them at bay on their own. The South Vietnamese would not recognize the VC(Vietcong) as an official party for the peacetalks, as they had infiltrated South Vietnam everywhere and basically saw themselves as the occupying force and in control of the South. These peace talks being finalized so early on only strengthens the VC and NVA in South Vietnam. Any concessions made would just ease tension off the North. They had expected the Tet offensive to break the south and end the war, since that didn't happen they just planned on more infiltration and build up of forces in the north to begin a real offensive as soon as possible, all that had to happen was the US to withdraw.


When I proposed a Korean War-style armistice:

That will NOT be able to fly.

The whole cause of Vietnam War is to see if it's "two Vietnam's" (USA point of view) or "one Vietnam" (Vietnamese point of view). RVN may be able to pull that off (asking for more money from USA to appease the populace, or at least the elite ones) - though it is still risky. DRVN will never, ever, do that, because it would go against their very declaration of independence, sworn during the 30s and 40s. The only type of "Korean War-style armistice" that is acceptable would be an armistice followed by a General Election.

You know, the one in Geneva Accord in 1954 but the US refused to hold it because they knew the Viet Minh (and by extension, the communist party) would win with a landslide?

Aside from that, the North Vietnamese were recieving a almost endless stream of support, save for manpower, from China (later the Soviet Union for fears about Chinese influence) and the South Vietnamese government was effectively a unstable puppet of the United States, unable to protect it's cities, as the Tet Offensive showed. Also, the presence of China effectively prevented the US from directly invading the North with ground troops. In North Vietnam, the people were behind their supposed war against Western colonialism. While in the US, the people were slowly getting sick of the war, so the US was losing the propaganda battle on the home-front.

Anyway, since the only way to get a ceasefire was to hold a referendum on unification (which was NOT going to happen since North Vietnam had a higher population than the South), the North Vietnamese government was more stable and was being supported by China and the Soviet Union and the North Vietnamese had more home-front support, was a North Vietnamese victory in the Vietnam War inevitable?
 

Deleted member 1487

In retrospect without a continued US presence and a more stable South Vietnamese government yes. Perhaps if the US hadn't gotten so coup-happy (maybe if the 1960 Paratrooper coup worked?) and they used fewer long service professionals only (not sure how they could maintain that though) permanently stationed in country they could have fought off the North...but that's assuming everything goes right and the US is able to maintain a 20 year long war.
 
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Inevitable?
1.WWIII occurring between 1964 and 1975 means there would not be much of a North Vietnam left.
2. No Watergate, and Nixon is free to do in 1975 that happened in 1972, another conventional blitzkrieg get whacked from US airpower
 
China could flip with the right PoD and decide Vietnam is better divided.

Johnson could murder a million North Vietnamese and displace far more by bombing their dams at the start of the war.
 
South Vietnamese PoDs:
-Perhaps the 1960 coup attempt forces Diem to restore meritocracy to the army, decrease his family's involvement, while also better adhering to rule of law. If people have some level of respect for their government the VC will have a much harder time.
-Rather than accepting that million refugees from the North, take a page from Ho Chi Minh's playbook and have some Catholics and community leaders remain as stay behind agents. The north wasn't some sort of hippy utopia, with a solid core a reverse-VC could be drummed up to oppose the oppressive northern regime.

American PoDs:
-The US could mine Haiphong from the get go.
-Build that damn wall across Southern Laos.
-Drop "body count" like a hot potato (for that matter, drop Westmoreland).
-Don't sideline the ARVN, begin Vietnamization upon entry.
-get a detente with China sooner and just invade the North.

North Vietnamese PoDs:
-The confrontation between Ho's faction and Le Duan's faction gets out of hand and a coup/civil war ensues. Optimally Ho's faction wins, it didn't want to aid the VC and it's overwhelming pro-Soviet leanings might alien it from China. That said, Le Duan winning would still destabilize the north, undermine its international image, and delay/reduce the amount of support going south.
-Get cocky sooner, roll south when the US public is not yet exhausted, and put yourself in check when the US still has the stamina to put you in checkmate.

Soviet PoDs:
-Brehznev goes ahead with nuking China.
-Soviet munition ships recreate the Halifax explosion in Haiphong harbour.

You'd need a mix of these ideas in order to pull it off.
 
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Inevitable?
1.WWIII occurring between 1964 and 1975 means there would not be much of a North Vietnam left.
2. No Watergate, and Nixon is free to do in 1975 that happened in 1972, another conventional blitzkrieg get whacked from US airpower

This, people forget the ARVN by 1972/1973 had the reached the point that it could effectively fight the NVA on its own if properly supported. The VC, likewise, were a dead letter by this point anyway.

Finally, it’s only a few years away from China souring on the Vietnamese and once that happens it’s game over.
 
The PRG was an effective counter government in 1972, and local batallions were drip fed reinforcements from PAVN recruitment. Suggesting the VC were a dead letter is either an insufficiently developed understanding of; or an invidious obfuscation of: the political nature of the conflict.

My favourite DRVN loss is of course the NFL going independent.
 
The PRG was an effective counter government in 1972, and local batallions were drip fed reinforcements from PAVN recruitment. Suggesting the VC were a dead letter is either an insufficiently developed understanding of; or an invidious obfuscation of: the political nature of the conflict.

My favourite DRVN loss is of course the NFL going independent.

Why would the Viet Cong (I'm assuming that's what NFL means) break away from North Vietnam? Wasn't their whole mission to unite the two Vietnams?
 
So. The NFL wasn't a unitary movement. It was an achievement of the Vietnamese Workers Party to mould the positions of a bunch of partially independent proxy parties and movements behind the general VWP position. Yes, of course, this was the traditional four parties of the fraternal states: Workers, Peasants, Intellectuals and tamed National Bourgeois. But at the same time these were semi-independent sentiments that had to be massaged by VWP moles into supporting the general VWP line in the NFL.

That is a lot of work for an underground illegal movement forming armed units and a counter state and tax regime. And remember that the VWP and NFL are both independently inflitrating the RVN.

And this is of course neglecting three divisions inside the VWP itself. A northern and southern perspective. A development and a war line. And personality politics around Duan and Ho/Giap.

Leninist parties aren't static. They develop situationally based on the concept that if they don't they fail. Even in comparison to other Leninist parties which achieved state power, the VWP is by far and away more pragmatic and efficient. The Red River Offensive died, fast, when it failed. Giap was elevated despite being on the wrong side of the line in 1967/8, and then was allowed to modify the line in 1968 as a result of Tet-1's failure. Fools weren't tolerated.

Neither was the Northern line's pacifism. The VWP in the South independently renewed struggle in 1958/9 as a result of the RVN's blood persecution. The VWP in the North was forced by the Southern VWP to tail end the Southern VWP's line.

In short: the Party was capable of local differentiation on the basis of the concrete nature of the struggle.

The struggle in the south required high levels of engagement from rural proletarians. This could (and did) convert Southern VWP activists and the NFL/PRG towards a line far closer to proletarian self-governance than, say, being a Political Bureau member in the DRVN did. There's the material and social space for a conflict between the NFL/PRG and the DRVN.

Leninist "unity" is almost always a hard fought and often bloody achievement. In the case of the Vietnamese party the comparative pragmatism and the highly proletarianised countryside made for a potentially far more workers-democratic leninist party than in other situations. Compare and contrast to the Yugoslav party where geographically fractionated peasantries had a similar effect on party life.

In short: the NFL/PRG saw the VWP in the DRVN as betraying the revolution historically in 1958/9. There are real grounds for their opinion to be replicated at a later point if the VWP from the DRVN doesn't cater to the southern demands.

yours,
Sam R.
 
Likely, yes, but it's by no means inevitable. It depends a lot on what China does. Do Sino-Soviet relations crash earlier and convince them to sever Soviet ratlines to Vietnam? Do they spark a coup in Hanoi to put Maoists in power over the pro-Soviet faction? Does Chiang summon Mazu to snap Mao and company into dust to retake the mainland (ASB, but it's a thought)? Whatever happens in China determines North Vietnam's success, and anything that doesn't go their way there means they're going to have a much harder time surviving, much less reunifying.
 
2. No Watergate, and Nixon is free to do in 1975 that happened in 1972, another conventional blitzkrieg get whacked from US airpower

Which, at best, does not prevent the fall of Vietnam, merely delays it a bit. Even that much is doubtful given that the ARVN enjoyed significant material superiorities anyways yet still saw cities like Hue and Da Nang, defended by hundreds of thousands of troops, taken by much smaller NVA forces as the defenders surrendered after only desultory resistance. The only serious fight was at Xuan Loc where the 18th Division gave a brief vision of what might have been, holding up an entire Corps before being overwhelmed, but it was too little and far too late. As it was, the North Vietnamese were expecting it to require yet one more offensive after '75, to be mounted in '76 or '77, to bring down South Vietnam (regardless of American airpower intervention). Even they were shocked when the ARVN disintegrated in just 55 days.

This, people forget the ARVN by 1972/1973 had the reached the point that it could effectively fight the NVA on its own if properly supported.

Not really. The VPA in '72/'73 was stopped, but it was not reversed. The ARVN still permanently lost large swathes of the four northern provinces which the North Vietnamese were able to keep during the Paris peace accords and later used to stage their 1975 offensive. While it's better than the total military collapse experienced in '75, death by a thousand cuts isn't a successful military model either. And by 1975 whatever successes the army had built in the early seventies had been lost due to rampant corruption and deep politicization of the officer corps, as well as deep infiltration and subversion by the Communists. Some key South Vietnamese defence officials were outright Communist agents. The immediate cause of defeat wasn't any material deficiency, but poor political and military leadership which placed the ARVN in a very vulnerable starting position and then proved utterly incapable of recovering after the initial setbacks. Whether even a second intervention of American air power would have made a fundamental difference under such conditions is debatable.

Finally, it’s only a few years away from China souring on the Vietnamese and once that happens it’s game over.

So the North Vietnamese finish knocking over South Vietnam in those few years, which is about what they expected.

I mean, best case scenario for an American AirPower intervention in 1975 would still see the Central Highlands would still be lost. The ARVN was never getting that back, and that would be a dagger into the heart of the South that the VPA could use to knock South Vietnam over the moment it gathered up some more offensive strength.
 
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Not really. The VPA in '72/'73 was stopped, but it was not reversed. The ARVN still permanently lost large swathes of the four northern provinces which the North Vietnamese were able to keep during the Paris peace accords and later used to stage their 1975 offensive. While it's better than the total military collapse experienced in '75, death by a thousand cuts isn't a successful military model either. And by 1975 whatever successes the army had built in the early seventies had been lost due to rampant corruption and deep politicization of the officer corps, as well as deep infiltration and subversion by the Communists. Some key South Vietnamese defence officials were outright Communist agents. The immediate cause of defeat wasn't any material deficiency, but poor political and military leadership which placed the ARVN in a very vulnerable starting position and then proved utterly incapable of recovering after the initial setbacks. Whether even a second intervention of American air power would have made a fundamental difference under such conditions is debatable.

Most of the deterioration tracks completely with the decline in U.S. support and the oil embargo starting from 1973 onwards. It's rather hard to stop a mechanized offensive if you don't have sufficient logistics or air support, no? The results of 1975 are understandable when taken in that light and explains how the ARVN could fight so hard in 1973 but then fall apart in '75; same thing with the French in WWII for that matter.

So the North Vietnamese finish knocking over South Vietnam in those few years, which is about what they expected.

No? South Vietnam fell on 30 April 1975 while Pol Pot came to power on 17 April 1975; this marked the serious degradation of relations between China and North Vietnam. From that point on overland supply through China is an open question mark and its only a few years from China reaching the point it'll actually fight the North Vietnamese.
 
Most of the deterioration tracks completely with the decline in U.S. support and the oil embargo starting from 1973 onwards. It's rather hard to stop a mechanized offensive if you don't have sufficient logistics or air support, no? The results of 1975 are understandable when taken in that light and explains how the ARVN could fight so hard in 1973 but then fall apart in '75; same thing with the French in WWII for that matter.

On paper, the ARVN had far more then enough logistics to beat off the VPA assault. They had large stockpiles of American aid still sitting around, which the North Vietnamese used to fuel their campaign as they captured them, so lack of American material support cannot be the reason for their deterioration. The problem was that the ARVN logistics were totally mismanaged, with the people whose job it was to get that ammunition and fuel from the stockpiles to the frontline were instead too busy trying to be sure they were on the first choppers out of Saigon. Which goes back to issues of politicization and corruption within South Vietnam that the Americans had zero control over even back before the embargo. Given their massive paper numerical and material superiority, air support should have been completely unnecessary for ARVN, seeing as the VPA didn’t have it either.

And the VPA’s offensive was a far cry from a mechanized one. It has mechanized elements, but like all previous VPA offensives the main brunt of the effort fell on their foot infantry.

No? South Vietnam fell on 30 April 1975 while Pol Pot came to power on 17 April 1975; this marked the serious degradation of relations between China and North Vietnam. From that point on overland supply through China is an open question mark and its only a few years from China reaching the point it'll actually fight the North Vietnamese.

Yes. The deterioration of relations, and supplies, with China begin with Sino-Soviet border wars of ‘69, not with Pol Pot’s ascension to power. 1968 was the peak year of Chinese supply. By ‘75, though, overland supply from China had already largely (not entirely, but largely) been severed and even Soviet supply had been tapering off since the Paris Peace Accords (with the prospect of tying down American ground troops gone, they increasingly lost interest), to the point that the Vietnamese conducted the ‘75 offensive from a supply base smaller then that which they conducted the ‘72 offensive on. Given that context, loss of Chinese aid would mean nothing. Only when the Chinese actually come in and fight the North Vietnamese would that matter, but with possession of the Central Highland the four year period of time is far more then enough time for the VPA to deliver the final death blow (which was scheduled to come in ‘76 as it was). Not to mention the Chinese invasion of Northern Vietnam was in response to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, which the North Vietnamese obviously won’t be doing before they reunify with the south.

The bottom line is that the best outcome for a bombing offensive repeat in '75 would would have still ended with the North in control of a huge chunk of the country that rendered the rest now strategically indefensible. Unless America recommitted ground forces, the fall of the South would only be a matter of another year or two.
 
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The problem was that the ARVN logistics were totally mismanaged, with the people whose job it was to get that ammunition and fuel from the stockpiles to the frontline were instead too busy trying to be sure they were on the first choppers out of Seoul.

Yeah, I can see how the logistics of that escape-plan would take up a lot of time for someone in Saigon!
 
I think that near the end the US was finally realizing that Vietnam was just one small battle in the larger conflict called the Cold War and it was costing far, far more than it could ever be worth. Holding on to the South would have been a continuing drain on Western resources without costing the Communists much of anything except for lives. Once the high command recognized that, I think the South was doomed.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
South Vietnamese PoDs:
-Perhaps the 1960 coup attempt forces Diem to restore meritocracy to the army, decrease his family's involvement, while also better adhering to rule of law. If people have some level of respect for their government the VC will have a much harder time.
The typical reaction to a failed coup is doubling down on ensuring the loyalty of the military and prioritizing that over competence. If anything, you would have to avoid all the coup attempts in South Vietnamese history in order increase the chances of meritocracy.

-Rather than accepting that million refugees from the North, take a page from Ho Chi Minh's playbook and have some Catholics and community leaders remain as stay behind agents. The north wasn't some sort of hippy utopia, with a solid core a reverse-VC could be drummed up to oppose the oppressive northern regime.
This assumes that Diem or Bao Dai had any control over the actions of the refugees. They didn’t. They would have to shoot the refugees themselves if they wanted to stop them from coming.

-Don't sideline the ARVN, begin Vietnamization upon entry.
-get a detente with China sooner and just invade the North.
The ARVN was sidelined for a reason. It was corrupt to the bone and had horrendous morale. America began building up the Iraqi and Afghan security forces since the beginning of American occupation of those countries, yet ISIS still trounced the ISF and the Taliban still exists. Detente with China and invading the North are mutually exclusive. It doesn’t matter if North Vietnam seems to support the Soviets a bit more than the Chinese, China would never agree to American troops on China’s borders. There’s a reason why detente with China didn’t happen until after America was reducing its involvement in Southeast Asia.

North Vietnamese PoDs:
-The confrontation between Ho's faction and Le Duan's faction gets out of hand and a coup/civil war ensues. Optimally Ho's faction wins, it didn't want to aid the VC and it's overwhelming pro-Soviet leanings might alien it from China. That said, Le Duan winning would still destabilize the north, undermine its international image, and delay/reduce the amount of support going south
Ho Chi Minh stepped back from politics after the failure of agrarian reform and cancer prevented him from stepping back in. In any case, tensions never got anywhere near high enough for a civil war. And if Le Duan seized power by gettting the support of the PAVN and threatening a coup I don’t see that changing much in the long run. Someone who follows Ho Chi Minh’s “Northern Development” belief taking power instead of Le Duan could work, that would prevent the war in the first place.
-Get cocky sooner, roll south when the US public is not yet exhausted, and put yourself in check when the US still has the stamina to put you in checkmate.
This happened twice and the North still won. The first time with the Tet Offensive, the second time with the 1972 Easter Offensive.

I think @wiking has the best suggestion.
 
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The typical reaction to a failed coup is doubling down on ensuring the loyalty of the military and prioritizing that over competence. If anything, you would have to avoid all the coup attempts in South Vietnamese history in order increase the chances of meritocracy.
True. Although that still leaves the pesky problem of Diem's family. Personality based PoD?

This assumes that Diem or Bao Dai had any control over the actions of the refugees. They didn’t. They would have to shoot the refugees themselves if they wanted to stop them from coming.
Notice how I said some? That's exactly what I meant. Diem absolutely had contact with some of the Catholic community leaders in the north. Organizing a handful of stay-behind cells was within his power.

The ARVN was sidelined for a reason. It was corrupt to the bone and had horrendous morale. America began building up the Iraqi and Afghan security forces since the beginning of American occupation of those countries, yet ISIS still trounced the ISF and the Taliban still exists.
The ARVN only grew more corrupt and dysfunctional in its downtime. By the time Vietnamization began the ARVN was incapable of conducting operations at the Divisional level. Keeping it in the loop will at least ensure it doesn't become the total pyramid of patronage it was OTL, and will help convince the locals that America is an ally rather than a new colonizer.

Detente with China and invading the North are mutually exclusive. It doesn’t matter if North Vietnam seems to support the Soviets a bit more than the Chinese, China would never agree to American troops on China’s borders. There’s a reason why detente with China didn’t happen until after America was reducing its involvement in Southeast Asia.
I guess I should have been more specific. I meant a limited offensive, not even as far as the Red river delta, aimed at pulling the Ho Chi Minh trail up by the root. Spoiling attack would probably have been a better term than invasion. My apologies.

It's still a stretch but such could possibly be arranged with China.

And if Le Duan seized power by gettting the support of the PAVN and threatening a coup I don’t see that changing much in the long run.
On the contrary, a coup against beloved Uncle Ho would be poison to Le Duan's reputation and northern unity. A spiral into a RVN-style coup cycle is unlikely, but far more defectors could be expected.

Someone who follows Ho Chi Minh’s “Northern Development” belief taking power instead of Le Duan could work, that would prevent the war in the first place.
There would still be the guerrilla war in the South against the NLF.

This happened twice and the North still won. The first time with the Tet Offensive, the second time with the 1972 Easter Offensive.
Tet happened when the American public was at its breaking point and pushed them over the edge. 1972 happened with minimal American loss of life and still did about as much to bring America to the peace table as it did the DRV. In both cases America had no appetite for exploiting its victory.
 
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Tet happened when the American public was at its breaking point and pushed them over the edge.

Tet really happened after America was at it's breaking point. The primary reason for the pullout was that the costs had reached the point where the US couldn't afford to stay in Vietnam indefinitely and contain Russia in Europe at the same time without mobilizing. Since the US was unwilling to mobilize for political reasons, that left pulling out from one of the theatres... and no one was going to trade Europe for Vietnam. Hence, the decision to draw down was actually taken before the peace movement really got going. Rather than being the primary cause of the withdrawal as the common myth goes, what the movement actually did was make re-commitment impossible once the drawdown had started. But in the end, the reasons for the drawdown were as much military as they were political.

I'm still trying to find the original post, but the best suggestion I've seen to bringing the US victory in South Vietnam I've ever seen is for the US to accept that salvaging the South Vietnamese country is going to mean writing off the South Vietnamese government as a hopeless cause and hijacking the issues that gave the communists so much support (most notably, land reform) for an American-backed popular revolution instead.
 
Tet really happened after America was at it's breaking point. The primary reason for the pullout was that the costs had reached the point where the US couldn't afford to stay in Vietnam indefinitely and contain Russia in Europe at the same time without mobilizing. Since the US was unwilling to mobilize for political reasons, that left pulling out from one of the theatres... and no one was going to trade Europe for Vietnam. Hence, the decision to draw down was actually taken before the peace movement really got going. Rather than being the primary cause of the withdrawal as the common myth goes, what the movement actually did was make re-commitment impossible once the drawdown had started. But in the end, the reasons for the drawdown were as much military as they were political.
Ok, so my wider point that America was already exhausted by the time Tet came still stands?

I'm still trying to find the original post, but the best suggestion I've seen to bringing the US victory in South Vietnam I've ever seen is for the US to accept that salvaging the South Vietnamese country is going to mean writing off the South Vietnamese government as a hopeless cause and hijacking the issues that gave the communists so much support (most notably, land reform) for an American-backed popular revolution instead.
Easier said then done. Every RVN government from Diem on had land reform on the agenda. The issue was that the South had a far stronger land owning class than the North did (and even there Land Reform ended up being a messy affair). Any alternative to the DRV/NLF would need to court this faction or simply implode from lack of support.

Two of the more successful alternative movements the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao operated via work arounds rather than directly confronting the matter of land ownership. The Cao Dai created extensive relief services to assist peasants suffering under absentee land lords, and the Hoa Hao cleared forests and drained swamps to create new unclaimed farmland. Both were fairly successful in keeping the NLF out of their respective provinces. So I think such work arounds would be better, as a stop gap measure while the means to sideline the landlords is prepared.
 
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