Westmoreland anticipates the Tet offensive

At a purely military level, Tet *was* a success. The problem was the credibility gap opened by the Vietnamese getting tactical surprise all over Vietnam after years of the military saying everything was going smoothly and swimmingly.

It was a struggle to get that success. though. If the OP were to occur, there would be no tactical surprise and thus no credibility gap. "We saw it coming and we were prepared and we took them down." The media and congressional doves wouldn't have a foundation for criticism.
 
I agree with you entirely. I believe that the fundamental gap between the war we thought we were fighting and the war as it was unfolding on the ground makes an American victory in Vietnam impossible. the length of the war is immaterial to it's result. the changes I propose, (A ready and alert military on Tet, and a more honest and open Pentagon.) Would only extend the war, possibly to the mid or late seventies. WInning it is impossible.

If (and it's a BIG if) the U.S. gets serious about cutting off North Vietnam's supply lines with China and the Soviet Union, especially by mining the harbors and destroying the rail lines to China, there is the possibility that North Vietnam would agree to a Korean-style armistice, especially after Uncle Ho dies.

In your "Westmoreland and the Pentagon grow a brain" addendum, a corollary could be installing a credible government in Saigon (difficult, I know) and a serious challenge by the Pentagon to the CIA's drug-running operations in SEA.

Corollary to Johnson running for a second full term -- what does this do to Nixon? Kissinger? All the state-level Sunshine Laws and Freedom of Information Acts that were passed in the aftermath of Watergate?
 
Two things need to happen. One is that the Pentagon has to convince the American people that this was the decisive battle Westmoreland had planned for and won. To use an analogy, if this is seen as a last desperate chance by the Communists ala the Battle of the Bulge, it could keep American elite morale intact enough that Hanoi gets no benefit. The second is that Westmoreland can't call in more troops. He has to show that the current troop strength is all that's needed, and possibly even begin shipping troops back home in the next year.

I don't think Westmoreland is capable of either. But if LBJ takes the opportunity to send Westmoreland home on a high note and send in Creighton Abrams, then the US might be able to win the propaganda front, secure the Vietnamese countryside, revitalize ARVN, start bringing home troops, and have enough political will to keep ARVN militarily supplied so that a redux of 1975 doesn't happen ITL.

The big problem with Westmoreland wasn't that Tet was bad militarily. It was that he lost any remaining credibility that he knew how to win the war. The problem for the US is that Westmoreland didn't know how to win the war. He neglected securing the countryside or building up ARVN. Unless that's done, the US can't win. The best thing is if this is an opportunity to remove him and put in someone who has a clue (like Abrams did, but he came in too late to convince the American elite that a US victory was possible, and Watergate killed any chance of the US keeping ARVN supplied to have a level playing field against the North).
 
It was a struggle to get that success. though. If the OP were to occur, there would be no tactical surprise and thus no credibility gap. "We saw it coming and we were prepared and we took them down." The media and congressional doves wouldn't have a foundation for criticism.

Actually they still would, namely how the Viet Cong were able to build up across the entirety of South Vietnam an attack aimed at all major cities *of* South Vietnam in any sense.
 
just a tidbit

@ Blackfox5
I agree with you. Westy was fine in a conventional slugout at the Fulda Gap, but was way out of his element in Nam.
I might point out that Westy's staff knew they needed to build up the ARVN, but IIRC, the major problem was that they trained the ARVN to fight US style without providing the whole TOE.
Americans since WW2 rely on artillery and airpower to get things done, not their infantry.
The ARVN had lots of infantry, but not a lot of armor or aircraft to work with.
As many have said, Congress voting down not resupplying the ARVN with heavy weaponry or ammo or aircraft in 1972 was a key factor in their defeat in 1975 when the NVA finally came out in the open field.

Special Forces trained the Montganards to fight guerrilla style and do pretty well, but that didn't filter up to MACV, because they wanted the ARVN to be just like the US Army and the ARVN weren't too pleased that independent militias existed outside their control.
IMO that's why Operation Phoenix was too little too late. Too many cooks who didn't talk to each other spoiling the soup as it were as to when to switch from COIN to conventional warfare.

Basically, you needed a flip, Creighton Abrams to handle the COIN battle, Westy to bitch-slap the NVA in 1972-1975.

As to the OP, Westy actually listening to intelligence and having a good handle on staying alert? I'd say, not even on a cold day in Hell.
Not aggressive enough a strategy for Westy. He'd have the opposite problem, wearing everyone out beating the bushes for any sign of VC activity from what I've read of how he conducted things in Nam.
 
If (and it's a BIG if) the U.S. gets serious about cutting off North Vietnam's supply lines with China and the Soviet Union, especially by mining the harbors and destroying the rail lines to China, there is the possibility that North Vietnam would agree to a Korean-style armistice, especially after Uncle Ho dies.

I suggest you read more journal articles on the actual composition of the VWP leadership in Hanoi. By 1968 the VWP had been in more years of war than they had of peace. They had a repeatable phased plan ("General Offensive") to end the war on their terms. They had already faced adversity in the immediate prosecution of the NFL's triumph in the South, (the failure, in particular, of the "General Uprising" component of the previous strategy of "General Offensive/General Uprising").

The VWP was not discouraged by the historical air offensives aimed at Northern logistics and supply. The United States' state apparatus is more likely to go into crisis before that of the DRVN.

One impact of a continued or protracted war on the United States will be increased mutinies, particularly in the period 1972-1980, and a domestic armed struggle campaign very similar in complexion to the Italian case of the same period. Far more legitimate than the historical campaigns that had the levels of popular support and sanity that the RAF had.

yours,
Sam R.
 
It was a struggle to get that success. though. If the OP were to occur, there would be no tactical surprise and thus no credibility gap. "We saw it coming and we were prepared and we took them down." The media and congressional doves wouldn't have a foundation for criticism.
I still think while it would lengthen the war, it would not change it's result. The North Vietnamese wanted to win, and we really did not.
 
If (and it's a BIG if) the U.S. gets serious about cutting off North Vietnam's supply lines with China and the Soviet Union, especially by mining the harbors and destroying the rail lines to China, there is the possibility that North Vietnam would agree to a Korean-style armistice, especially after Uncle Ho dies.

In your "Westmoreland and the Pentagon grow a brain" addendum, a corollary could be installing a credible government in Saigon (difficult, I know) and a serious challenge by the Pentagon to the CIA's drug-running operations in SEA.

Corollary to Johnson running for a second full term -- what does this do to Nixon? Kissinger? All the state-level Sunshine Laws and Freedom of Information Acts that were passed in the aftermath of Watergate?
Hmm, That IS a good question aint it, I have to think about that.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Another side effect is no LBJ Great Society. Funding a larger war in Vietnam likely uses up the funds for LBJ social initiatives.
 
Would it butterfly away Full Metal Jacket, Good Morning Vietnam and Apocalypse now? That would be a real shame.
 
Would it butterfly away Full Metal Jacket, Good Morning Vietnam and Apocalypse now? That would be a real shame.

No, It would alter the second half of Full Metal Jacket, GMV would be largly unaffected, and AN would just take place a little closer to it's filming date.
 
Is it safe to assume that the longer the war lasts, the more likely you'd have an South Vietnamese "victory?"

Other way around.

Diem's regime doesn't have public support, they aren't an issue of a reasonably popular regime that just needed better foreign support to survive (like Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War), they're an issue of a corrupt regime that puts the Catholic minority in power over the Buddhist majority in South Vietnam, if the US wants to keep on propping them up the notions that South Vietnam is an American puppet will only grow stronger and stronger as time passes.
 
Other way around.

Diem's regime doesn't have public support, they aren't an issue of a reasonably popular regime that just needed better foreign support to survive (like Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War), they're an issue of a corrupt regime that puts the Catholic minority in power over the Buddhist majority in South Vietnam, if the US wants to keep on propping them up the notions that South Vietnam is an American puppet will only grow stronger and stronger as time passes.
Exactly, having elected to support a corrupt fascist dictator at all hazards, the UNited States in Vietnam has made it impossible for themselves to win the war. That makes Southern Defeat and Northern VIctory a matter of time, that's all.
 
PR program

The war was fought as much in America as it was in Viet Nam. The one thing that must be changed if we want to secure some sort of US victory is that the war must have and retain public support. The rational used to "sell" the war to the public was flawed, because the argument of preventing communism from spreading, is only worth the bother if people are afraid it will lead to WW3 (as in Korea) or if it is spreading to a place people care about.
As we have learned since 2001, you can pretty much get the US public to agree on anything if you scare them enough, so the US needed to paint the North Vietnamese as a real palpable menace. Red terrorism was incipient in Europe at the time, but would there be enough to create a rational for the war that rested on the idea of North Viet Nam as the base/inpiration for a network of terror that would try and strike in the USA?
Arrest some radical US elements, stick some racial tension into it, present "proof" that some Viet Namese inspired and controled agents are trying to, for example, blow up a building in NY, pass a special law that allows you to arrest people on vague "terror" charges?
Westmoreland couldn't win the war. You need Dick Cheeney!
 
The war was fought as much in America as it was in Viet Nam. The one thing that must be changed if we want to secure some sort of US victory is that the war must have and retain public support. The rational used to "sell" the war to the public was flawed, because the argument of preventing communism from spreading, is only worth the bother if people are afraid it will lead to WW3 (as in Korea) or if it is spreading to a place people care about.
As we have learned since 2001, you can pretty much get the US public to agree on anything if you scare them enough, so the US needed to paint the North Vietnamese as a real palpable menace. Red terrorism was incipient in Europe at the time, but would there be enough to create a rational for the war that rested on the idea of North Viet Nam as the base/inpiration for a network of terror that would try and strike in the USA?
Arrest some radical US elements, stick some racial tension into it, present "proof" that some Viet Namese inspired and controled agents are trying to, for example, blow up a building in NY, pass a special law that allows you to arrest people on vague "terror" charges?
Westmoreland couldn't win the war. You need Dick Cheeney!

Whoah, you are, a very creepy person. I don't know wheater to admire you, or be afraid of you.
 
Exactly, having elected to support a corrupt fascist dictator at all hazards, the UNited States in Vietnam has made it impossible for themselves to win the war. That makes Southern Defeat and Northern VIctory a matter of time, that's all.

Eh, Diem was no fascist, couldn't have been even if he had wanted to.

That said... yeah, that government was totally out of touch with the people it was supposed to be governing, Uncle Ho and friends may not have always been the nicest bunch, but they had the public behind them.

It doesn't help that the Soviets made every effort to learn Vietnamese, learn about the local culture, and generally attune themselves to the way things were done there, while the American ambassador was famous for wild parties in Saigon with heroin and prostitutes.
 
Eh, Diem was no fascist, couldn't have been even if he had wanted to.

That said... yeah, that government was totally out of touch with the people it was supposed to be governing, Uncle Ho and friends may not have always been the nicest bunch, but they had the public behind them.

It doesn't help that the Soviets made every effort to learn Vietnamese, learn about the local culture, and generally attune themselves to the way things were done there, while the American ambassador was famous for wild parties in Saigon with heroin and prostitutes.
Well heck, if you can't have wild orgies with hookers and blow, what's the point of bein' an ambassador, Amirite?
 
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