What If: U.S. "Victory" in South Vietnam

Points 1, 3 and 4 seem to relate critically to the governance of Vietnam.

You would need a profoundly transformative POD, as far back as the 20's perhaps, to have a realistic shot at that.

Take Land Reform - in fact, the political moves of the Diem regime were actively in the opposite direction. 'Land Reform' of a sort was taking place, in the form of actively transferring title and control of the agricultural land from the people who had been farming it for centuries, to a corrupt elite class.

You would literally need to turn South Vietnamese culture and government on its head to institute land reform. Not just changing the government itself, but really screwing over the entire governing class, the key constituencies that influenced and dominated the government - the ruling economic and political sectors of the population.

I don't see how you do that, short of putting those people on boats and floating them out to sea.

Okay, that's extreme. But the degree of resistance you'd face would be astonishing, and the land reform would perpetually under critical risk of subversion or delay, the process would take decades. And we didn't have decades.

Hell, look at Latin America. There's been a pressing need for Land Reform going on a century. Everyone knows that's the solution. But where and when has it actually happened to any meaningful extent?
 
US victory in Vietnam is hard, but not impossible. ***

1) Build up the ARVN from day one. Westmoreland had no interest in building the capability of the ARVN and basically wasted 4-5 years. The fact that the ARVN didn't have the internal institutions to fight on its own is a major reason US GIs felt that the South Vietnamese had no interest in defending themselves. The ARVN relied on the US to do its fighting for them (especially in the Westmoreland years, less under Abrams) because the ARVN couldn't do it themselves.

2) Concentrate military policy on holding and securing land, not in the fantasy there will be some mass conventional battle that eradicates the enemy. Securing land will bolster peasant support for the government, and give US troops a real sense of accomplishment.

4) If Diem is the President, revolve the Buddhist crisis. The Buddhist movement in South Vietnam was not exactly angelic. There were private armies, and actual Buddhists were not as peaceful as Westerners seem to think.

6) Act decisively in North Vietnam when needed. Mine the harbors, keep the bombings up, let it be known that NVA invasions in South Vietnam territory will lead to reprisal excursions by US/ARVN troops north of the DMZ. By pushing the war to their doorstep, you make North Vietnamese escalation of the war something that comes back to hurt them.


In a fantasy scenario, Nixom becomes president in 1960. He puts Victor Krulak in charge of strategy of winning the war, and selects Creighton Abrams to lead the US Army in Vietnam. Diem is not ousted, but convinced to change certain policies to better the war effort. By 1968, the situation in South Vietnam is not critical. The government has made peace with the Buddhists, won the support of the peasants, has a capable ARVN, and North Vietnam is severely damaged by critical strikes against its infrastructure. Stalemate is achieved with South Vietnam beginning to improve relatively to North Vietnam. Despite some opposition to the war, the US public is convinced that the government is being honest with them and are conducting the war correctly. Public support is sufficient that American commitment to South Vietnam is not questioned by anyone, and at some point in the 1970s, North Vietnam accepts that conquest of the South is not feasible, and at best limits its actions to supporting local terrorists who can't achieve any decisive result.

This potentially could be done, but the difficulties in achieving it is substantial. It's certainly not the most likely outcome.

This is what I envision as an Alternate History timeline. An early and better effort by the U.S. military to build up the ARVN in 1964-65, not years later. A rural security strategy in the countryside that emphasizes winning territory and keeping the enemy (VC/NLF and NVA) out, perhaps implementing and a much more effective strategic hamlet program. Finally, taking the war to the North like Nixon did in OTL by mining the harbours and wth a heavy and less discriminant bombing campaign. Unfortunately, I see no effective alternative to Diem in 1963, so I think the U.S. needs to focus on identifying a new generation of democratic-minded opposition leaders and assisting in the building of an effective Democratic opposition to eventaull suceed Diem.
 
This is what I envision as an Alternate History timeline. An early and better effort by the U.S. military to build up the ARVN in 1964-65, not years later. A rural security strategy in the countryside that emphasizes winning territory and keeping the enemy (VC/NLF and NVA) out, perhaps implementing and a much more effective strategic hamlet program. Finally, taking the war to the North like Nixon did in OTL by mining the harbours and wth a heavy and less discriminant bombing campaign. Unfortunately, I see no effective alternative to Diem in 1963, so I think the U.S. needs to focus on identifying a new generation of democratic-minded opposition leaders and assisting in the building of an effective Democratic opposition to eventaull suceed Diem.
Dude, 63 is too late, hell 62 may be too late, you cannot save the vehemently corrupt and comically stupid Saigon Government.
 
Dude, 63 is too late, hell 62 may be too late, you cannot save the vehemently corrupt and comically stupid Saigon Government.

The problem is that the VC/NLF insurgency in South Vietnam, supported and largely controlled from Hanoi, did not commence until 1959-60. JFK increased US military advisors from a few hundred at the end of the Eisenhower administration to 16,000 US military "advisors" by November 1963. I doubt JFK--had he lived--would have significantly increased the U.S. military presence and military role in South Vietnam before the election in November 1964 (LBJ certainly did not in OTL). The problem is that South Vietnam was on the "backburner" of US foreign policy and military concerns until we sent large number of US troops in early 1965 to prevent an imminent collapse of the govt and independent state.

Given US poltics at the time, I don't see a major commitment of US troops being possible before November 1964. Backing Diem and not encouraging a coup by ARVN generals during the last half of 1963 would keep the political and military situation in South Vietnam somewhat stable, so that conditions would not deteriorate as rapidly as it did in 1964-65 in OTL.
 
The problem is that the VC/NLF insurgency in South Vietnam, supported and largely controlled from Hanoi, did not commence until 1959-60.

For the hell of it, what's your citation for that?

The problem isn't the insurgency per se, its that the South Vietnam government was essentially an incompetent kleptocracy from the start. You're continually mistaking Diem for a leader, when really, he was simply at the forefront of a group of oligarchic thieves.

You need a POD which produces a potentially competent government in South Vietnam, and that's just not Diem. You basically need a way to butterfly Diem.

This means that your American POD is irrelevant. It has to be a french or prior POD.


The problem is that South Vietnam was on the "backburner" of US foreign policy and military concerns until we sent large number of US troops in early 1965 to prevent an imminent collapse of the govt and independent state.

Read your own post. Imminent collapse was in early 1965? For a state that was about eight years old? No solid foundation deteriorates that fast.

Check my previous post on the village relocation program. Think that through.

By 1960, the situation was so bad, that they were seriously planning to uproot and relocate something like 2/3rds of the countries population, the majority of the rural population.

Don't you smell the desperation behind a move like that. They were losing, they were at the point of no return.

You don't sit there and try crap on that scale for trivial reasons. It's not a minor project. Massive population relocation as an anti-communist strategy could only mean that the war had been lost, that the conventional anti-insurgency approach had failed completely, and the only way out was this?

Given US poltics at the time, I don't see a major commitment of US troops being possible before November 1964. Backing Diem and not encouraging a coup by ARVN generals during the last half of 1963 would keep the political and military situation in South Vietnam somewhat stable, so that conditions would not deteriorate as rapidly as it did in 1964-65 in OTL.

Except that Diem was hopeless. I don't think that Diem could have arrested the deterioration. When in power, he was a major contributor.
 
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The problem is that the VC/NLF insurgency in South Vietnam, supported and largely controlled from Hanoi, did not commence until 1959-60. JFK increased US military advisors from a few hundred at the end of the Eisenhower administration to 16,000 US military "advisors" by November 1963. I doubt JFK--had he lived--would have significantly increased the U.S. military presence and military role in South Vietnam before the election in November 1964 (LBJ certainly did not in OTL). The problem is that South Vietnam was on the "backburner" of US foreign policy and military concerns until we sent large number of US troops in early 1965 to prevent an imminent collapse of the govt and independent state.

Given US poltics at the time, I don't see a major commitment of US troops being possible before November 1964. Backing Diem and not encouraging a coup by ARVN generals during the last half of 1963 would keep the political and military situation in South Vietnam somewhat stable, so that conditions would not deteriorate as rapidly as it did in 1964-65 in OTL.
Meine Fruende, it DOESN'T matter, not by 1962.

By that date nothing you do is going to mean anything.

Failing to back the nationalists in either 1919 or 1954 is the kiss of death!

What about that don't you get?

Ho Chi Minh came to us first and was counting on us to honor our word from WW2.

We fucked him over big and for what?

To keep France happy and to keep them from throwing a hissy and leaving NATO, never mind that France needed us a hell of a lot more than we needed them and guess what, in the mid 1960's France stopped participating in NATO militarily anyway and why?

To protest our war in Vietnam!

SO FUCK FUCKING FRANCE!
 
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