What were the major mistakes that the US govt/military made in Vietnam?

ThePest179

Banned
Fighting it.

On the propaganda front, they need to utilize that Ho Chi Minh, quite bluntly, was a total bastard. He tried to liquidate 2% of his entire population in a classist cleansing of anyone with ties to the French or the West, and when these people of course tried to flee south, he, like Stalin and Mao before him, found others to take their place on the gallows. Playing this up, and portraying Minh like the tyrannical asshole that he was to the world, US public, and South Vietnamese public, would help.

Possibly. Keep in mind that the South Vietnamese government was run by thieves, murderers, and backstabbers, and there isn't any way to solve it unless you rebuilt the entire government from scratch.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Holy crap! That was psychic!
More pattern recognition.

My view on the whole CBA and stuff is... it's not much different from Operational Analysis. The problem would be the assumptions fed in, not the process itself.
And the Edsel mechanic bit? Completely irrelevant and a symptom of trying to throw as many insults as possible at someone to see what sticks.
 
This may be putting it way too bluntly, but fighting it half assed.

Total war? It would be a very hard sell. And how half assed it was anyway? Everything was used in Viet Nam. Well everything that had any purpose to be used.

Had the US really really wanted to win, even without nukes, it could have been done. Cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail, especially after the VC are wiped out for the most part after the Tet Offensive, means that the NVA cannot fight the war in the south.
*snip*
The NVA cannot win the war without the Ho Chi Minh trail. The VC will wither away and die without it.

Cutting the Ho-Chi-Minh trail is easier said than done. It was not some 6 lan highway with bridges or tunnels. It was a rat line that functioned through the jungle, with guys pushing bicycles loaded with rice and weapons. How do they cut it?

On the propaganda front, they need to utilize that Ho Chi Minh, quite bluntly, was a total bastard. He tried to liquidate 2% of his entire population in a classist cleansing of anyone with ties to the French or the West, and when these people of course tried to flee south, he, like Stalin and Mao before him, found others to take their place on the gallows. Playing this up, and portraying Minh like the tyrannical asshole that he was to the world, US public, and South Vietnamese public, would help.

No one was going to believe the US propaganda. Not even the US public.
 
Many. Apart from the political mistakes before 1958, my take would be

* Not involving the SVA more. Yes, they were corrupt and inefficient, but moving in 500 000 US troops were far worse. Both from a PR, political and military point of view.

* Running WW2 against a guerilla. The revolution war was one of many example that it doesn't work. At the same time the british had a lot of experience of running COIN operations.

* Not finding a steady SV leader to gather the resistance around. Had South Vietnam had someone like Ataturk or even Franco they would have won the war.

* US military personal policies. To rotate young officers after six months meant that every US unit in Vietnam was filled with inexperienced officers. As well as the individual replacement of non-officers.

* Not cutting of external supplies to NV and VC. US could have mined the NV harbors in 1964 and cut the trail through Laos at the same time. That would have put the strongest part of US (economic and naval) against the weakest part of NV (logistic and industrial).
 
I'm not sure if I buy that 'half assed' scenario, particularly when you look at the scale of the commitment that was made.

Approximately 2.8 million American troops were rotated through Vietnam. The American commitment in Vietnam, at its peak was roughly 570,000. When you throw in South Korean and Australian commitments, that's about 600,000. The South Vietnamese army was up to 1.1 million.

This is in a country of merely 11 million people, in a territory smaller than an average American state. Do the math - maybe 3 million combat age males in South Vietnam, but the military commitment, both local and American, was 1.7 million. We had one American soldier in the country, at peak, for every six north Vietnamese males.

Those statistics themselves (going by very old recollections, so don't bust my balls) only tell part of the story. We dropped more tons of bombs on Indochina than we dropped in all of Europe in WWII. We invaded Laos and Cambodia. We sent the CIA in with Operation Phoenix. We stuck in for ten years. We spent a damned near infinite pile of money.

American soldiers in Vietnam were exposed to combat something like five times more often than American soldiers in WWII. In terms of combat then, the American Vietnam commitment was equivalent to 2.5 million WWII troops.

Starting with the village relocation program, there was never anything half-arsed or half measured about the US commitment. Sorry, none of this 'fighting with one arm tied behind our backs' unless full bore was actually genocide.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Well, the Strategic Hamlet program was being overseen by a communist mole who was intentionally sabotaging the construction.

And also there was the issue that despite this, the guy was likely still better at the job than most of the alternatives in the South Vietnamese government or ARVN.

A lot of the US failures in the war also had to do with the loss of Operational experience the USMC had in COIN operations because of WWII and Korea.

I mean if you wanted to do it right, you'd have to seriously vet anyone involved with the Strategic Hamlets program (and have the US paying them enough to keep them loyal and inoffensively corrupt,) while seriously committing forces to each one of them, like a minimum of a platoon per hamlet. This while building the US Military up as being the good guys, solving government corruption, and maybe using the South Korean Army as the main force handling the really messy operations against the VC and NVA so as to set them up as the bogeymen (they were certainly brutal enough for the role) while letting the US publicly focus on defensive/security missions, and destroying the basis for the insurgency.

But with the South Vietnamese government, and politicization of the war in Washington that's all pretty much impossible As did the decisions to rotate troops and officers in less than ideal ways. Of course, if the US Government hadn't been full of idiots in the 40s, we could've agreed with the Russians on Uncle Ho, and found a way to pay the French off (which would've probably involved a shit ton of money being paid to France, and the US Military buying more AMX-13s than they'd know what to do with.)

Of course, when talking about salvaging the actual war, only taking volunteers for a two or three year tour in Vietnam, with officers staying for a minimum of 24 months, while ideal from an experience perspective, and is probably the best thing possible to make the Strategic Hamlet program work, would've been politically non-viable, especially since you'd have a good number of the troops coming home with Vietnamese war brides.
 

ThePest179

Banned
* Not finding a steady SV leader to gather the resistance around. Had South Vietnam had someone like Ataturk or even Franco they would have won the war.

Except this kind of leader did not ever exist in South Vietnam. SV would always be too weak to support itself without US troops unless, again, you rebuild the entire government from scratch.
 
Supporting the French over Ho Chi Minh. All those problems could have been avoided if we supported Minh like we promised to in WW2.
Concur. I'll be charitable and say that supporting the French was trying to get back to the status quo ante bellum.
 
And also there was the issue that despite this, the guy was likely still better at the job than most of the alternatives in the South Vietnamese government or ARVN.

A lot of the US failures in the war also had to do with the loss of Operational experience the USMC had in COIN operations because of WWII and Korea.

I mean if you wanted to do it right, you'd have to seriously vet anyone involved with the Strategic Hamlets program (and have the US paying them enough to keep them loyal and inoffensively corrupt,) while seriously committing forces to each one of them, like a minimum of a platoon per hamlet. This while building the US Military up as being the good guys, solving government corruption, and maybe using the South Korean Army as the main force handling the really messy operations against the VC and NVA so as to set them up as the bogeymen (they were certainly brutal enough for the role) while letting the US publicly focus on defensive/security missions, and destroying the basis for the insurgency.

But with the South Vietnamese government, and politicization of the war in Washington that's all pretty much impossible As did the decisions to rotate troops and officers in less than ideal ways. Of course, if the US Government hadn't been full of idiots in the 40s, we could've agreed with the Russians on Uncle Ho, and found a way to pay the French off (which would've probably involved a shit ton of money being paid to France, and the US Military buying more AMX-13s than they'd know what to do with.)

Of course, when talking about salvaging the actual war, only taking volunteers for a two or three year tour in Vietnam, with officers staying for a minimum of 24 months, while ideal from an experience perspective, and is probably the best thing possible to make the Strategic Hamlet program work, would've been politically non-viable, especially since you'd have a good number of the troops coming home with Vietnamese war brides.

That's essentially what the Briggs plan was which it was modeled after. The only problem was said politicization prevented it from being effectively copied. The British had a much closer oversight in Malaya, but they also had the benefit of being the colonial power with the legitimacy to do such.

I agree that the Soviets should have been approached to deal with Vietnam, especially since they were apathetic to keeping it partitioned as status quo, but there's a million decision points that could have been altered.
 
That's essentially what the Briggs plan was which it was modeled after. The only problem was said politicization prevented it from being effectively copied. The British had a much closer oversight in Malaya, but they also had the benefit of being the colonial power with the legitimacy to do such.

I agree that the Soviets should have been approached to deal with Vietnam, especially since they were apathetic to keeping it partitioned as status quo, but there's a million decision points that could have been altered.

The Brits as always is left out were also facing a hated minority who could only be supplied by sea lanes which the British controlled. It was a cakewalk compared to the clusterfuck of Indochina.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
1) The war had no goals and thus no decisive winning strategy

Solution - The US government, if it wished to do something resembling "winning" would have cut the Ho Chi Minh trail and launched a massive northward offensive. Without the trail, the NVA will be crippled, with one hammer blow it will collapse. Take a cue from the USSR, wage your ideological wars relentlessly and churn out boatloads of propaganda.

2) The South Vietnamese government was a mess, even more so than the ROC

Solution - Remove Diem, who alienated the people actively through his catholic radicalism and his incompetency, and replace him with a competent pro-western military dictator. He will mobilize the country for war against the North and aid in the dirty work too politically unpleasant for American soldiers to be caught doing.

3) No consideration for the future and what happens next

Solution - Escalate the war and make it a pan-Indochina crusade against Communism.

Lastly, don't support the south in the first place. It's on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the generational zeitgeist in Vietnam. A united Vietnam under Ho with the US as its main benefactor rather than the USSR, will prove far more useful than a divided Vietnam or a gloomy Latin America or South Korea style military dictatorship being all capitalism has to show for itself. Vietnam as non-aligned will be beneficial to the US and to SE Asia.
 
The problem with backing Ho as opposed to Diem, even as a Tito style figure, is that it would be politically unacceptable. Remember, we are talking about the era of the Red Scare, and it particularly emanated from a specific religious demographic that was very influential in at least the DNC of the time.

Vietnam is one of those situations where you are incredibly constrained on what to do because of domestic political concerns.
 
Not forcing the South Vietnamese government to clean up their act. If the United States wanted to win the South Vietnamese people over, they should have given them an acceptable alternative to North Vietnamese communism. Of course this would require the US to change their policy of "supporting every kind of government except communism" and seriously support democracy abroad.
 
The Brits as always is left out were also facing a hated minority who could only be supplied by sea lanes which the British controlled. It was a cakewalk compared to the clusterfuck of Indochina.

Yet, ARVN was still somewhat successful in intercepting supplies. The Ho Chi Minh trail was created because the DMZ became too risky to directly send supplies across.

It only was in the chaos of Diem's collapse that the trend reversed, because ARVN was too busy hunting Diemists instead of the real enemy. Diem was a crappy figure, but so was Syngman Rhee and Chiang Kai Shek who both managed to hang on. The Viet Quoc would have been the best alternative to the Communists, but even the pilloried Diem was still building a state far better than anyone else, ugly as it was.

Perhaps if the State Department didn't jump the gun they could have waited a few years to have Thieu pull a Park Chung Hee.
 
Allowing Diem to be killed. The war would have been completely different without the need of American intervention for a decade while Saigon looked for unavailable competent alternatives.


Apparently one of the WALLIES biggest problems was keeping the various partisan groups separate at their Indian bases for fear that they would expend all their ammunition killing each other before they got a shot at the Japanese!
WALLIES also had to launch separate B-24 Liberator flights to deliver guerillas to DZs only a few miles apart, because "group A" would have
killed "group B" long before they got within range of the Japanese. Highland Hmong were wise to fear lowland Tonkin Vietnamese.


Except this kind of leader did not ever exist in South Vietnam. SV would always be too weak to support itself without US troops unless, again, you rebuild the entire government from scratch.

All this. The major mistake we made in Vietnam was spending 20 years trying to save a country...that wasn't there.
 
I'm pretty sure the US turning the 17th Parallel into a giant fenced minefield ala the Korean DMZ would have been more effective and cost efficient in the long run. NcNamara essentially tried to do it on the cheap by relying on electronic surveillance.

And pretending that Laos were neutral.

But gradual escalation was the biggest policy mistake of them all.
 
Major mistakes? (Some of these may qualify as "less than major".)


  1. Treating DRV like a "good Christian nation" instead of like a foreign country
  2. Having McNamara anywhere near policymaking.:rolleyes:
  3. Setting targeting priorities for U.S. domestic political reasons:rolleyes::confused:
  4. Setting ridiculous & stupid ROE, including making airbases & SAM sites off-limits.:eek::rolleyes:
  5. Not telling the Russians & Chinese, if they don't want their "advisors" KIA, don't send them into a fucking war zone.:rolleyes:
  6. Using bombing to "send signals".
  7. Gradual escalation of bombing instead of starting with Rolling Thunder
  8. Not bombing the Hanoi dykes. (Do it in the dry season if you have a qualm about flooding. Better still, resign.:rolleyes:)
  9. Not mining Haiphong on Day One.
  10. Not using armed forces film crews (send them in the boonies with the patrols) to put out "good news" stories, or to show NVA/VC atrocities.
  11. Not telling "allies" to stop sending aid to DRV.:eek::confused:
  12. Not trying Jane Fonda for treason. (Okay, that's really not a "major" mistake...:p)
There's a good chance I'll agree with many other suggestions posted upthread; I haven't read it yet...

Yes, there's one more, but I took the OP to mean "once the war started". If not that, this:
13. Not backing a genuine nationalist against France & telling France to go screw. (I'm unconvinced Ho was genuine, & I'm less than positive about the VNQDD, either. I do think there had to be somebody in a French jail somewhere who was a genuine nationalist...)
 
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Know your enemy better than you know yourself.

One of the great things from "The Fog of War", a superb documentary about McNamara, was him describing his meeting in the mid 90's with some of the Vietnamese where they framed the war in terms of nationalism and liberation rather than ideology. It was clear McNamara, only 30 years after the fact, finally grasped the concept that he was fighting the wrong war.

As an aside, although Washington's micromanagement of the war was epic and absurd, everytime I think about the the comment that Washington should let the generals alone to do their work I think about MacArthur in Korea. I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin...
 
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