WI Giap and the Moderates Stopped the Tet Offensive?

I read about the Tet offensive during the Vietnam War and apparently there were two factions in North Vietnam. The moderates wanted to revert back to guerilla warfare and use negotiations to end the war and eventually maybe unite the two countries. They were supported by the Soviets and the members included Giap (I think the only well known NVA commander to the West since he fought the French and the US, in that film We Were Soldiers).

The opposing and dominant militant faction wanted to do a large scale offensive that would create a popular uprising and win the war. They were supported by the Chinese and contrary to hindsight beliefs, the goal wasn't to make America lose in the homefront.

And I was wondering what the impact would be on the outcome of the Vietnam War if North Vietnam pursued the Moderates' approach?

Do you see Vietnam continue to remain divided a la Korea? North Vietnam or South Vietnam eventually collapsing? Or unity at some point?

Personally, I feel like a moderate approach would have been better for all parties in the Vietnam War. Sure, North Vietnam wouldn't decisively take Saigon in 1975, but millions of lives were lost throughout the region, the sociopolitical impact in the region and in the US probably did far more harm in the long run, creating huge harmful butterflies that might have prevented programs like the Great Society.
 
And I was wondering what the impact would be on the outcome of the Vietnam War if North Vietnam pursued the Moderates' approach?
You'd probably need a coup/civil war in the North for that to happen. Le Duan and his clique were so powerful that they had previously managed to marginalize Ho Chi Minh. The moderates were not in any position to get their way.

Now the North showing such disunity could quite possibly give the South the slack it needed to survive.
 

Ian_W

Banned
And I was wondering what the impact would be on the outcome of the Vietnam War if North Vietnam pursued the Moderates' approach?

No change.

If Tet is not launched in 1968, the objective conditions that lets it be launched are not changed - they still control much of "South Vietnam", their local forces are largely intact, they've got main force battallions that can fight ARVN and American forces and so on.

Therefore, the war continues to grind on, and Americans continue to check the US military's official claims of "We're winning" against the reality they could see happening, which was they weren't.

Let me quote a chunk of the US Army's official history, talking abut the situation in 1967.

https://history.army.mil/books/AMH/AMH-28.htm

"These actions pointed up a basic problem. The large, multidivision operations into the enemy's war zones produced some benefits for the pacification campaign; by keeping enemy main force regiments at bay, Westmoreland impeded their access to heavily populated areas and prevented them from reinforcing Viet Cong provincial and district forces. Yet when American units were shifted to the border, the local Viet Cong units gained a measure of relief Westmoreland faced a strategic dilemma: he could not afford to keep substantial forces away from their bases for more than a few months at a time without jeopardizing local security. Unless he received additional forces, Westmoreland would always be torn between two operational imperatives. By the summer of 1967, MACV's likelihood of receiving more combat troops, beyond those scheduled to deploy during the latter half of the year and in early 1968, had become remote. In Washington the administration turned down his request for an additional 200,000 men."

No 1968 Tet Offensive doesnt change this reality - that the US doesnt have the military in the late 1960s to defend Europe, defend Korea, secure the borders of South Vietnam and provide internal security for South Vietnam.
 
It is a bit disingenuous to call the General Offensive / Northern Development lines moderate.

By 1967 Giap had had his subordinates purged and was brought in to fix a Duanist mess. Yet Tet-1 and the General Offensive General Uprising line couldn’t be reversed. So the PLAF / NFL got to eat shit. And Giap had a very big “I told you so,” to point at in favour of the 1972 General Offensive line.

The key points would be Northern Development attaining supremacy by 1958 which leaves the VWP (South) plotting a fully independent war. The North will be roped in anyway, but with a toy heavy industry sector for the Americans to play with.

Another option is that Giap doesn’t get sidelined and instead that the General Offensive line is the primary line. This probably ends very badly because the VWP (North) is going to activate it, probably during peak US engagement. One, two, many Hues. Because 1967-1969 will force an offensive on the VWP and neither line will produce a successful offensive. All a General Offensive only line will do at best is preserve non mainline forces.

Neither of these modify the centrality of the NFL/PRG’s state apparatus and political mobilisation of the liberated areas. The latter results in a horrific waste of mainline battalions, like historically, but might preserve more local forces and provincial forces for the political war.
 
1) Eugene McCarthy not as successful in New Hampshire
2) Johnson runs and likely wins in 68.
3) Eventual defeat of South Vietnam less brutal because it happens mostly from folk living there?
 
3) Eventual defeat of South Vietnam less brutal because it happens mostly from folk living there?

Nope.

The General Offensive line relies on a conventional offensive. This isn’t going to work until the US abandons supporting the RVN with air bombardment. Even with Northern Development the PAVN is going to end up supplying volunteers for mainline PLAF forces, if not the core of the General Offensive in a cross border invasion. And the time constraints on that mean heroin and prostitution. Which means a hysteric response from VWP cadre; on top of the real pain of ending a pimp and drug dealer economy.

What you *might* see is a greater survival of village revolutionary behaviour; on the other hand the first thing that goes is proletarian democracy in the workplace. The PLAF being stronger at the end would help preserve the power of liberated area village collectives longer.

To reduce the pain of the revolution and keep the southern revolution going you really need the revolution to win without a conventional US intervention. A northern development line success is not going to make the US have a sensible foreign policy.
 
Top