WI More Subtle US Involvement in Vietnam

Deleted member 94680

Nahh, I'm predicting we'd see a repeat of the actual ineffective Rolling Thunder strategic bombing of the industry of North Vietnam, because *effective* strategic bombing of the North Vietnamese war effort would require a shooting war with the USSR and China.

Ah right that makes more sense
 
Never mind OPFOR. Giap and the Northern Development faction argued against Tet-1 through -3 to their cost. Giap was brought in after Tet was chosen and had to eat shit. Even if we consider Khe Sahn and Tet as conceits of the Duan line, as inescapble positions over determined; Giap cleaned up the mess, and without Tet Giap's line of General Offensive would have been superior to General Uprising General offensive. Which is to say there is a reserve of commonsense in OPFOR which was not engaged iOTL due to party reasons.

Fantasy aside: OPFOR was capable of strategic responses beyond "FOR"'s capacities. "Those cunts" made fewer mistakes than "youse cunts."

And generally these fantasies do not deal with VWP(S) or NFL/PRG's superior strategic capacity to develop forces.
 
I recall reading a comment by someone who visited South Vietnam in the early 1960s, and met with American Special Forces officers. (IIRC it was "Adam Smith" (George Goodman), but I don't see how he could have been there. Follow-up: it turns out Goodman actually served in the SF in the 1950s, so I did RC.)

One of these officers told him "We [the Special Forces] can win this war - if the regular Army doesn't come in and screw things up." That SF officer may have been way too optimistic, but that opinion is intriguing. (Though I would have to say that while the SF might have been able to win the COIN war, using local auxiliaries, I don't see how they could get ARVN in shape to stop a PAVN invasion in full force like 1975.)
 
One of these officers told him "We [the Special Forces] can win this war - if the regular Army doesn't come in and screw things up." That SF officer may have been way too optimistic, but that opinion is intriguing. (Though I would have to say that while the SF might have been able to win the COIN war, using local auxiliaries, I don't see how they could get ARVN in shape to stop a PAVN invasion in full force like 1975.)
Was there an assumption that SF would 'intervene' and put a decent South Vietnamese leadership in place? Say get Diem kicked out before the Buddhist crisis and put in place someone who could actually build a broad coalition, but without being seen as a US puppet because the involvement was low profile. If you have that then you have more chance of being able to build up the ARVN. Probably still need a good chunk of US money, but I can't see a 'foreign military assistance' budget costing anything like what the OTL Vietnam did.

I've no idea if that is feasible, maybe it isn't, but that might have been the reason for the optimism?
 
One option which I immediately discard because it is beyond the US government is for the US to buy their way out of Vietnam. In the 1954 crisis Ike decides to “buy Asia” with the “Eisenhower Plan.” This effectively chooses to treat Sork, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malayasia, Indonesia etc as if they were Western Europe economically.

So much aid is pumped in that the late 1950s economic crisis in the West is averted by capital goods spend. So much aid is pumped in that despite graft living conditions “improve” in GDP/cap terms. So much aid is pumped in that the revolutionary crisis moves from rural labourers to new urban proletarians.

Much like southern Italian migrants to northern Italy during the 1960s and 1970s this causes radical discontent among new Vietnamese urban workers. But industry changes the spatial organisation of the social factory and local autonomous revolutionary government is made impossible. For bonus points have Diem organise plural union movements.

Still cheaper than the war.

Still impossible for the US ruling clique to countenance. (In Western Europe everything beneficial to maintaining capital was a side effect of the desire to keep the soviets out.)

Yours,
Sam R.
 
One of these officers told him "We [the Special Forces] can win this war - if the regular Army doesn't come in and screw things up." That SF officer may have been way too optimistic, but that opinion is intriguing. (Though I would have to say that while the SF might have been able to win the COIN war, using local auxiliaries, I don't see how they could get ARVN in shape to stop a PAVN invasion in full force like 1975.)
On the other hand, if the United States never engages in full force but leaves the option on the table, the PAVN might not be willing to do a full-bore invasion in fear of Big Army coming in and wrecking them. In '75 they could go ahead and invade knowing that the Americans were never going to come back in to hold the line and at most they would have to deal with airpower, but without the Vietnam War behind them they couldn't know that it wouldn't turn out to be Korean War 2, with nothing gained for them but a lot of cemetery plots. I mean, they might invade anyway, but the calculus has some factors pointing them away from that.
 
The VWP(N) official line after committing was either General Offensive / General Uprising or General Offensive.

The use of the PAVN to bolster PLAF regular units was policy and strategy. This strategy was intensified as a result of US intervention, but was always present.

Yours,
Sam R.
 
The VWP(N) official line after committing was either General Offensive / General Uprising or General Offensive.

The use of the PAVN to bolster PLAF regular units was policy and strategy. This strategy was intensified as a result of US intervention, but was always present.
Official lines don't mean much. Officially, all of the players in the Cold War were totally committed to wiping out all of the other players for (pick your reason). Factually, they all tended to sit on their hands because they knew perfectly well actually trying to implement the official line wasn't going to end well. The same's true here. Will the PAVN actually say, "Oh no, we're giving up on South Vietnam, no attacks for us"? No, of course not; they'll still keep talking about the General Offensive and maybe some Uprisings to go along with it. But if (somehow) the Viet Cong get shut down and GOGU is a dead letter (no General Uprising to be had), the only option left is rolling tanks across the DMZ, just like in '75. And if the United States hasn't already intervened and withdrawn, that carries the huge risk of the United States getting directly involved and completely smashing the PAVN in a straight-up fight. It's hardly reaching to suggest that PAVN leadership will be less than enthused about running that risk, regardless of their official strategic thinking. It's not like other Communist countries were super-enthusiastic about provoking that kind of thing, in general (or vice-versa, non-Communist countries that were super-enthusiastic about charging into the teeth of the Red Army).

Of course, this is all predicated on the underlying assumption that SF and advisor support could allow South Vietnam to eliminate insurgent activity and become a more or less stable and internally secure state, which is a more dubious proposition. I'm not sure that that's actually possible without basically completely changing everything about the Republic of Vietnam's government. If that's your bag, sure, but in that case the SF and advisor support is more ancillary than anything else.
 
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