alternatehistory.com

Tet was a turning point for the war, in multiple ways. The massive North Vietnamese offensive, though beaten back, almost wholly shattered the belief presented by the Military that the war was being won and that the North Vietnamese and Vietcong were on their last legs. It was after this point that Vietnam would be considered a lost war to end in loss or stalemate, which is a belief which permeated both the troops and the public at home. However, Tet was also a major failure for the Vietnamese Communists. They had previously been working with the view that they could not defeat the US head to head, so they had to pick and choose, and fight a guerilla war, and Tet was the total opposite of that policy, and resulted in a major defeat. It devastated the Vietcong to the point that they were no longer a viable fighting force and were almost totally wiped out, and the war after Tet turned from a guerilla war to a more conventional one. The US could perhaps have won this, but Tet destroyed public support for the war.

My question is, what if the North Vietnamese kept their better judgment, and did not launch the major offensive, and major military failure, that was Tet?
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