WI The US won in Vietnam

[PhoenicianLegacy]

Good day folks,

Today, I'd like to discuss Vietnam. What if the United States & co.'s efforts in the country's eponymous war did not prove so futile?

For one thing that would mean that communism in SE Asia would come to an abrupt end, transform the local countries in the region to free-market capitalist democracies like Japan post WWII. Also, China would be pressured to strengthen its relationship with the USSR and moderate reformists like Deng Xiaoping would not come into power following Mao's death and instead more hardliners who would make things worse for China, basically turning it into a giant North Korea.

You come up with feasible POD's.

 

[MasterSanders]

Depends on how you define "win."

Technically, the United States "won" the Vietnam War because we had guaranteed independence for South Vietnam at Paris. However, Congress, eager to wash American hands of the conflict, proved obstinate in providing weapons and other military aid to South Vietnam. The Fall of Saigon was done after Nixon left office, and Ford, with very little political capital himself, could not do anything to save the South.

As for different outcomes that could be defined as a "win," two possible PODs involve Nixon. Were Nixon elected in 1960, he might have been harder on Diem, who ran over Kennedy IOTL. Another POD would be no, or at least a minimized Watergate which allows Nixon to finish out his term. He might have been in a better position through executive action to at least show resistance to an invasion from the North.

 

[PhoenicianLegacy]

Depends on how you define "win."

Technically, the United States "won" the Vietnam War because we had guaranteed independence for South Vietnam at Paris. However, Congress, eager to wash American hands of the conflict, proved obstinate in providing weapons and other military aid to South Vietnam. The Fall of Saigon was done after Nixon left office, and Ford, with very little political capital himself, could not do anything to save the South.

As for different outcomes that could be defined as a "win," two possible PODs involve Nixon. Were Nixon elected in 1960, he might have been harder on Diem, who ran over Kennedy IOTL. Another POD would be no, or at least a minimized Watergate which allows Nixon to finish out his term. He might have been in a better position through executive action to at least show resistance to an invasion from the North.

What I mean by "winning", let's just say the Viet Cong communist forces were completely sent to their knees, resulting in a capitalist Vietnam in the present.

 

[Madoc]

How about some sanity to the US bombings of North Vietnam? By this, I mean not having the President chose the day's targets and also elminating the "do not bomb these obvious military targets because those pukes back in DC think they're too politically sensitive" bombing restrictions.

And, while we're at it, throw in a Phoenix Program that's been increased by some order of magnitude such that that all of North Vietnam is now terrified and jumping at every shadow that moved.

The result would be an utterly smashed economy - blowing up dykes would tend to help with that - combined with much of the Communist regime's human infrastructure necessary for maintaining control having been elminated.

Rinse and repeat as necessary for a few years and the people north of the DMZ might very well be begging for the South to come up and save them.

I think that would count as a win, eh?

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

What I mean by "winning", let's just say the Viet Cong communist forces were completely sent to their knees, resulting in a capitalist Vietnam in the present.

Viet Cong weren't the real threat, it was the North Vietnamese Army. The NVA didn't even want the Viet Cong around after the war anyways.

And, while we're at it, throw in a Phoenix Program that's been increased by some order of magnitude such that that all of North Vietnam is now terrified and jumping at every shadow that moved.

Rinse and repeat as necessary for a few years and the people south of the DMZ might very well be begging for the North to come up and save them.

I think that would count as a win, eh?

Fixed that for you. The Phoenix Program was targeted at the Viet Cong, not North Vietnam, and was also insanely inhumane and counter-productive. Same with your other proposed solutions. The civilian death toll from American bombings of North Vietnam was massive and strengthened their resolve, in addition to making America look pretty bad on the world stage. You suggest going with some rather extreme measures that would kill even more people and really only serve to give the communists the moral high ground. So no, that wouldn't count as a win.

 

[DValdron]

How about some sanity to the US bombings of North Vietnam? By this, I mean not having the President chose the day's targets and also elminating the "do not bomb these obvious military targets because those pukes back in DC think they're too politically sensitive" bombing restrictions.

And, while we're at it, throw in a Phoenix Program that's been increased by some order of magnitude such that that all of North Vietnam is now terrified and jumping at every shadow that moved.

The result would be an utterly smashed economy - blowing up dykes would tend to help with that - combined with much of the Communist regime's human infrastructure necessary for maintaining control having been elminated.

Rinse and repeat as necessary for a few years and the people north of the DMZ might very well be begging for the South to come up and save them.

I think that would count as a win, eh?

Actually, I think that might count as a genocide.

The US killed perhaps 10 per cent of the north Vietnamese population, you proposals seem targeted on the civilian population mostly. You would quadruple the casualt count.

 

[Riain]

The US could have fought the war more effectively in my opinion, but I think 'victory' in the sense of the South remaining independent is dependent on more than just effective combat in Vietnam. Are there world events which could see the ending of outside support to Nth Vietnam while they have been knocked back on their heels by US action?

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

Actually, I think that might count as a genocide.

The US killed perhaps 10 per cent of the north Vietnamese population, you proposals seem targeted on the civilian population mostly. You would quadruple the casualt count.

I'm starting to think Madoc was a general in Vietnam or something. Trying to solve the problem of resentment towards the war effort by killing everybody seems to be in line with what all those angry generals wanted from those namby pamby political figures who wouldn't let them drop nukes on Hanoi and maybe Saigon if there was still a commie somewhere in there.

 

[Madoc]

Well thank you 9 Fanged Hummingbird, I love you too!

Pray thee, just how did the US of that era win its previous wars? Perhaps by sitting down with our enemies, joining hands, and joining in a rousing chorus of kumbaya?

No, per the accepted wisdom of the day - and it was wisdom born of very painful experience - we won our wars by breaking our enemies in their entirety and doing so until they begged us for peace. This, even if it took slaughtering them by the industrial job lot. That was the accepted mentality among the command staff of that era and it was only through repeated political intervention by Johnson and then Nixon that we didn't put that "war winning strategy" into place.

And yes, those results speak for themselves.

The OP here wasn't to speculate on your analysis of post-Vietnam defeat navel gazing but rather speculate on what it would've taken for the US to have won in Vietnam. And that means to have used the strategies, tactics, doctrines, and practices of the day to have done so.

 

[Claudius]

Diem not being killed might have helped. Minh and his ilk were likely viewed as American puppets by the general South Vietnamese population . Political micromanagement by LBJ was indeed a serious factor. Its hard to win a war when the enemy knows that there are areas that are safe to operate in based on the judgements of politicians. Having someone else as SecDef than Robert McNamara who actually had military experience, or at least was willing to listen to advice from those who did would have been really useful. Finally, not appointing Westmoreland, an unimaginative officer way out of his depth in a counterincergency action would have really helped. Abrams was a major improvement, but by the time he took over it was way. too late.

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

Well thank you 9 Fanged Hummingbird, I love you too!

Pray thee, just how did the US of that era win its previous wars? Perhaps by sitting down with our enemies, joining hands, and joining in a rousing chorus of kumbaya?

No, per the accepted wisdom of the day - and it was wisdom born of very painful experience - we won our wars by breaking our enemies in their entirety and doing so until they begged us for peace. This, even if it took slaughtering them by the industrial job lot. That was the accepted mentality among the command staff of that era and it was only through repeated political intervention by Johnson and then Nixon that we didn't put that "war winning strategy" into place.

And yes, those results speak for themselves.

The accepted wisdom of the day was wrong then and so is your understanding of the entire Vietnam War. South Vietnam was an ally of the United States and yet your plan called for widespread terror tactics on an even larger degree than what was already attempted in that country. The whole hearts and minds ploy failed because we weren't very good at that since we spent too much time running around destroying villages and killing peasants in an ostensibly allied country in the name of stopping an insurgency. That doesn't work. Didn't work in Vietnam (and not because the US wasn't brutal enough), didn't work in Afghanistan for the Soviets, and didn't work in occupied Europe and Asia for the Axis countries. Here's a newsflash, the USA didn't win World War 2 by kidnapping random French villagers and torturing them until they told us who the local fascists might be. And Vietnam wasn't World War 2 no matter how much you and the armchair generals running the show wished it was. There were political ramifications to mass murder on an industrial scale beyond Vietnam, you know.

 

[Madoc]

Actually, the Phoenix Program worked quite well in OTL. We hunted down and killed large numbers of VC in South Vietnam and that definitely helped stabilize the situation in South Vietnam. Previously, the Viet Cong would infiltrate south and spread their terror throughout South Vietnam. Thanks to Phoenix, we put paid to that. Brutally, yes. But, effectively to.

As to winning the war against the insurgents, that too was something we won. Tet may have been a PR boon for the anti-war crowd back in the US but out in the field it was an utter disaster for the Communists. Their coming out into the open allowed us to gun them down in record numbers and it utterly shattered their infrastructure throughout the South. The accounts I've read from the people who were there remarked on the vast difference in South Vietnam after that compared to before it. Saigon was a hugely safer place after Tet and once Phoenix got well under way. We'd broken the insurgency. This, both in the urban areas and out in the countryside. That was the primary reason the North had to rely on a conventional attack to overthrow the South and they did so knowing the political situation in the US prohibited us from rendering a conventional military response - i.e. obliterating the NVA from the air without a single US trooper on the ground.

The OP is about winning in Vietnam, not enduring years more of a one sided insurgency.

And as to civilian losses, most accounts put the North's combat losses at just over a million dead. Combine that with the slaughter of the South Vietnamese civilians the Communists exacted once they'd seized control and you're easily topping two million total dead.

Now, while 1960s technology wasn't up to Gulf War precision levels when it came to delivering weaponry onto targets, it was vastly better than what we could do in WWII. So, to begin with I rather doubt your civilian casualty numbers. But, setting that aside, ending the war on our terms and doing so sooner than later would've spared huge numbers of NVA troops from being turned into jungle fertilizer by Arc Light strikes and spared all those South Vietnamese lives as well. A US victory over the North would've also prevented the rest of the region from destabilizing and thus Pol Pot would've most likely remained a "charming intellectual" there back in Paris. So, no Killing Fields either. To me, that sounds more like a humanitarian success of the first order than anything else.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Diem not being killed might have helped. Minh and his ilk were likely viewed as American puppets by the general South Vietnamese population .

Diem was not good at what he did, which is why he was allowed to be assassinated. And the assassination is the symptom of poor leadership. It wasn't the first move for assassination, attempted or potential, against Diem. I know of three other plots to kill Diem previous to the one that finally killed him.

One took place on November 11, 1960 where army officers and soldiers, upset at Diems corruption and patronage and autocracy, initiated a plot to remove Diem from power, or at least remove his brother and Madame Nhu who were viewed as a negative influence. The plot fell apart. It wasn't properly executed, the rebels didn't act decisively and lost inertia, and they took time to negotiate with Diem which gave enough time for loyalist soldiers to come into Saigon and put down the coup. I've also heard it said, though I don't know enough of this at the moment to know how true it is, that something else that put down the coup was the US ambassador saying the United States would not support this unlike the 1963 coup where the US said if the generals removed Diem from power, they would continue to support South Vietnam. One of the loyalists who helped put down the coup was Nguyen Van Thieu, who later took place in the 1963 coup and became president of South Vietnam.

http://www.historytoday.com/richard-...-south-vietnam

There was also a coup attempt in 1962 when two South Vietnamese airforce pilots attempted to kill Diem and his brother by strafing and bombing the presidential palace.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...s-coup-attempt

I've also read there were plans to launch a coup in August of 1963, though a book source on that stated claims of such a plot existing are dubious so I'm not sure of that one. It is on the "history place" Vietnam site that it did happen, but fizzled "due to mistrust and suspicion within the ranks of the military conspirators."
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedst...ndex-1961.html

Diem was not winning the war, and he was hindering the success of his nation with patronage and corruption. People weren't appointed to positions based on merit. They were appointed based on loyalty, and removed and shifted around based on the whims of Diem. And the people in South Vietnam did not like him. This was a man, after all, who persecuted Buddhists in a nation with a huge Buddhist population because he was a Catholic. And that lead to a very visible Buddhist crisis, which was embarrassing for the United States and South Vietnam from a PR standpoint. And that dislike is what motivated moves against him.

Diem was not a good anything. He just turned out to be the best of the bad.

The question to all of this, if you were to still argue for Diem, is how to keep him from being killed. The United States did not initiate the moves against him; the United States just allowed it by telling the plotters that if they did go through with a coup, the US would continue to back South Vietnam regardless. (The US did not seem to be assuming it would be an assassination). People hated Diem and tried to murder him before and tried to lead coups against him before, so it stands to reason that it would only be delayed rather than prevented. And, if asked if they'll still support the Republic of Vietnam, how is the United States going to say no? If they do, it'll be a bluff, because the US has an interest in Vietnam. So then the US will have to backtrack once it goes through. And the United States very possibly would not even be consulted first, so it would have to deal with hearing perhaps grumblings and rumors of a coup, followed by a coup or assassination going forward, leaving a hell of a complex situation on their lap. All of that means an ousted Diem regardless.

 

[othyrsyde]

Madoc, what you suggest is indescribably inhumane and genocidal, and I'll refrain from saying anymore out of respect for the board's civility rules. Thankfully the ignore function allows me to never have to deal with you again.

 

[DValdron]

I think that the whole 'we didn't try hard enough' myth is fairly pernicious.

The United States dropped more tonnes of bombs on North Vietnam than it did in all of WWII. Bombing included napalm, and toxic defoliants still causing environmental devastation and multitudes of birth defects today.

The US and allied troops in Vietnam peaked at about 650,000 in country, not counting naval deployments, or deployments to neighboring countries. Roughly 2.8 million members of the armed forces rotated through the theatre.

In a country of less than eleven million people, we killed over a million. Easily 10% of the population.

We bombed North Vietnam with impunity, we raided the coasts with impunity. We bombed and invaded and destroyed neighboring countries Laos and Cambodia.

We spent, in adjusted dollars something like half a trillion on the venture.

Frankly, that's not lack of effort. That's insane levels of overkill and excess effort, and still we lost.

The reality that Madoc refuses to acknowledge is that the South Vietnamese government and armed forces simply were not competent, were not going to stand up on their own, and became systematically less capable as the war went on. South Vietnam was a profoundly corrupt, profoundly incompetent, hollow shell.

If you want a meaningful POD, stop this nonsense about 'we didn't try hard enough' or 'we wuz stabbed n the back by hippies' or 'we wuz stabbed in the back by lack of public support' all of which is stuff and nonsense.

Instead, look for a POD which is going to produce a competent and effective Vietnamese government with actual support.

The reality is that there's no meaningful support for the 'lack of effort' theory.

 

[Saladan]

I think that the whole 'we didn't try hard enough' myth is fairly pernicious.

The United States dropped more tonnes of bombs on North Vietnam than it did in all of WWII. Bombing included napalm, and toxic defoliants still causing environmental devastation and multitudes of birth defects today.

The US and allied troops in Vietnam peaked at about 650,000 in country, not counting naval deployments, or deployments to neighboring countries. Roughly 2.8 million members of the armed forces rotated through the theatre.

In a country of less than eleven million people, we killed over a million. Easily 10% of the population.

We bombed North Vietnam with impunity, we raided the coasts with impunity. We bombed and invaded and destroyed neighboring countries Laos and Cambodia.

We spent, in adjusted dollars something like half a trillion on the venture.

Frankly, that's not lack of effort. That's insane levels of overkill and excess effort, and still we lost.

The reality that Madoc refuses to acknowledge is that the South Vietnamese government and armed forces simply were not competent, were not going to stand up on their own, and became systematically less capable as the war went on. South Vietnam was a profoundly corrupt, profoundly incompetent, hollow shell.

If you want a meaningful POD, stop this nonsense about 'we didn't try hard enough' or 'we wuz stabbed n the back by hippies' or 'we wuz stabbed in the back by lack of public support' all of which is stuff and nonsense.

Instead, look for a POD which is going to produce a competent and effective Vietnamese government with actual support.

The reality is that there's no meaningful support for the 'lack of effort' theory.

Pretty much this.

There comes a point where if you have to resort to methods that would not look out of place in some SS colonel's handbook in order to win the war in which you're trying to demonstrate to the world in general and the Vietnamese in particular why US style democracy is the way to go instead of soviet communism then you've already lost the war to begin with.

 

[cubefreak123]

...The US and allied troops in Vietnam peaked at about 650,000 in country, not counting naval deployments, or deployments to neighboring countries. Roughly 2.8 million members of the armed forces rotated through the theatre.

In a country of less than eleven million people, we killed over a million. Easily 10% of the population.

We bombed North Vietnam with impunity, we raided the coasts with impunity. We bombed and invaded and destroyed neighboring countries Laos and Cambodia.

We spent, in adjusted dollars something like half a trillion on the venture.

Frankly, that's not lack of effort. That's insane levels of overkill and excess effort, and still we lost.

The reality that Madoc refuses to acknowledge is that the South Vietnamese government and armed forces simply were not competent, were not going to stand up on their own, and became systematically less capable as the war went on. South Vietnam was a profoundly corrupt, profoundly incompetent, hollow shell.

Boy, a disturbing thing happens when you change out South Vietnam and North Vietnam with Afghanistan and Pakistan and Laos and Cambodia with Yemen. Sigh...

 

[MattII]

The reality that Madoc refuses to acknowledge is that the South Vietnamese government and armed forces simply were not competent, were not going to stand up on their own, and became systematically less capable as the war went on. South Vietnam was a profoundly corrupt, profoundly incompetent, hollow shell.

Indeed. I suspect that at least half the problem was precisely because of this, many of the people at ground level didn't see the north as actually being any worse than their own government, and thus they didn't bother to actually do anything to stop the North.

 

[The Kiat]

What I mean by "winning", let's just say the Viet Cong communist forces were completely sent to their knees, resulting in a capitalist Vietnam in the present.

It'd be something similar to what's going on in Korea, though I don't think North Vietnam would end up a Red Monarchy like North Korea.

 

[100Fathoms]

You can't stiffen a bucket of spit with a handful of Buckshot.

Given the rampant corruption in the Civil Government & Military Leadership, and lack of trust the people of South Vietnam have in their own institutions... a victory was just a cruel mirage... No I did not serve in Vietnam ( Born in 72. ) or served in the US Military ( Health Problems ) but many of my male relatives have and the stories they tell would convince the most jaded "Hawk" that we had no business there.