WI: US Wins Vietnam War?

For some reason US wins the Vietnam War. Maybe because or an earlier conflict between Mao and the USSR.
Allowing the State of South Vietnam to exist to this day.

How would this have influenced asia history? And most important how would this effect America?
Maybe say that the loss of Vietnam had a negativ effect on the American Publics view of the armed forces.
So how would a win had been viewed in the American Public? And in the rest of the world for that matter?

/Fred
 
The key point I tend to argue is that while winning the Viet Nam war was possible (although there are various PODs that would make it much easier), actually doing so is of strictly limited benefit and carries many downsides.

The benefits are small but obvious: No Khmer Rouge, no boat people, a higher morale for the US Army, and so forth.

The downsides are equally obvious: China, a probably surviving North Viet Nam, still corrupt and unstable South Viet Nam, a commitment at least on the order of Korea/Japan and possibly higher, and so on.

(The domestic scene has all kinds of butterflies as well, most of them probably not that good.)


Could the US have won the war in Viet Nam? I believe so. Would it be worth it? Nope.
 
Yes, we were very close to winning the war in OTL, but because of the tremendus casulties suffered by the Americans, the public damanded the soldiers to be removed. By the time we had left the war we had rendered the Vietkong as a weak force, and if we had continued the North would have lost to. But the American casulties could be in 600-700 thousand dead.
 
Where do you get casualty figures like that?

It would have been ridiculously easy to win the war after Tet in 1968 had the US Home Front stood up. Giap was in despair until he cottoned on to the US domestic scene.

It was that plus the ROE imposed on US air strikes in the North that perpetuated things and lead to eventual ruin.

I find it very difficult to see any downside at all to a US victory in VN.
 
The US could have won the war and the causalties would have been nowhere near the unrealistic figure of 600-700,000. The start and stopping of military operation and the White House demanding to approve any airstrike on the North were a geat part of the reason that the war lasted as long as it did and the loses in human life by the US totalled 55,000. The were a number of plans that would have choked off the ability of the north to continue the war in the south and even the possibility of invading the north.
 

Ak-84

Banned
The US could have won the war and the causalties would have been nowhere near the unrealistic figure of 600-700,000. The start and stopping of military operation and the White House demanding to approve any airstrike on the North were a geat part of the reason that the war lasted as long as it did and the loses in human life by the US totalled 55,000. The were a number of plans that would have choked off the ability of the north to continue the war in the south and even the possibility of invading the north.

Actual casualties were about 400,000 in OTL, 600,000-700,000 were defeinatly possible.
 
The key point I tend to argue is that while winning the Viet Nam war was possible (although there are various PODs that would make it much easier), actually doing so is of strictly limited benefit and carries many downsides.

The benefits are small but obvious: No Khmer Rouge, no boat people, a higher morale for the US Army, and so forth.

Boat people?
 
Groups of South Vietnamese refugees who came to the US. There was quite a bit of friction at first, especial in the fishing industry. You can thank them for lower fish prices and the modernization of the US fishing fleet.
 

burmafrd

Banned
With the corruption and weakness of both the SVN military and government, I doubt we could have accomplished much more.

My way of fighting that war would have been to keep regular US ground forces out of the war and do what we were doing in 64 and 65; Special forces and air support; building camps and taking it to the VC and NVA at the local level. And then continue with the infiltration and guerilla operations in the North that were described in Moore's book. WIth a two pronged attack on the local level and the North, I think in a year or so it would have been over.
 
Where do you get casualty figures like that?

It would have been ridiculously easy to win the war after Tet in 1968 had the US Home Front stood up. Giap was in despair until he cottoned on to the US domestic scene.

It was that plus the ROE imposed on US air strikes in the North that perpetuated things and lead to eventual ruin.

I find it very difficult to see any downside at all to a US victory in VN.

goes to prove that Clausewitzian remarkable trinity is real and has to be taken into account. US trinity was weak, as was South Vietnamese. Specially later was crucial, you can't fight for somebody who is not willing to fight for himself, something Soviets discovered in Afghanistan.
 
I don't think the war could have been won without having a 'good and decent' SV government... if we had that and actually did win the war, would SV have a chance to be one of the economic success stories, rather like SK or Taiwan?

Also, with a clear loss in the south, might NV be more active in Cambodia, working to turn it into another 'workers' paradise'?

But the big downside to this scenario is that the US won't get it's big lesson on the limits of global power, and be tempted to go intervene somewhere else... some place where they might actually suffer huge losses and fail miserably anyway...
 
Groups of South Vietnamese refugees who came to the US. There was quite a bit of friction at first, especial in the fishing industry. You can thank them for lower fish prices and the modernization of the US fishing fleet.


They didn't just go to the USA, they went to a lot of other countries, esp in South Asia.
 

burmafrd

Banned
The downside of the War is so much worse then the supposed "Lesson in the limits" that some have talked about. Considering the hangover continues to THIS day there is no way it was a real benefit to this country in any way.
 

Ak-84

Banned
It really needs two seperate PODs. One leads into the other.

1) The US embraces Vietnamese nationalism; and the focus of the war changes from defending S Vietnam to reuniting the whole country under a capitalist country. Sort of like Korean War aim was from Inchon to Yalu.

2) The US commits substantial forces, not the 4 corps they did in OTL, for the operation; this means bringing over several divisions from Europe. Analogy, like VII Corps was brought to Iraq on 1991.

Wildcard; China.
 
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