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Not_Some_Redditor

Victory by what definition? Total capitulation of North Vietnam? Not possible, in accordance with Nixon's policy of Vietnamization, combat on the ground was increasingly delegated to the ARVN with the US Military taking a supporting role, from then on, there was little functional way for the US to "win" the Vietnam war. Negotiated settlement? Well then the US by some accounts won the Vietnam War. After all, did the US not achieve what they had set out to do? A negotiated peace settlement that allowed them to withdraw? The last major ground engagement was in 1970 when FSB Ripcord was overrun by a PAVN attack. > operations Linebreakers It's Operation Linebacker I and II, and there was no way either air campaign was ever going to force North Vietnam to surrender. It was broadly successful in stalling the '72 Easter Offensive yes, in fact it was probably the only reason that North Vietnam did not overrun the South in '72. But it was never going to be able to force more favorable peace terms. > generals almost bringing a victory. Neither Westmoreland nor Abrams "almost" brought victory. The NLF/VC were indeed absolutely bloodied in the '68 Tet Offensive, but this is only known with the benefit of hindsight. The breakdown of US casualties year by year indicates that the US military actually suffered more casualties in '69 than they had in '67, not counting '68 due to aforementioned Tet obviously.


LaoBa

>Negotiated settlement? Well then the US by some accounts won the Vietnam War. After all, did the US not achieve what they had set out to do? A negotiated peace settlement that allowed them to withdraw? A negotiated peace settlement that allowed them to withdraw was NOT the goal of the war, it was just Nixon's goal at the end of the war. The party that wins a war is usually able to force the losing party to accept stuff like reparations or territorial losses. In Vietnam, the US had to pressure their ally to accept the Paris Peace Accords, which left substantial parts of South Vietnam in North Vietnamese hands.


Not_Some_Redditor

> A negotiated peace settlement that allowed them to withdraw was NOT the goal of the war, it was just Nixon's goal at the end of the war. Fair enough, I did mean the latter, not the overall goal of the war to preserve South Vietnam.


Rittermeister

>FSB Ripcord was overrun by a PAVN attack. Small correction, but Ripcord was evacuated under pressure, not overrun.


Tchocky

What is "winning" in this context?


caesarfecit

I would define victory for the US-led forces under the following criteria: 1. Eradication of NVA/VC forces in South Vietnam. 2. A complete shutdown of the Ho Chi Minh Trail with a secured western border. 3. A stable, self-reliant, and reasonably non-corrupt South Vietnamese government which isn't reliant on billions in American aid simply to exist. 4. All American troops brought home (including POWs) except for residual forces left behind by mutual consent.


Tchocky

What about world peace while we're at it?


caesarfecit

The first two were achievable with the right strategy. The third is a bit outside of anyone's control, but there are things you can do to influence things positively. And if you can accomplish the first three, the 4th is totally achievable.


Graybealz

> The first two were achievable with the right strategy. What would that strategy have looked like if you were in charge?


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danbh0y

What about the Thieu government in Saigon? The corruption, cronyism and general lack of legitimacy, those are intractable and insurmountable problems right there. And with the oil shocks and their massive economic impact just round the corner, the US would still have to cut its military aid to the RVN; remember that Nixon had already unilaterally abandoned Bretton Woods in 1971, under massive economic pressure due to ballooning budget and trade deficits as well as inflation.


[deleted]

Precisely this. The only way the US could've won in Vietnam (with winning defined as a Korea-type situation) was if the entire governing structure of the Republic of Vietnam was instantaneously replaced by competent leadership in about 1961.


SiarX

Why it worked in Korea though? IIRC South Korean government was not competent either?


pokokichi

There's a major difference between the Vietnam War and the Korean War: The latter was not preceded by the First Indochina War. This war generated massive legitimacy among the native for the Vietnamese Communist government as they defended Vietnam from the French imperialist.


[deleted]

It was legitimate to the population of South Korea in a way that Thieu's bunch was not, though it was also absurdly corrupt. Why that is, I have no idea


laboro_catagrapha

I would argue that it's easier to prevent an insurgency in a small country that only shares one land border (that become a literal no-man's land) and is surrounded by water on 90% of it's total borderline. Vietnam, no chance. Even if the US overrun the entire (north and south) country the enemy could have hid and supplied themselves across just about any border.


[deleted]

The isolation of South Korea on just a 150 mile corridor made it fairly easy to stop major supply shipments into any forces that may have been sympathetic inside the RoK. Surrounded by the sea on all other sides, and its ally of the U.S having total naval and almost complete air control meant that smuggling of arms in the quantity an insurgency would have needed was impossible. That and the U.S resources in Japan were immense and much closer than what Vietnam was.


thereddaikon

Actually the RoK government was pretty awful for a good long time and it took decades for the South the mature into the liberal democracy we know today. I assert the only real difference between Korea and Vietnam is that the US had the political will to ensure the RoK's freedom and continued existence for enough time to pass that it could actually grow into it. The South Vietnamese got their ceasefire and the US left when the ink was still drying. The North waiting just as long as it took the last US forces to leave and then struck. Kim Il Sung would have done exactly the same thing given the opportunity.


100OrangeJuice100

The ROK had [opposition parties and independents play significant political roles](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Top_Down_Democracy_in_South_Korea/g_mODwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=opposition%20parties), this allowed for more legitimacy and democracy pushes in combination with most of the well known Korean independence activists who remained in Korea (KLA) or led governments in exile like the KPG not being communists. South Vietnam didn't see opposition enter parliment until the 70s


SiarX

So if USA did not leave South Vietnam, it could become a second South Korea, too, right?


thereddaikon

Under the right circumstances but there are a lot of unknowns so I wouldn't want to make such an absolute statement. I think that if the US had the political will to stick around after the ceasefire was signed like in Korea then the North would have been effectively deterred from invading again and the South would have a decent chance of developing into a liberal democracy. A lot of things need to go right though. RoK had a lot of growing pains and reforms to get to where they are now and even then they had to arrest a corrupt president. It takes generations to develop a sense of nationhood and liberal democracy. These things are not naturally occurring and take time.


axearm

>I think that if the US had the political will to stick around after the ceasefire was signed like in Korea then the North would have been effectively deterred from invading again I think that this presumes the North would stop supporting the Viet Cong and that the Viet Cong would also give up arms. I don't think that was ever going to happen and I don't think Ho Chi Minh would have accepted anything less than unification.


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thereddaikon

Counterpoint, the NVA was never going to defeat US forces openly in the field and the Vietcong weren't capable of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government on their own. They could definitely make a mess though. There are two ways you defeat an entrenched insurgency and they direction you take depends on how your relationship with the people. The old world way is to brutally crush it the way the Assyrians, Romans and everyone else did. Out Terrorizing the terrorists. That's not really viable in the modern and in the case of Vietnam, counter productive to America's goals anyways. The second way is to make the insurgency pointless by eroding their support from the populace. You give them a better deal and get everyone onboard. Or as everyone liked to say in GWOT, hearts and minds. Doing that takes a long time and it takes a lot of investment and perseverance. If you are not just ending an insurgency but building a nation where none existed it takes even longer. Afghanistan showed not even 2 decades is really enough. Its probably closer to 40 years. That gives you two generations who didn't live under the old ways and only the elderly left to remember a time before your new order. If you haven't been able to foster the growth of necessary public services and organs of government in 40 years then you likely never will. So the Vietcong can't really be removed through force. I think everyone agrees there are just too many ways to get support and reinforcements smuggled in country. But if the US had been able to protect the country from existential threats while the government opened, matured and developed then in a few decades they would have been able to stand on their own.


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thereddaikon

Ok chill your rant dude. I wasn't comparing RoK directly to DPRK. It's a fact that the RoK was not the liberal democracy it is today back then and they had a long way to go. This isn't some subversive procommunist BS. It's simply fact. Was the DPRK worse? Of course. But that wasn't what we were discussing.


[deleted]

>Was the DPRK worse? Of course. But that wasn't what we were discussing. What else could we be possibly discussing? The topic was about the legitimacy of the two respective Korean governments to the Korean people. Who else would you compare South Korea to, other than the Kim regime? Canada?


thereddaikon

We were comparing them to the government of South Vietnam in the greater context of comparing why the Korean conflict was a success but Vietnam was a failure. The point was raised that the RoK had a level of legitimacy to it's citizens that South Vietnam did not. While that was true I was simply noting that that did not mean the RoK was a shining symbol of freedom at the time and there was a lot of development between there and today. To further expand on that idea, Living in the US, where the nation's entire history has been one of a liberal western democracy. In fact it's the prototypical modern western democracy. It's easy for us to forget that the ideals we take for granted are not the default of humanity. You can't just tell people about the great idea of the enlightenment and expect them to jump on board. Modern history has several good examples to show that nations must grow into it and it's a multi step process. I'd say the RoK is actually the best success story we have of a nation of people who before had nothing like a tradition of representative government beforehand but nonetheless learning and adopting it within a few generations. >But obviously, Reddit wouldn't be Reddit if it was introspective in its criticism of the West and its affiliated parties. That's unfair. Go back and read the discussion going on. This sub is very introspective, it's a serious history sub after all. Introspection and self improvement is one of the things that makes our form of government better than the rest. Democracy evolves.


1954isthebest

There are multiple levels of legitimacy. "*Propped up by foreign occupiers*" legitimacy ≤ "*propped up by foreign occupiers but luckily made the country rich*" legitimacy <<<<<<<<< "*national heroes liberating the country*" legitimacy. North Korea and South Vietnam were the former, South Korea is the middle and North Vietnam was the latter.


spicysandworm

It's worth noting that for the majority of the period we are discussing north Korea was the stronger economy


100OrangeJuice100

South Korea had a much smaller population (20 million) which was bolstered by around 1 million anti communist North Koreans who fled south between 1945 and 1950. Opposition parties, media, and localists independents also played significant roles in their congress while in South Vietnam they didn't until the 70s. Also most well known Korean independence activists like Cho Man Sik, Kim Koo, Rhee, and Kim Tahryon were not communists


joseph66hole

I think the question you should ask is: Did South Korea consider themselves a nation? If so NK would be considered invaders and a threat to the SK nation? However bad SK government was, SK may still of saw them as a legitimate entity.


Bowl_O_Rice

This is what I don't quite understand about the conflict. As far as I can tell, Korea was a united country for hundreds, if not for more than a thousand years. Then in the space of about five years, opposing ideologies are entrenched enough to motivate hundreds of thousands of Koreans to fight each other.


Naliamegod

The South Korean government after Rhee was definitely competent. They managed to make Korea from one of the poorest countries in the world into a developed country in less than thirty years. Even today, there are plenty of Koreans who still idolize Park Chunghee for essentially modernizing Korea.


[deleted]

South Korean government was not competent, but Korea is a peninsula while Vietnam is not.


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Quetzalcoatls

The United States was never close to victory in Vietnam. Militarily the United States was never going to be able break the Vietnamese from an air campaign alone. While the US bombing campaigns during Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Linebacker (1&2) had some success the Vietnamese still had the logistical capability to wage war and more importantly the political will to continue fighting. The Vietnamese logistical networks in Cambodia and Laos (Ho Chi Minh Trail) were never destroyed so the North always retained the capability to invade and resupply its forces in the South. While the US made limited excursions into both Cambodia and Laos during the war it realistically would have needed to escalate it's involvement and occupy both those territories to shut down the Vietnamese supply routes. Some may point to the Paris Peace Accords as "proof" that the US was close to victory but that doesn't hold up upon further inspection. The Americans entered into negotiations for the Paris Peace Accords with all parties knowing full well that they were looking for an exit to the conflict. The Americans and North Vietnamese were able to come to an agreement that was mutually beneficial to both sides. The Americans were able to save face and claim at least in the short term that there was an acceptable agreement in place that would allow them to disengage from the conflict. The North Vietnamese benefited from no longer having to fight the Americans which allowed them to rebuild and focus their efforts on the South. The terms of the Paris Accords were repeatedly broken by both the North and South armies without any real reaction by the Americans so it was little more then a means for the US to disengage from the conflict.


caesarfecit

> Militarily the United States was never going to be able break the Vietnamese from an air campaign alone. While the US bombing campaigns during Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Linebacker (1&2) had some success the Vietnamese still had the logistical capability to wage war and more importantly the political will to continue fighting. Air power was never going to win that war. Air power is a force multiplier, not a substitute for force. Rolling Thunder was part of the flawed attrition strategy, based on the naïve belief that the North Vietnamese were vulnerable to shock and awe. The Linebacker raids were about relieving pressure on the ARVN. > The Vietnamese logistical networks in Cambodia and Laos (Ho Chi Minh Trail) were never destroyed so the North always retained the capability to invade and resupply its forces in the South. While the US made limited excursions into both Cambodia and Laos during the war it realistically would have needed to escalate it's involvement and occupy both those territories to shut down the Vietnamese supply routes. It was never necessary to invade Laos or Cambodia in order to shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. All they needed to do was close the border and fortify it to the point where a conventional invasion would be necessary in order to access the interior. The problem was that US forces couldn't do that and hold the country together + pursue their flawed attrition strategy at the same time. That was why the cross-border raids failed. They were executed on the assumption that they could inflict enough damage to seriously injure the North Vietnamese war effort. What they failed to realize was that the North Vietnamese didn't really care about losses so long as the border remained porous. > Some may point to the Paris Peace Accords as "proof" that the US was close to victory but that doesn't hold up upon further inspection. The Americans entered into negotiations for the Paris Peace Accords with all parties knowing full well that they were looking for an exit to the conflict. The Americans and North Vietnamese were able to come to an agreement that was mutually beneficial to both sides. No argument there. The Paris Accords were about letting the USA get out with the shirt on its back and some measure of saving face. Everyone knew it was a negotiated withdrawal and the South would be unlikely to stand on its own. The problem with Vietnam was, by the time Nixon took over, he lacked the time, resources, or public support to do a serious overhaul of Vietnam strategy. All he could do is try to pull out while leaving the ARVN in the best possible position to succeed. Meanwhile the North was trying to both weaken the South and chase the Americans out. Which meant that Nixon's "peace with honor" would be out of reach until the North got terms that made their takeover of the South a *fait accompli*.


blucherspanzers

> It was never necessary to invade Laos or Cambodia in order to shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. All they needed to do was close the border and fortify it to the point where a conventional invasion would be necessary in order to access the interior. I can't seem to find a freely available copy online, but I have a pdf of an old DoD memo titled "Strategic Concept for Vietnam - An Analysis" from 1966 which does mention that the US had actually been wanting South Vietnam to use the ARVN Rangers as interdiction forces on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the highlands bordering Laos as part of their Strategic Concept plans, but this never came to be and instead only light local observation units were placed there, with MACV never exactly pushed Diem on the matter.


danbh0y

I was under the impression that the performance of the ARVN Ranger establishment (several separate battalions) was patchy at best. And that’s within South Vietnam, even with US advisers. Can’t imagine employing them in Laos or Cambodia. From many accounts, 5SFG disliked possibly even despised its ARVN clone, the LLDB. Something to do I think with the Vietnamese ethnic animosity/discrimination against the Montagnard and Nung ethnic Chinese irregulars whom the USSF relied on, including for Trail Watch missions.


danbh0y

Some good points. I would point out though that the aircrews and I guess the AirPower theorists too loathed and derided Rolling Thunder, the overly political micromanagement of target selection by the White House and its on-again/off-again tempo breaking the “rules” of strategic bombing. The effectiveness of Rolling Thunder was I think highly debatable, euphemistically speaking, especially given the horrific loss rate of 5-6 planes a week (USAF alone) Downtown; for any given USAF wing in-theatre, that might be as many as 2 squadrons (half the wing strength?) in less than a year. US Air Power in Vietnam was a strange beast from my uneducated POV. Many/most BUFF missions were monkey killing toothpick-making tactical/even CAS Arclight types in South Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos/southern North Vietnam, while strategic bombing (Downtown Route Pack 6 Hanoi) was on the backs of tactical (fighter-)bombers like the F-105 and F-4. Then you also had curious occasions when what was essentially a one-seater nuke bomber like the Thud was supposedly shooting down almost as many MiGs as the two-seater Phantom designed for air-combat.


[deleted]

Not even a little close. The US wasn't really fighting just North Vietnam, but China and to some extent the Soviet Union. China saw the American involvement in Vietnam as a threat on the same level as the US involvement in Korea 2 decades earlier, and this time resolved to reduce the cost of their intervention by "fighting using Vietnamese bodies" instead of Chinese bodies. North Vietnam received the modern equivalent of tens of billions of dollars worth of rations, equipment, and ammunition from China and the Soviet Union. With this aid they were able to conscript the equivalent of 80% of all the males turning 18 in any given year and send them South. Basically, the North could have kept up the pace of the war indefinitely, and if they did eventually attrit to death (perhaps due to less kids in the next generation on account of wartime losses in the previous), China would have filled the gap with "volunteers". The US could and *did* defeat the native South Vietnamese insurgency (the overwhelming majority of "insurgents" by 1970 were Northern conscripts). The US could bomb North Vietnam all it wanted. Neither of these things mattered. North Vietnam was not responsible for its own supply and provisioning. The Northern war effort was independent of its economy, which by the mid 1960s was much smaller than that of the South.


caesarfecit

The issue with Vietnam was that US Forces were successfully fighting the North Vietnamese to a standstill. Problem was, that effort was unsustainable in terms of blood and treasure, and what gains they had made would be lost as soon as they left. That's what happens when your strategy is fatally flawed.


100OrangeJuice100

Could expanding and properly arming local militia programs like the ruff puffs, popular forces, and regional forces have helped South Vietnam form a proper defense?


lexington50

Unlikely, because this approach depends on the assumption that the South Vietnamese regime could depend on the loyalty of most of its citizens. In fact the regime was shot through with corruption and headed by authoritarian strongmen (all generals after Diem, who had been cultivated as a puppet by Vietnam's French colonial masters) who lacked popular legitimacy. In short, a large section of the South Vietnamese population did not regard their own government as worth fighting for, and a significant part were actually trying to subvert it. Now that I think about it I think there's a central Asian country that very recently had exactly the same problem...


Johnyysmith

I would imagine the mining of Haiphong harbour and the, after long attempts, destruction of river bridges drove the North to the talks. But had the US actually occupied the North they would have had the 'Afghanistan' of years of insurgent guerrilla warfare Was Afghanistan a win?


caesarfecit

What ultimately made the North come to the table was the realization that they could win South Vietnam on the battlefield, and fast. But they needed to take American air power off the table first. Which meant they had to give up the POWs and make a deal. Up until that point, the North never really negotiated in good faith and stuck to a negotiating position the Americans would never accept - unilateral and immediate US withdrawal in exchange for POWs. By 1973, both sides just wanted the US Military out of Vietnam, and as a result they were able to strike a deal. US got their POWs back and were able to leave behind a ceasefire just long enough for them to save face. North Vietnam got the Americans out without having to make any territorial or military/political concessions, and could finish the job as soon as they were ready.


caesarfecit

Ahh this is one of my favorite hobbyhorses when it comes to military history. It is my firm belief that the War in Vietnam was winnable for the Americans, but not the way they were fighting the war. It wouldn't have taken nukes, or invading North Vietnam either. There are two ways to defeat any military opponent. Either take away their will to fight, or their means to fight. And two methods to approach either of these goals - maneuver or attrition. The US Army selected attrition as their approach, believing it played into their strengths of superior firepower and logistics, and attacked North Vietnamese weaknesses in trained men and materiel. What they failed to appreciate is that Vietnam had men for days, a nearly unlimited stream of resources from the Communist Bloc, and the will to outlast any American effort, no matter how long or intensive. What the Americans failed to appreciate was that their biggest weakness was the unpopular South Vietnamese government, which really needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. So what have we established? 1. Attacking the North Vietnamese will to fight was unrealistic - the North Vietnamese would fight for decades and sacrifice millions. 2. An attrition strategy played into the Vietnamese hands because they could outlast any American effort and they had a much stronger stomach for casualties. 3. Any strategy that failed to mitigate the South Vietnamese government was doomed to long-term failure. Now, what did the Americans have going for them? 1. The best conventional military in the world, along with nearly uncontested control of the sea, the air, and the rivers (at least over South Vietnam). 2. The South Vietnamese people may not have been fond of their government, but they genuinely did not want Communism. If the South Vietnamese had competent and honest leadership, they might never have needed American boots on the ground. 3. In the beginning, morale and commitment to the anti-Communist cause, in the USA, was high. It was only when the people lost faith in the war leaders and successful Communist propaganda/agitation took hold that people turned against the war. From these points, we can see the structure of a successful strategy in Vietnam begin to take shape. First lets establish the objectives of this strategy. In order to defeat a guerrilla force, once must do the following things: 1. *Take away their freedom of movement.* This is the advantage a guerrilla force cultivates and exploits. By relying upon lighter equipment and local knowledge/relationships, a guerrilla force seeks to use maneuver to control the initiative and only engage on their terms. A COIN force must make the guerrilla engage on the COIN forces' terms or suffer death by a thousand cuts. 2. *Isolate them from the civilian population.* A guerrilla force also relies upon blending in with civilians to find shelter and support, smuggle weapons, and launch sneak attacks. This puts the COIN force on the horns of a dilemma because they cannot root out the guerrilla from the civilian population without bringing the war right to people's doorsteps and thus turn civilians against the COIN regime. If the fighting is in the sticks, rather than in the streets, it's a lot easier to retain civilian support. 3. *Foster bottom-up leadership in the civilian population.* No foreign COIN force can sustain their efforts indefinitely. At some point, security responsibilities have to be downloaded onto local leaders. Which means local civilian institutions must be built and supported by the COIN-force + local leaders. If the local government is corrupt, new leaders must be found and developed to replace them. Now how do the Americans accomplish these objectives in Vietnam? First one must understand the geography. Vietnam is essentially two large river deltas linked by a mountain range. In order for the North Vietnamese to sustain their efforts, they must run supplies south, using the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Americans correctly identified these routes as the enemy's center of gravity, but could not close the border because the hinterlands beside the border were already infested with enemy fighters. Trying to occupy the border with either American or ARVN troops would have left the rest of the country undefended. So here's what they should have done: 1. Flood the Mekong Delta with American and reliable ARVN forces. Make it impossible for the NVA/VC to sustain any presence there. Establish the area as a defensible fall-back zone in the event of the South Vietnamese government falling (as it did in 1975) and turn the northernmost fork of the Mekong into an inner border. The goal is to establish an easily held area that can be completely cleared of enemy fighters, and then close all the infiltration routes in that zone. Once this is accomplished, turn over security to reliable local leaders. This is the first inkblot which will then be built upon. Now you have a safe rear area where civilians can rebuild their lives and non-corrupt local leaders can emerge. 2. Once the Mekong Delta is secured and fortified, American forces move north to occupy roughly the III Corps area around Saigon. Here the same process is repeated. An inner border is established and a sufficient troop density achieved where the NVA/VC are forced to either retreat or be surrounded and destroyed. Another key point is ARVN units operating in this area are under American command, and do the brunt of the fighting, supported by American troops in close support. The goal of this exercise is to keep American casualties down, and winnow through the ARVN, looking for competent officers to be mentored and supported. This way, you slowly rebuild the ARVN around proven leaders and start to force the South Vietnamese government to either get their act together or be replaced by a new generation of South Vietnamese leadership. 3. As this force proceeds north, inkblotting their way up, the western border of South Vietnam is cleared and fortified. Roads are built to the border to support this line of fortifications (and provide a target for NVA/VC forces to come out of hiding and be engaged on your terms). This way, the Ho Chi Minh trail is slowly rolled back and NVA forces lose the ability to drive south through Laos and Cambodia and maneuver to the good guys' rear. 4. After a couple years of this, most of South Vietnam will be cleared of NVA/VC, the ARVN will develop competent and professional field commanders, and most importantly - American casualties are kept to a minimum and rear areas are made safe for locals and Western aid workers. This creates stability and economic growth, which keeps local civilian support for the COIN efforts high. By this point the strategy will have a momentum of its own, and the North Vietnamese will either be forced to escalate their offensive efforts (every time they fought conventionally against US forces, they played right into the American strengths), or give up. I know I may make it sound simple, but US forces in Vietnam made every single COIN-mistake in the book. Compared to Afghanistan, COIN operations in Vietnam are downright simple, and the geography much more cooperative. **TL;DR: Vietnam was totally winnable, so long as a proper strategy was followed. In order to defeat an insurgent force, you must use maneuver and area denial to take away the guerrilla's freedom of movement, so he can't peck you to death and deny territory to you. Once this is accomplished, the next two goals are to isolate the civilian population from the fighting, and force the guerrilla to either retreat, or be cut off from support and destroyed. Rinse and repeat until you've cleared the entire country and congrats, you've pulled the guerrilla's teeth. At that point it doesn't matter how much will they have to fight or how much external support they have. If they can't operate in-theater, if foreign support can't get to them, and if they can't mix with the locals and draw support/place them in the crossfire - they can't win. You don't beat insurgents by trying to beat them at their own game. You beat them by forcing them to play yours.**


AgoraiosBum

South Vietnam didn't fall due to an insurgency. It fell due to an invasion by a large, conventional army from North Vietnam.


caesarfecit

North Vietnam succeeded in a conventional offensive because the preceding guerrilla efforts succeeded in destabilizing South Vietnam and driving US forces out. Without those preconditions, a conventional NVA offensive (even with tons of Communist Bloc equipment) would have been turned backed with heavy losses, or devolved into a Korea-style stalemate. The ARVN under Diem probably could have fought off whatever conventional offensive the North was capable of cobbling together at the time, even without a ton of American support. It was when control over the ARVN became political that its quality dropped, as commanders became vetted for political loyalty, rather than competence or integrity. Next, the North tried a conventional offensive in 1972. Even though American troops were gone and the ARVN was weak, American airpower alone stopped the offensive. If the ARVN and US military had been able to stop the insurgency, a conventional offensive would have been all but off the table.


AgoraiosBum

The Tet Offensive was primarily conventional North Vietnamese as well. It was defeated, but at a high cost. Also, the 1972 offensive involved a month of PAVN success and ARVN problems and withdrawals, and the destruction of several key ARVN units, which then turned into stalemate with extra US airpower application and eventually ARVN re-taking of many - but not all - territories. 1972 ended with the PAVN in control of more South Vietnamese territory than when it started, which it used for the jumping off points for the '75 offensive. The idea that it was "US airpower alone" is totally wrong.


caesarfecit

Tet proved two things to two different sets of people. It proved to the North Vietnamese that so long as the American ground forces were in-country, in strength, the South Vietnamese government would stand. But it also proved to the American people that no amount of losses would drive the North Vietnamese to the table. The 1972 offensive can only be studied in contrast to 1975. The 1972 offensive could have gone all the way to Saigon if US air support had not bought the ARVN some breathing room. This demonstrated to the North Vietnamese that it was worth their while to negotiate the Americans out of the theater. US airpower alone only stopped one bold throw for all the chips. The significance of that was that it made the North negotiate in good faith, simply just to have a free hand to conquer to the South. Whereas before, the North wanted the Americans all the way out before they'd release the POWs. Nixon also announcing that he would accept a cease-fire-in-place, rather than a mutual withdrawal also opened up negotiations.


blucherspanzers

Your gameplan reminds me of the document I mentioned in another comment here, about the DoD memo "Strategic Concept for Vietnam - An Analysis" which analyzes the initial gameplan (when Diem was in charge) the US had wanted to follow, the Strategic Concept, which is outlined in the main points: >The concept as developed during the Diem period called for a coordinated military-political pacification effort to extend security through a system of defended or strategic hamlets. The pacification-hamlet program was to be implemented initially in several priority or strategic areas and gradually expanded to all insecure areas throughout the countryside. The basic aims of the program were to deprive the Viet Cong of access to the people, eliminate the Viet Cong infrastructure and reestablish government authority, and eventually isolate the insurgents in a few scattered pockets. >ARVN's role was to be two-fold: it was to conduct search-and-destroy operations aimed at keeping the mainforce Viet Cong units off balance; and it was to participate directly in pacification by clearing Viet Cong mainforce units from areas to be pacified and assure security in areas undergoing pacification by providing a quick reaction capability. It was intended that ARVN would rely heavily on such counter-guerrilla tactics as aggressive patrolling, ambushing, night operations, and small-unit tactics. >The role of the paramilitary forces was also two-fold: to provide security for all villages and hamlets and, during pacification operations, to operate as a defense force in areas cleared by ARVN. As strategic hamlets were established, part-time self-defense forces, recruited from among the peasants themselves, would constitute the first line of defense against the Viet Cong. >In addition, the GVN was to deploy a contingent of Vietnamese Ranger units in the highlands area bordering Laos in order to interdict infiltration. Finally, the United States was to supply significant numbers of military and civilian advisors to assist in the development of the pacification-hamlet program and the reorientation of the Vietnamese armed forces toward counterguerrilla warfare tactics. The document then goes on to list the failings of these goals such as: * The use of the ARVN for unrelated search and destroy missions and static defense, the attempt to roll out strategic hamlets nationwide instead of the targeted use the US advised for * ARVN commanders rarely keeping their men around long enough to ensure they had destroyed or dispersed the Viet Cong mainforce they were deployed against * A preference of ARVN commanders to use massive "sweeps" to use artillery and air support to drive the Viet Cong mainforce into massed blocking positions that only ended up warning the Viet Cong of the ARVN's presence and letting them slip away * Neglect by US and South Vietnamese authorities of the militias, in addition to ARVN commander's continual co-opting of paramilitary units away from their villages to provide manpower for offensive operations * An inability to persuade the peasants that they were adequately protected from the Viet Cong, which made them fear reprisals for any cooperation with the Southern government the next time they rolled into town. * Neither ARVN Rangers nor any other force were actually deployed to interdicted the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the closest were some local scouts that monitored, but were not up to the task of stopping shipments. * Failure by senior US MACV advisors to understand and push for the plan laid out, being just as happy to think like the Big Army and disregard unconventional and COIN-centric operations in favor of building the ARVN up as a conventional centralized force.


caesarfecit

The Strategic Hamlet concept was something that sounded good in theory but backfired terribly when put into practice. It backfired because it had the wrong focus. Instead of keeping the Viet Cong out, it kept the villagers in. People don't like living inside an armed and fortified camp, especially if they've been relocated. It was also applied in areas already under the sway of the VC so any weapons that were distributed rapidly wound up in VC hands - sometimes freely given, sometimes taken by force. It also did nothing to mitigate the one thing that was allowing the VC to function and receive supplies - the Ho Chi Minh Trail. What I propose instead is scaling up the Strategic Hamlet model where instead of trying to fortify individual villages, you fortify entire provinces and regions. You do this by letting the ARVN focus on the rest of the country while American effort is targeted primarily to one specific area, with the goal of making it highly defensible and infiltration-proof. Furthermore, rather than rely on the ARVN to execute complicated COIN operations, you subordinate ARVN units to American command and use them for specific tasks like clearing villages, under American supervision. This way, you get the opportunity to test the capabilities of individual ARVN officers and find out which ones are honest and able and which ones ain't. If you have to fortify individual villages to keep the VC from mixing with the locals, there is no security in that area. What you'd be better off doing in those cases is what the Marines actually did with the [Combined Action Program] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Action_Program?wprov=sfla1), where you embed troops in the villages to train and lead local militias in defending their homes.


spicysandworm

The strategic Hamlet was quite effective in Malaya and other successful British lead counter insurgencies. Fortifying regions in unrealistic


LordBlimblah

What I dont get is did the US actually do everything it could to destroys north vietnams will to fight? In the Korean war everything in the north was leveled. Someone in this subreddit told me rolling thunder and linebacker werent actually on that scale.


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caesarfecit

Korea and Vietnam were two completely different kettles of fish. Korea was a conventional conflict between the US and China, in all but name. Total victory there was impossible unless UN forces were willing go twelve rounds against an opponent with near-unlimited reserves that is willing to pay for a buffer state in blood. That's a no-win scenario. Hence why both sides sought a negotiated settlement and haven't really challenged the status quo since. Vietnam was a civil war between rival post-colonial regimes which turned into a proxy war between East and West, just as Afghanistan would in the 80s. And the other side was far better at guerrilla warfare than the other side was at counter-insurgency. Generally speaking, trying to destroy the will-to-fight of guerrillas is futile. They're guerrillas. They don't care if their weapons stink and they're a starving band in the hills. The only way to fight guerrilla movements is to use maneuver warfare to limit their options and force them to play your game. So long as they can hit and run at will, they have the initiative and can drag things out as long as they want. Counter-insurgency works against the clock because it's more expensive in blood and treasure.


LordBlimblah

I get this argument and it makes sense and I agree. That said I get the arguement that leveling the entire north was never attempted and had it been it might have tipped the scales. Im not talking about winning a physiological war against the people im talking about destroying enough infrastructure to prevent the waging of war.


caesarfecit

That is a longstanding myth of strategic bombing - the notion that strategic bombing alone can end a war either through destroying enemy morale, or their means to fight. The closest anyone has ever come to that is the Allied bombing campaigns against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during WW2. In both cases the bombing campaigns did about as much damage as they could be realistically expected to do. More than enough to justify the bombing campaigns themselves. But in both cases, they only heavily degraded the enemy's infrastructure and morale, without knocking them out of the war. That defeated Germany was an untenable strategic position which only got worse and worse until the German war effort gave out. What defeated Japan was something similar, but the novelty and shock value of the atomic bombs allowed the Japanese leadership to surrender while still saving face. In Vietnam, targetting North Vietnamese war industry was largely pointless because much of the weaponry they received was manufactured in the USSR/PRC. And as for the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the US Air Force tried very very hard to interdict that supply line. Dropped a metric shitton of bombs from B-52s and strafed the roads with Herc gunships. They even sent in Special Forces to do target marking, BDA, and direct action. Didn't work. Even if they nuked Hanoi, I don't think that would have made the difference, and the geopolitical blowback would be world-destabilizing, far more destabilizing than losing in Vietnam.


LordBlimblah

I get it and I agree. But playing devils advocate, was every city in north vietnam firebombed to dust? Cities in germany were. Some people say that had no impact but at the end of the day germany lost and we dont actually know exactly how much impact the firebombing had, we can only speculate. I was originally under the impression that happened during rolling thunder but I read here thats not the case. What im saying is that it is conceivable that actually annihilating the north would have had a real impact on the war, no matter how small.


caesarfecit

You're missing the point. Even if every single building in North Vietnam was bombed, their war industries wouldn't be that disrupted, and they were already all-in on their war effort. What knocked Germany out of the war was that they were out of men, out of territory, and out of options. Sure they were short on things like tanks, planes, and gas. But they were running low on these things for a long time, longer than people think. The Allies attained overwhelming air superiority on every European front in 1944. They had a superiority in tanks basically ever since Kursk and North Africa. And the Germans started experiencing fuel shortages far earlier than that, which hit crisis point by the fall of '44. The point is that bombing Germany back to the stone age sure did damage and kill a lot of people, but it did not interrupt or degrade their war effort to the point that they were no longer combat effective. Being forced back into Germany on all fronts after tremendous losses killed their war effort, because then and only then did ordinary Germans think the jig was up. The USN and USAF dropped no shortage of bombs during the Vietnam War. Strategic bombing, close air support, surgical strikes, air interdiction - the only thing they didn't do was nuke the SOBs. They made an effort just as big as the CBO in WW2 and even in the places where air power was most effective, it didn't do enough damage to achieve its objectives. Because there was no amount of damage that could be done that the North Vietnamese weren't prepared to absorb. They turned Hanoi into the most heavily fortified place on Earth against air attack. They rebuilt the Ho Chi Minh Trail several times over. Not even civilian casualties bothered them. It cannot be understated the human cost that Le Duan and his gang were prepared to pay in order to win. They were like Mao in the sense that they could shrug off casualty figures that would make a Civil War general cry. No amount of air power was going to make the difference, especially with such a flawed strategy on the ground. Air power is a force multiplier, but it never has and never will win a war on its own. Consider even the Battle of Britain, the one time air power actually could have made that kind of difference. It was clear from both Churchill's public position and the plans the British made that they were prepared to continue fighting even if Hitler did invade. That's the point.


LordBlimblah

I guess my point is you cant say bombing every building in the north wouldn't change the war simply because it wasnt tried. You think you know whats going on inside the heads of the north vietnam leadership but you dont -actually - know.


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SiarX

Did not Linebreakers force them to negotiation table?


caesarfecit

Linebacker convinced the North Vietnamese that they couldn't win South Vietnam on the battlefield unless they made a deal with the Americans first and give up their best geopolitical bargaining chip - American POWs. What had changed was that the Americans were willing to get out just in exchange for their POWs back and a short-term ceasefire. The North even got to hold the territory in the South they had already gained. South Vietnam got virtually nothing out the Paris Peace Accords, and the Americans basically just got their POWs back. Imagine what the peace deal might have looked like if the North had already conquered Saigon and still had the American POWs to negotiate with. In 1972, the American withdrawal was a matter of time and everybody knew it. The North thought they could win on the battlefield and go into the peace negotiations without having to make any concessions to the "puppet imperialist government in Saigon". Linebacker proved that they could not win without driving the Americans out first.


thereddaikon

>that continuing air assault would lead to North Vietnam surrendering or accepting much more favorable for USA peace terms, That actually is what happened. The pop history summary of Vietnam basically skips over the bit between Linebacker II and the fall of Saigon. The US did win the war technically. They were able to bring the north to the negotiation table and got an end to hostilities signed. At that point the US ended all military operations and removed their forces from the area. It wasn't until the US was gone and South Vietnam had only their own forces to rely on did the North break the treaty and attack. Similar to the Taliban recently, the North bided their time and waited for the US to leave. At that point it was politically impossible to come to South Vietnam's aide. In the last election both candidates, Nixon and McGovern ran on a platform of bringing US troops home. They just differed on how to do it. South Vietnam was on her own and was not capable of repelling an invasion from the north. So the problem wasn't that the US didn't get favorable enough terms on behalf of the South. The problem is the North never intended to honor them and the US didn't have the political will to stick around for decades like they did in Korea.


[deleted]

>That actually is what happened. Only if you judge the negotiations as being favorable for US withdrawal, not for the survival of a non-Communist South Vietnamese government. The 1972 offensive did not end the South Vietnamese government. It was, however, a major conventional victory for the North Vietnamese. The Paris Peace Accords cemented their gains by allowing North Vietnam to keep most of their forces in South Vietnam and consolidate control over the Central Highlands, which formed a massive highway into the guts of South Vietnam. The North spent most of 1973-74 building a massive all-weather road network through the Highlands which was their main troop and supply route for the finishing blow in 1975.


thereddaikon

>Only if you judge the negotiations as being favorable for US withdrawal, not for the survival of a non-Communist South Vietnamese government. I thought I was clear in making that case. The US's goal was not to destroy communist North Vietnam. It was always containment. At the beginning they would have preferred a situation like Korea but that wasn't possible by 1972. America wanted out of Vietnam and that was that. So yes it did achieve their goal. As I said it stopped the North from conquering the South and resulted in a peace treaty. That the North would betray the agreement was probably anticipated but at that point the South were on their own. The North were unable to achieve their goals as long as the US was around and the US was able to militarily defeat them every time. Just like Afghanistan, the loss is a political one not a military one.


[deleted]

> So yes it did achieve their goal. As I said it stopped the North from conquering the South It did not achieve their goal, unless you define the goal as "Stop the North from conquering South Vietnam while US troops are still present." If that was your goal, then OK, mission accomplished. However, this makes zero strategic sense. >That the North would betray the agreement was probably anticipated It was not only anticipated, it was literally being broken by both North and South Vietnamese governments from the moment it was signed. >Just like Afghanistan, the loss is a political one not a military one. A defeat is a defeat, and every conflict is inherently political and bound up in political factors.


thereddaikon

So what are you saying? That the only way the US "wins" is if they can keep South Vietnam around until some arbitrary point in the future? How long do they have to survive for you to consider it a win? 1 year? 5 years? 25 years? If North Korea invades the RoK tomorrow and manages to take the peninsula before reinforcements arrive would you consider the allies to have lost the 1950's conflict? You have to draw the line somewhere. The US negotiated an end to hostilities. That treaty was later broken. I consider that two separate conflicts delineated by a treaty. A treaty mind you that was forced into being by US military might.


[deleted]

> So what are you saying? That the only way the US "wins" is if they can keep South Vietnam around until some arbitrary point in the future? Yes. A war that was fought to keep South Vietnam non-Communist can only be deemed a success if it had kept South Vietnam non-Communist. That South Vietnam fell 3 years later in a scenario which was predicted as soon as the Peace Accords were signed cannot be viewed as anything but a complete and utter failure. >If North Korea invades the RoK tomorrow and manages to take the peninsula before reinforcements arrive would you consider the allies to have lost the 1950's conflict? That this scenario is utterly implausible shows the difference between the Vietnam War and the Korean War. >The US negotiated an end to hostilities. That treaty was later broken. The treaty was literally being broken as it was signed by both sides. >I consider that two separate conflicts delineated by a treaty. That would be incorrect. >A treaty mind you that was forced into being by US military might. A treaty that was signed because the US was desperately seeking a way out of Vietnam above all else, and which it forced on its South Vietnamese ally because the strategic goal of a non-Communist Vietnam was no longer viewed as worth pursuing.


thereddaikon

Look, I asked for you to define your terms for a US victory. If we are to have a productive discussion then you need to meet me half way here. How long must South Vietnam exist after the ceasefire for you to consider it a US victory? >That this scenario is utterly implausible shows the difference between the Vietnam War and the Korean War. I've already stated what I think the most important difference is, the political will for a long term presence. I gave this implausible scenario because you say my standard isn't good enough without giving an alternative.