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Post by Swampy on Jul 27, 2014 8:24:38 GMT -5
I've been thinking about this.
I have always said that the VN war was winnable, if the LBJ administration had fought it right. The basic strategy was to get back to basics, namely, to bomb the daylights out of North Vietnam (as happened in the Linebacker campaigns), and aggressive moves to cut of the Ho Chi Minh Trail as well as incursions into North Vietnam to prevent them from establishing their society and their military infrastructure. Yes, I know what Uncle Ho said about wearing us out, but the Japanese and Germans had the same idea in WWII and that didn't work.
That said, the events in Afghanistan and Iraq have made me rethink my conclusion. We have won just about every battle over there, the Taliban don't have a secure haven like the NVA did - Pakistan's wildlands aren't quite the same - and we even have the tacit support of the Russians, who fear Islamic radicalism as much as we do. And yet we're leaving Afghanistan.
The same is true for Iraq. This time, we even have Russia and Iran actively fighting our opponents, ISIS, and yet we're losing.
So I ask, in light of recent evidence, was the VN war winnable? Was Uncle Ho right after all?
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Post by jerryfmcompushaft on Jul 27, 2014 13:02:23 GMT -5
All depends on whether you are talking militarily or politically, Swampy. The same situation exists in all the events you reference. We definately have, and had, the capability to win militarily but, in all cases, the political will was lacking.
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Post by Sir John on Jul 27, 2014 14:02:51 GMT -5
As has been often observed, "the Vietnam war was lost in the living rooms of America", where the US was fighting its greatest enemy, THE MEDIA!
A 'land war in Asia' is NOT winnable, no matter how many Asians you kill, you do not have that many bullets or bombs. And fighting an enemy on his own turf is too great a handicap. I hope that lesson is well learned as a land war against China will destroy America.
JMO
SJ
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Post by hornet32 on Jul 27, 2014 14:33:25 GMT -5
The war in indo-china was never winnable , keep in mind the U.S. was NOT , NO , NEVER at war with the North the U.S. had came to the aid of an ally , SVN , it would have taken a million men to have occupied the North and the only reserve we had was Canada who was next to useless .
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Post by Sir John on Jul 27, 2014 14:48:18 GMT -5
Should have re-called the 9th, would have been all over in a couple of months.
...and if the US had tried to occupy Nth VN then China would have sent 5 million 'volunteers' to throw you back out again.
Katum would have been a lonely outpost looking for resupply of M60 barrels.
SJ
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Post by hornet32 on Jul 27, 2014 15:50:14 GMT -5
I think you understand it better than swampy that is if swampy could ever understand , the whole thing WAS / IS an impossibly , VN was a huge drain on U.S. resources and the U.S. had commitments ALL over the world ,one glance at katum could tell you it wasn't worth the effort .
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Post by Sir John on Jul 27, 2014 16:02:27 GMT -5
I trace much of America's economic problems to the VN War.
First Kennedy and then Johnson looked on VN as a test between communism and capitalism, and the US ability to aid her 'friends'.
She expended her blood and treasure there, and compounded the expense by taking on a "War on Poverty' and a 'Guns and Butter' policy. All the accumulated treasure that America had built up in the 20th Century turned to a sea of red ink in a decade. Nixon on the 15th August 1971 took the US off the Gold Standard, and it has been steadily downhill ever since. That pace is getting ever faster!
Reagan won the Cold war with borrowed money that Russia could not afford. The rest is history.
JMO
SJ
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Post by hornet32 on Jul 27, 2014 16:43:39 GMT -5
The hippy yuppie flower child movement didn't help matters ANY the media was even worse , In Vietnam my unit was all over the place daily , never once did I see anyone from the media except at times they would come up to Cu Chi POW camp to get some back ground footage for a news cast of the terrible NVA , NONE of the prisoners were NVA but they were provided with NVA uniforms and were instructed to look mean .
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Post by Sir John on Jul 27, 2014 20:29:12 GMT -5
They should have had a decrepit GI standing guard!
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Post by Swampy on Jul 27, 2014 21:35:17 GMT -5
A 'land war in Asia' is NOT winnable, no matter how many Asians you kill, you do not have that many bullets or bombs. And fighting an enemy on his own turf is too great a handicap. I hope that lesson is well learned as a land war against China will destroy America. Should have re-called the 9th, would have been all over in a couple of months. Your two comments are mutually exclusive.
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Post by Sir John on Jul 27, 2014 22:53:52 GMT -5
I am referring to two possible outcomes, the Australian and the American!
SJ
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Post by dontom on Aug 4, 2014 3:56:09 GMT -5
I've been thinking about this. I have always said that the VN war was winnable Of course VN was winnable. All we had to do is kill them all. When there's nobody left in Vietnam, both north and south, it means we won. But what we would have won isn't really clear to me. -Don- SSF, CA
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Post by Swampy on Aug 4, 2014 7:47:14 GMT -5
We only have to make sure North Vietnam was unviable as a state, which would involved destroying its infrastructure and society, and then we would have achieved our aim, which was the Truman Doctrine of Containment.
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Post by hornet32 on Aug 4, 2014 10:55:53 GMT -5
Someone would have had to stay in the north as occupiers , Canada perhaps .
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Post by Swampy on Aug 4, 2014 12:10:11 GMT -5
Someone would have had to stay in the north as occupiers , Canada perhaps . Not necessarily - the purpose is NOT to occupy the north but to make sure they're not a viable society or, at least, not a viable society that can build a military of any kind.
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