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Not really dude. We could have simply dropped nuclear weapons on Vietnam. War over, war won. We didn't do that because (1) we're the good guys (doing so would have been against American values) and (2) it would have started a nuclear war with the USSR.
Waco is another example of this. We could have simply destroyed the compound at Waco using a (conventional) missile, killing everyone inside. But we wanted to use a minimum of violence because we are the good guys. Unfortunately, the idiots didn't surrender when we attacked, and ultimately they all died.
The idea that you're going to fight an oppressive government with small arms -- in the modern world with modern weapons -- depends on the idea that they are not really THAT tyrannical. In other words it doesn't really work.
We didn't need to nuke Vietnam to win. What we needed was generals running the war instead of politicians, first of all. And second of all, a strategy that involved full scale OFFENSIVE war against the homeland of the enemy, rather than a defensive half-war fought in our own backyard.
We didn't need to nuke Vietnam to win. What we needed was generals running the war instead of politicians, first of all. And second of all, a strategy that involved full scale OFFENSIVE war against the homeland of the enemy, rather than a defensive half-war fought in our own backyard.
This is just off the top of my head at 3 AM, but I wonder if one way to put it would be that for political reasons we continually tried to fight the war on a tactical level, while the North Vietnamese were intelligent enough to understand that the war needed to be fought on a strategic level.
I also want to mention that since some posters have suggested that nuclear weapons should have been used, it's worth noting that the US did consider a nuclear option in the mid-50s. I think it was part of something called Operation Vulture, and if i recall correctly it came about because the French were getting ragdolled at Dien Bien Phu. They appealed to the US for assistance, and (I believe) specifically requested that we use nuclear arms.
To the best of my recollection, some very senior American military commanders endorsed a plan calling for 3 tactical nukes, but Eisenhower had the sense to douse them all with a bucket of sanity. I believe his reasons were twofold; first, he did not believe that 3 tactical warheads would be sufficient to deter the Communist forces, and second, he recognized that once we started flipping nukes at 'em, we would be much more deeply committed to the conflict than he wanted to be. Less than a year after Korea, he wanted no part at all of any war in Asia.
Not really dude. We could have simply dropped nuclear weapons on Vietnam. War over, war won. We didn't do that because (1) we're the good guys (doing so would have been against American values) and (2) it would have started a nuclear war with the USSR.
Waco is another example of this. We could have simply destroyed the compound at Waco using a (conventional) missile, killing everyone inside. But we wanted to use a minimum of violence because we are the good guys. Unfortunately, the idiots didn't surrender when we attacked, and ultimately they all died.
The idea that you're going to fight an oppressive government with small arms -- in the modern world with modern weapons -- depends on the idea that they are not really THAT tyrannical. In other words it doesn't really work.
Like I say, genocide gets results. Any other strategy is a loser.
Oh, BS. That might work when the culture is fragmented and disparate, but the Romans "destroyed" Judaism, yet there are no Romans, Italy is and has been weak for centuries, and Judaism lives on. Moderator cut: quoted post edited.
The fact that there are no Romans might come as a surprise to the 2.9 million Romans who live in the capital city of Italy. As for Judaism, Hadrian was interested in pacifying part of his empire, but did not wipe out the Jews, with the result you see today. I did mention that the Assyrians showed the world how to conquer an area, and that the Muslims used a similar but modified strategy that simply wiped out any competing religions.
Last edited by mensaguy; 06-26-2016 at 04:58 AM..
Reason: quoted post edited
It was Truman who gave Viet Nam back to the French, as a sop to wounded French pride from WWII. It was Eisenhower who came up with the "Domino Theory" and blocked the free elections that the Geneva Accords planned to reunify the country. Kennedy being Catholic might have had something to do with turning a blind eye to Diem. Johnson's memoirs record how he was coerced into a full scale war by the military-industrial complex. Meanwhile the Vietnamese fought the Japanese, they fought the French, and they fought the USA. Eventually they got their country back, a good example of how an armed populace can defeat a conventional military no matter how large and well armed it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by neutrino78x
Not really dude. We could have simply dropped nuclear weapons on Vietnam. War over, war won. We didn't do that because (1) we're the good guys (doing so would have been against American values) and (2) it would have started a nuclear war with the USSR.
Waco is another example of this. We could have simply destroyed the compound at Waco using a (conventional) missile, killing everyone inside. But we wanted to use a minimum of violence because we are the good guys. Unfortunately, the idiots didn't surrender when we attacked, and ultimately they all died.
The idea that you're going to fight an oppressive government with small arms -- in the modern world with modern weapons -- depends on the idea that they are not really THAT tyrannical. In other words it doesn't really work.
NVA tank smashes through the South Vietamese Presidential Palace gates The war was not won tactically by an armed citizenry. It took a nation willing to use its national army. If the US had pulled its army out of Korea and the congress had reneged on that cease fire treaty like we did to Vietnam we most likely would not be able to buy and drive a Hyudai or Kia today as that northern army would have swept through as surely as the northern army in Vietnam did,
This is just off the top of my head at 3 AM, but I wonder if one way to put it would be that for political reasons we continually tried to fight the war on a tactical level, while the North Vietnamese were intelligent enough to understand that the war needed to be fought on a strategic level.
I also want to mention that since some posters have suggested that nuclear weapons should have been used, it's worth noting that the US did consider a nuclear option in the mid-50s. I think it was part of something called Operation Vulture, and if i recall correctly it came about because the French were getting ragdolled at Dien Bien Phu. They appealed to the US for assistance, and (I believe) specifically requested that we use nuclear arms.
To the best of my recollection, some very senior American military commanders endorsed a plan calling for 3 tactical nukes, but Eisenhower had the sense to douse them all with a bucket of sanity. I believe his reasons were twofold; first, he did not believe that 3 tactical warheads would be sufficient to deter the Communist forces, and second, he recognized that once we started flipping nukes at 'em, we would be much more deeply committed to the conflict than he wanted to be. Less than a year after Korea, he wanted no part at all of any war in Asia.
I think the North Vietnamese were intelligent enough to realize they could not beat us militarily, but they could beat us at the negotiating table and in the public opinion forum. Which is exactly what they did. They rallied their international sympathizers and waged psychological warfare to supreme effectiveness. Our politicians either were totally outmaneuvered, or they were playing the cowardly politics of "being safe for reelection". Or, they were committed to extracting us from a treaty obligation without making it obvious they were unconcerned with the wasted lives and broken commitment.
Eisenhower was very wise to nix that nuke idea in the bud. It would have been a tragic mistake to do so. Perhaps even the worst mistake in the history of the world. We didn't need the nukes. We needed realistic thinking at the conventional level, coupled with a good dose of courage.
We didn't need to nuke Vietnam to win. What we needed was generals running the war instead of politicians, first of all. And second of all, a strategy that involved full scale OFFENSIVE war against the homeland of the enemy, rather than a defensive half-war fought in our own backyard.
The problem with debating the Vietnam War is that people get drawn into camps.
For the last forty years, I've heard countless people exclaim: "We would have won that war if had taken the handcuffs off the military!"
Its some of the poorest and faultiest reasoning I've ever seen. It can only be explained by people getting emotional at the thought of a small country winning a war against the USA.
A nuclear war was not an option if for no other reason because North Vietnam bordered communist China which did have nuclear weapons.
An invasion of North Vietnam though was equally impossible. Go back to 1950 and recall what occurred when General MacArthur took his troops north of the 53rd parallel and approached the Yalu River (North Korea's boundary with China). China entered that war and by sheer weight of numbers pushed America back to the area that comprises South Korea today. There is no reason to expect that anything different would have happened if we had invaded North Vietnam. There is no reason one should have anticipated any other reaction. It is said that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over again and expecting different results.
China had and still has a population that is about 5 times larger than the USA. The communists potentially had a manpower pool they could draw on that was five times that of America. The communists had no need to ship all their troops and supplies thousands of miles over the ocean either.
Your strategy further assumes that the American people would have stood by while America committed huge armed forces to a conflict that could not be described as necessary to the United States or its citizens. By 1967 and 1968, large groups of American citizens were beginning to openly oppose the war. What do you think a decision to commit twice as many soldiers would have done? Do you think the U.S.A. should have stripped its armed forces in Europe to bolster its troops in Vietnam? That's about what would have been required.
The reality is that the only strategy that could have possibly worked in the sense of leaving a free independent South Vietnam is the strategy that President Johnson pursued. What ultimately defeated this strategy was the fact that the South Vietnamese people never rallied around their government. Had this occurred, North Vietnam would have been defeated. Ultimately, the defeat was more the result of this than anything the USA did or did not do.
You have strong opinions on this subject. Have you ever done any real reading about it? I've read at least six solid books on the Vietnam War. By all means, share your sources with me and tell me which of the books you read said that we could have won the Vietnam War and described a strategy for doing this.
The war was unwinnable from a conventional standpoint and using nuclear weapons was unthinkable.
Last edited by markg91359; 06-26-2016 at 12:17 PM..
Or were they all just mentally retarded? Does it really take a rocket scientist to figure out combating a hostile people that hate your guts and will never stop and especially have VASTLY different ways than you do is ALWAYS a no-win scenario? If so, I honestly don't know what's more stupid the wars themselves or the fact such looney tune characters actually are allowed to make such decisions. Surely in both cases anyone that has two brain cells would realize there was no way to "win", not like facing a very centralized enemy like Japan or Germany.
That is such a simplistic way of looking at things.
In Vietnam, the question never was: can we beat the North Vietnamese? The only question was: will we do what is necessary to beat the Vietnamese? We had never really lost a significant war up to that point (Korea was a draw). How could all our military armaments and technology not beat a foe that traveled mostly by foot in the jungle? The answer was that LBJ and Nixon had to balance what our population would tolerate - versus - what it would take to win that war. And both realized, all to late, that under the restrictions placed on the military by our own people, that the Vietnam War could not be won.
So then what made the likes of Vietnam so special? Do you think had we continued to poor more manpower and money into it it could have been won?
As for the "No clear idea what a victory would be" why would they not have one? Doesn't it make sense to have an endgame BEFORE you start a war?
I would imagine that most wars have endgames all planned out...which usually don't pan out.
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