Decisive US victory in Vietnam

[huojin]

Feb 4, 2016 20:06:55 GMT Epic History said:

Feb 1, 2016 20:33:02 GMT huojin said:

*Diem is already long dead by this point, and for all else he may have been, he was undoubtedly the most stable leader South Vietnam had.

Would you please elaborate on this a bit?

Diem might have been unpopular by the end, but his death was followed by a total inability of Soviet Vietnam to ever again form a stable government, necessitating ever more US involvement to prop up the regime. Even the North recognised Diem as their major adversary in leading the South against communism.

*The Tet Offensive was not a victory for the US, it was a defeat. Yes the Viet Cong and PAVN failed to achieve their main goals, but it destroyed the US government's position at home along with all perceptions that the war was being won. The Vietcong invaded the US embassy, for crying out loud.

While it certainly hurt domestic morale, there was certainly enough political will to keep the fighting going for almost five years. Indeed, Nixon even escalated the conflict and yet still managed a decisive re-election. Tet also destroyed the VC as a coherent and effective fighting force, which resulted in the NVA having to do the heavy lifting to win from then on.

The political will there under Nixon existed as "we just need to hang around long enough to stabilise them and we'll get out". Nixon's defining policy re: Vietnam was to make the South responsible for its own defence so American could leave. LBJ had already been negotiating to end the war. The tactical outcome of Tet was unimportant, to some extent. Yes the Viet Cong had been weakened seriously, but it was a major defeat for the US in all other regards.

*Topped with the fact that on the back of this the US elected to drastically reduce the number of troops to bring in, plus days after Tet the greatest single weekly casualty report of the war, and 1968 went on to become the deadliest year of the war thus far. Not to mention his popularity (in part as a result of the war) was tanking so badly, LBJ chose to pull out of the presidential primaries.

The troop draw-down(s) is actually an indication of US success, particularly thanks to the COIN operations devised by Creighton Abrams. The VC had been destroyed enough that the US could remove troops (Easing homefront tensions), while still holding strong in South Vietnam and even taking the fight to the enemy as we saw with Cambodia. IIRC, Hearts and Minds style actions were particularly effective after 1968.

I disagree entirely. Post-Tet the US military saw the weakening of the Viet Cong as a window to expand military operations in Indochina with a hope of ending the war on that front. However at home, the political leadership in every report I can find went against even the Joint Chiefs in saying that continual expenditure of military resources on Vietnam was not going to win the war, and in fact there should be a step down in activities against the North in favour of a negotiated peace.

*Nixon interfered with US foreign policy to delay Johnson attempting to resolve the war already by 1968 - I wouldn't say Reagan and co. would do the same, as Nixon was an uncharacteristic degree of dirtbag.

This wouldn't really be an obstacle, as an earlier Linebacker II would bring the Communists to the table and force them to make an agreement.

Implying that it would seriously have done so when America was already failing to make their anticipated impact on war. They were already negotiating and close to an agreement when Nixon stuck his nose in and told the North Vietnamese not to sign because they'd get a better deal with him in power. With Nixon out of the picture the war probably gets resolved in their favour before Reagan or anyone else ever gets into office.

*Strategic bombing of the North didn't kill a single civilian or military leader in the entire war - in large part thanks to Soviet ships in the Gulf sending info to the North Vietnamese. Linebacker did a lot of serious damage, but it still failed to end the war favourably for the US.

With regards to leaders, a failure to remove any with bombing does not prevent a victory as WWII's aerial destruction of Germany showed. In fact, in many cases it can be counter-productive to waste resources on it. As to Linebacker II, combined with the mining of harbors which cut off Soviet aid, it brought about the Paris Agreement. It's important to note that North Vietnam, due to its lack of a sizable domestic military industry depended upon foreign imports from nations like the USSR. During the bombings, they lost around 80% of their military supply line. That lack simply meant the NVA could function as an effective conventional force, and Tet as has been previously stated destroyed the unconventional threat of the VC.

Except that Linebacker II did nothing except get the North and the Americans to agree to the peace that they're already agreed to in 1972 which had been derailed by the South. Even Nixon personally thought that the attack had achieved little-to-nothing. Much like Linebacker I, it could be said the primary effect of the bombing was to prevent any North Vietnamese moves to take advantage of the situation, rather than inflicting suffering on the North. They still got exactly the deal they wanted, and proved again if they needed to that they could take a pounding and it wouldn't help the South and they couldn't stop their irregular forces, particularly from using the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

I'd agree with rinkou, you really have to go back further to find a point where "victory" is plausible. Because yes, you could say you just want to secure South Vietnam. But that's essentially part of what was agreed in Paris anyway - all it took was America out of the way for the North to renege and invade, and Congress wouldn't appropriate the funds to go back.

Post-Watergate, the scenario you paint is true. Paris secured South Vietnam (Fulfilling the OP), but after Nixon was removed the political will to maintain the agreement was lost. 1974 showed the ARVN could, with American logistical aid, stand on its own. Had the political will remained, 1975 would never have happened as another Linebacker would've been ordered and re-supplied South Vietnamese units would've easily blunted the NVA. And in my estimation, 1975 was the last point the DRV could've achieved victory as the Inter-Communist split was really starting to take hold (And thus the PRC now presented a Northern threat).

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The division between the PRC and DRV didn't manifest until after the conclusion of the war, for the very reason that there was a bigger problem to deal with. Even when the Paracel Islands were occupied, the Vietnamese didn't take issue until after the war. Nixon's domestic issues were undoubtedly a factor, but so was the fact that there was no public support by this point for American reinvolvement in Vietnam. The role of the media and of the public is a key player in what followed, particularly as any involvement once the DRV got back into Vietnam would absolutely have dragged on and involved further international strife with US allies and could very well have had a major impact on the 1976 elections. Most of the Democratic Party was already turned against the war by this point, as had most of the country. Prolonging or re-engaging in the conflict when they had so freshly and decisively ditched South Vietnam was unlikely to come together. Particularly in a hostile Congress.