If America's strategy were different, could it have won the war in Vietnam?

Answer 1

The United States didn't lose the Vietnam War, they withdrew. South Vietnam existed on its own for almost two years after the Americans left. I don't know why people say we lost. The United States didn't surrender any armies, they just left because the people back home didn't support it.

The different strategy they could have used is to let the military men run the show instead of allowing McNamara and his men run the war from Washington.

During most of the war the bombings were worthless like during Rolling Thunder because all the good targets were off limits because they didn't want to kill Soviet advisers.

By the time the war was under control the Americans started to withdraw troops and then withdrew funding for ARVN (South Vietnam army) forces in 1974. One of the main problems was corruption within ARVN. The officers were awful so the soldiers didn't have much hope to fight.

Answer 2

Vietnam was a war against communism. It seemed necessary to halt the domino effect. It is really no different than Korea, Desert Storm, or Iraqi Freedom. Halting evil to make the world a better place. Yes, I said that it was necessary. I am a Democrat that firmly believes that the war now is necessary. America could not have won, it was not meant to be and the Viet Cong wouldn't fight us like we want. They knew they couldn't stand toe to toe with us so they used Guerrilla tactics and it work. The U.S. shouldn't have stayed in there that long, by any means. Once is was obviosu we couldn't have won, around Tet of 1968 then everyone should have left because there was nothing to do.

Answer 3

Militarily speaking?....certainly. Had we fought a full scale, total war against both the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, we would have achieved military victory. We had a tremendous technological edge, greater manpower, a better logistical system, and at least an equally skilled military.

Of course, that assumes two things. One, that the American people would have supported such an all-out effort. Two, that we would have been willing to fight the much larger, much more difficult war that might have erupted with China in the wake our victory in Vietnam.

Answer 4

Yes, if we would have stayed out of it. We lost too many lives to something we should not have even been in. It was never a war, look it up -- it was conflict.

Many consider the Vietnam conflict a "proxy war", one of several that occurred during the Cold War between the United States and its Western allies on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China on the other (other such wars took place in Korea and Angola.) Proxy wars occurred because the major players -- in particular the United States and the Soviet Union -- had a policy of mutually assured destruction ("M.A.D.") in which a nuclear strike against one country would result in total nuclear annhilation of the opposing country. Because the "superpowers" could not afford to fight each other directly, they did so indirectly through proxy wars in which they sought to extend their influence throughout the world.

Answer 5

Yes.
We could not invade the north, use nukes, or stop the flow from other counties. Even at that the US put up a great and noble fight. The war was lost in the colleges,streets of America. It was LBJ that wouldn't let a general run a war, no he did it from the safety of the Oval Office. We did not lose the war, liberals lost the war.

Answer 6

Had the US tried to win the Hearts and Minds of the people, maybe. The US went into Vietnam woefully ignorant of the culture and the resolve of the North Vietnamese. There were Americans there that knew this. John Paul Vann for Instance.

Answer 7

US never lost a single battle in Vietnam. The NVA and VC got scuffed up every time they tried to go head-to-head with the US. We did however lose the Vietnam war at home through negative actions of the media...

Answer 8

No because these people were at home, fighting a guerilla warfare and totally brain-washed into action. A vietcong could survive a long time on a bag of rice and do a lot of damage with one bullet. It cost a whole lot more to equip and feed a US soldier who did not even want to be there in the first place.

Answer 9

Absolutely. The strategy always seemed to fight to not lose, rather then to fight to win. The strategy, although flawed, was not the downfall of the war. The downfall was caused by all the problems here at home, and the lack of willpower to continue a fight were we were taking high casualities.

Answer 10

There was no strategy, we weren't allowed to fire unless fired upon. SCREW THAT. We couldn't use B52's in the first few years, I mean to bomb the critical locations, just to try to scare them. It was a war ran by the politicians, not the men who LEAD the armed forces of the USA. We had no chance. It was like putting a baby in a den of hungry leoapards. Considering everything, we were damned lucky to have only lost 53,000 soldiers. God bless them all, I'll never forget them.