How did the US lose the war in Vietnam?

Question

Were they just outnumbered, outgunned, or what caused the us to lose?

Answer 1

It was not understood that the NVA or the Viet Cong had such a firm resolve. The war should not have happened. After the defeat of Japan and the withdrawal of Japanese troops, France wanted to take over its old colonial status and Ho Chi Minh asked for an audience with Rooseveldt and Truman to ask for assistance to keep out the French. He was refused, and we supported the French with munitions and aircraft. When the French were defeated by the Viet Minh at the battle of Dien Ben Phu, the south came under Emperor Bao Dai (a puppet of the French) and the north came under Ho Chi Minh. The Geneva Agreement separated the country into the north under communist leadership and the south came under Ngo Diem Dien, a corrupt individual, a catholic and her infamous sister-in-law and with Ngo's brother, an Arch-Bishop, agitated the Buddhists, upset the country but were strongly supported by the US, this alienated the people and during the day, many Vietnamese were law-abiding citizens and active guerillas at night. Miles of deep tunnels concealed enemy forces and the tunnel complex at Cu Chi is remarkable, but also Hanoi itself was riddled with tunnels and our air attacks hurt but were not fatal. The Vietnamese had decided that they would endure. For each guerilla, it takes many soldiers to find him, and the guerillas were willing to eat little, suffer harsh physical conditions and do things Americans could not or would not do. Our civic action groups were ill-concieved and a great waste of money. Corruption of the South Vietnamese government was rampant but it also spread to Americans as well cause the South Vietnamese further cause to make little effort. Political prisoners in the south were imprisoned and many died. I was there for 7 years.

Answer 2

Short answer: we self-pwned ourselves with politics.

Long answer: First of all, you should understand that back then, the US was very afraid of communism because of how bad it went for the countries that accepted it (because millions of people died under those communist leaders, although they tried to do good things too). We "lost" because the US fought that war half-assed and half-heartedly, and always with a hand tied behind our back. For instance, the US never invaded N. Vietnam, because doing so would've meant we'd pwn the N. Vietnamese easily.

The problem with doing that though, is that the Chinese would probably intervene, the same way they did during the Korean War when we pushed the N. Koreans all the way to their border with China. Not wanting to repeat that mistake again, the US never invaded N. Vietnam, and only "defended" S. Vietnam whenever it was attacked.

The US also feared that the Russians would get involved as well, either by sending nukes to hit the US, US interests in SE Asia, or else would simply use this as an excuse to invade W. Europe and start WW3.

The US never lost any engagements with the Vietnamese. The problem was that we were doing stuff so backwards that there really was no purpose for us being there in the first place. Officially, they claimed to want to contain communism, and the domino theory, which states that if one country fell to communism, the other countries nearby would surely also fall to communism as well.

They also lied a lot to the American public, such as saying the North Vietnamese Army and the Vietcong (basically S. Vietnamese who supported the commies) were on the verge of defeat. Then the Tet Offensive hit in 1968, and suddenly people were asking "if they were almost beaten, how were they able to pull off such a massive, coordinated attack throughout all of S. Vietnam?" That was pretty much the start of the anti-war protesting that would continue to gain support throughout the US.

Since nothing seemed to be getting done, and S. Vietnam seemed to be a continual waste of money, with no signs of improving, the US essentially pulled out in the early 70's. On their own, the S. Vietnamese government quickly fell to the N. Vietnamese, and on April 30, 1975, the Fall of Saigon occurred as the NVA entered Saigon, the capitol city of S. Vietnam.

Interestingly enough, although Cambodia and Laos fell to communism, Thailand, nor any other country nearby, fell to communism, as the domino theory predicted. And the Khmer Rouge, the ruling faction Cambodia, was so brutal that the Vietnamese had to go in and stop them from the rampant violence there.

The US also "got back" at the commies by supporting anti-communist leaders such as Saddam Hussein, and the Muhajadeen fighters in Afghanistan (sometimes called Russia's "Vietnam" because of the massive casualties they took there, before puling out). Unfortunately, the US has a lousy history of picking people to run a country (as evidenced by our own recent elections), so those "anti-communist" dictators turned out to be bad, and we had to get rid of them later (such as Saddam).

As you can see, history can often explain why things happened the way they did, and why people do the stuff they do today. I'm not saying it's 100% perfect, but it gives you a better understanding of what happened.

Answer 3

America didnt have a chance and the US were morons walking through the jungle wearing after shave,50.000 US troops dead,its a well known fact that the US arent war material.America cant just go and fight and they didnt kill 300 for every 1 soldier killed,another reason was because of tunnels underground,whenever Us troops used to go to where they heard gunshots the virtcong would come from behind

Answer 4

many reasons why,first the soldiers were not trained properly for jungle warfare ,most who were there didn't want to be,lack of real commitment.there were a lot of drug problems as well,soldiers dont walk around radio's blaring in the jungle,i could tell you a lot from expeariance but i wont ,australian troops were a different thing it was a matter of doing our job, usa certainly outgunned the vietnamese ,in fact the distruction by america was enormous,they slaughtered so many inocent people from the air not caring who they hurt,the treatment that was dished out to the people was a disgrace,they realised that they would probably have to kill most of the population to win,america simply lost on every aspect of the war,

Answer 5

in a nutshell, we didn't really lose the war. we gaining very little at a very high cost. the american people grew impatient to say the least and wanted the war to end (kinda like iraq). and when nixon was elected he promised to end the war. so he withdrew troops in 1973 and pretty much left the people of south vietnam to fend for themselves. the north (with backing from soviet union) easily defeated the south. vietnam became a communist country.

Answer 6

The military NEVER lost a battle, thus, at least to me, the military didn't lose the war. The American citizen lost faith with our leaders over the issue of Nam. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. With billions spent and 58,000+ American lives lost, Americans wanted to pull the plug.

Answer 7

The US lost the will to fight in Vietnam. This happened because people questioned the goals of the war and whether they were worth the lives of all the beautiful young people who were dying or being maimed by it.

If only we kept the lesson of Vietnam in the forefront of our minds: that war is rarely worth the cost.

Answer 8

The US don´t loose any mayor combat in Vietnam, but like Iraq now was short of soldiers. The public opinion can afford more dead of Americans (by the way, almost 1.500.000 Vietnamese died then, but who counted), that's why we loose Vietnam and that´s why we will loose Iraq, because we don´t want more Americans come back in boxes.

Answer 9

By giving up, when much of the American populace decided that winning the war was not worth the cost of doing so. This, of course, encouraged miscreants such as bin Laden to believe that he could wage war against the US with impunity.

Answer 10

We did not lose. in 1975 the north signed the paris peace accord, but a year later the south collapsed from an economic depression and the north walked in an took over.

Look up the paris peace accord