Was Vietnam a failure?

Question

just a poll question...

Answer 1

Yes.

It was in the sense that we did not thwart the rise of Communism in that country. What was a bigger failure was the rationale behind going into the country in the first place. We had this notion that by preventing Communism from taking root in Vietnam we would stop its spread. Yet, our failure in Vietnam did not immediately cause Communism to spread throughout the east as we thought. Hence, our foreign policy, which based its theory of the spread of Communism on the fall of one nation leading to the fall of all nations under Communistic dominion, was absolutely false. Moreover, we mislead our troops into thinking that they were stopping the manifestation of Communism, when history attests to the fact that the success of Communism in Vietnam did not lead to every nation succumbing to Communist rule. It is this misguidance that was are greatest failure because it caused the death of thousands of American lives needlessly.

Answer 2

In every sense the war in Vietnam was a failure. The will of the Vietnamese people could not be thwarted even by the massive power of the US and other powers. Whether for right of for wrong it is not possible to defeat the will of the civilian population of a country. This is another example of the failure of the intelligence community.

Answer 3

Yup, nothing more than a failure of will.

As Gen. Giap told one of the anti-war "activists" who went to see him a couple of years ago and asked if there was any way the U.S. could have won the war (assuming the answer would be "No"): "Yes, the U.S. could have easily won the war in the South if they had cut the Ho Chi Minh trail."

So, why did we have this failure of will? The principal reason was that we had signed a treaty with North Vietnam that put Laos and Cambodia off-limits for the duration of the conflict.

The North, as usual, considered such treatys to have the same value as toilet paper and ran the Ho Chi Minh trail through Laos and Cambodia. And, while we bombed the trail, we never went over the border in force to slice the trail in two due to the fact that we'd promised to stay out of Laos and Cambodia.

Like I said - a failure of will - nothing more, nothing less.

Answer 4

Despite the endeavors of the honorable men sent to Vietnam, I would have to vote failure due to inept leadership by the same politicians that sent them. (Leaders from BOTH political parties I might add.)

Answer 5

Unfortunately is was a huge failure. We were not prepared for this war. It was a different kind of war than we were used to much like this one we are having now. You can't expect to run in a country and control it when they have willing people who will use their children as shields and pawns. (We walked into their house and didn't have a floor plan)

Answer 6

If your comparing Vietnam with Iraq,yes the outcome will be the same, you would think we would learn from our mistakes,i guess 30 years was to long,people forget,i didn't.

Answer 7

Yes - a dismal failure of both our military and foreign policy. The very reason why Henry Kissinger should be shunned by the current administration and not embraced.

Answer 8

I don't know. . . What did it do for our country? It destroyed our armed forces that were over there, both mentally and physically, and Vietnam fell into communism. I think most would look at that as a failure.


Hmmm. . . Send our boys (and girls) over to fight in a war that they are not prepared to fight in, and they are dying for a government that isn't doing all they can to support them or assure their safety. Aren't we going through that right now????

Answer 9

yes and no. we won every major military endeavor, so it was a success. but we lost the political war which was the whole point to begin with, so it was also a failure. over all I'd vote failure.

Answer 10

north vietnam and south vietnam you tell me .