DId we win Vietnam?

Question

Did we win Vietnam? loss? tie?

I read about a book that said America won vietnma militarly but the media reported it differently. And I'm sure all of us know the media always loves the "no hope, doom, gloom" stories and always takes that angle.

Answer 1

The U.S. left Vietnam in good shape. Congress then cut off the weapon and ammo supplies to the South Vietnames and then they were crushed. It was the Democrats that did that. It was the Democrats that set up the Cubans to die at the Bay of Pigs and the Democrats that told the Shiites to try an overthrow Saddam with the help of U.S. support that never arrived.

Answer 2

There are many, even in the posts above, who say that we won the war militarily but lost it politically. This viewpoint fails to apprieciate that war and politics are inextricably linked. One doesn't exist without the other. As Karl Von Clauswitz said, "War is the continuance of politics by other means"

So what does this mean? It means that if you are fighting the wrong war, the wrong battles, or fighting them the wrong way, it doesn't matter how many of the enemy you kill or how much land you take, you can still lose.

The emotional reaction you see is because in the United States, we are generally taught the opposite: that war and politics are separate, and so if we lose a war it is either the military's fault, which is not an acceptable answer to most veterans, or it is the politicions fault, which is the easy and polpular target to blame. Being politicions, they attempt to shift the blame elsewhere, to a "fifth column" for example. In this case the "liberal media". In the past it could be the Jews, the communists, or whatever group was designated the easiest to blame.

Now, I think the media has made some mistakes, but let's put things in perspective: the casualty reports are real, the economic indicators are a mixed bad of good, bad, and disasterous, and more reporters have been killed in this war than any other. Would you really be better served if the news did a report on a hospital being built over a bomb killing a dozen people in the next town over? Maybe, but those stories don't get the ratings, so rather than blame the messenger, perhaps we need to look at the American public rather than the media.

Besides, for 4 years there was a republican president, a republican congress, a military that is extremely well funded, at least one fairly popular conservative news channel, and a populace that was willing (up until the last election) to give the president the benifit of the doubt on Iraq. So how exactly did a bunch of tv and news stations overcome all this?

Blame whoever you want, but the responsibility rests with the administration and it's poor decisions, and/or the military leadership's failure to clearly spell out what they needed to win.

Answer 3

There is not another military force on the face of the earth that can stand up to the armed forces of the United States. We are the best equipped, both materially and mentally. We have the best training and superior weapons on the ground, in the sky, and on the ocean.

That is why we have foreign nations that line up to send their military commanders and top middle officers to the United States to take part in our training as well as use our equipment.

Well when you get the politicians and the news media involved in the means of war, we will never complete a military mission.

When your elected officials are not on the same page the enemy wait until they fall apart through media pressure and the non elected guys in Washington D.C. tell them what the people of the United States are thinking, when it is a simpl narrow question that was asked.

If you ask a person if they would be glad if the war was over hell there is really only one answer that sane people will answer, yet the media will go to the elected officials and say we ran a poll and 80% of the people oppose the war. Then "DUMMY" stands up and say my constitute want the war to end.

Once elected you never see these people again until it is time for relection and then they have so little time that all they do is shake your hand and say I am representing you. Now what do you want me to say to get elected again and I will.

If the elected officials of the United States stood side by side not along party lines, then our enemies will not say we can wait them out, because they will be leaving soon. Our elected "DUMMIES" can't see that.

The other reason is Rapid communicaton, we have live cameras in the field of battle giving a real live feed into the living rooms of America of a battle happening right then and there to include the wounded and injured. So who want to watch this day after day.

During Vietnam, the military never lost a battle, we had superior fire power in all instances. We could fly in our helicopters with missles or the B-52's with other arsenal. We also could get our wounded out with our dust off helicopters.

We learned battle techniques that were only used in the Vietnam War like Tunnel Rats.

We will leave Iraq soon because the Democrats are now in power in Washington D.C. They want to take our military out of the war zone.

One thing you have to know about war is that it is not santized, there will be killiing on both sides, we have the least amount on our side. Given the mission, the equipment and the "AUTHORITY" we could kick ***, win and come home victorious.

I hope this has been of some use to you, good luck.

"FIGHT ON"

Answer 4

Since most of the answers I see here are based on 'the media'. Let's try a few facts instead:
1. The US never lost a battle in Vietnam. Period. End of story.
2. After the Tet offensive in 1968, the Viet Cong were virtually annihilated and never again mounted a major effort again.
3. South Vietnam 'fell' in 1975 after a major invasion by North Vietnam......2 years after we left.

Answer 5

Well I will try to give some perspective. Tactically, we won every time just about. Sometimes small unit actions the VC and NVA won. That's just the nature of that, a lot of factor's come in, knowledge of the land, experience and quality of the troops. And pure out house luck. But the 101st and 1st Cav. tended to have the edge there along with overwhelming technical edge. The best VC and NVA tended to fight hard engaged, but they usually died. The problem was overall strategy and political rules from Washington DC. Sound familiar? But I was in school in 1975 and saw the NVA roll into Saigon on TV. And who runs Vietnam now? We lost the war, but won most the battles.

Answer 6

As an humble Brit if you don't mind I will have my say.

America should have won it militarily, but as is happening today, the politicians do not give the military a mandate to go out and solve the problem, instead they impose limits on how far the military can go in carrying out their aims.

The government fear upsetting the media for whom they rely on when elections come round.

If the media were less opionistic in their reporting of the news then many lives would be saved.

Answer 7

The US did quite well tactically, and Giap made mistakes enough for the US to win, but his aim from the beginning was to drain the US until we got tired of it and quit, which is exactly what happened. Then we compounded our errors by pulling the rug out from under the South Vietnamese. If you haven't read a translation of Mao's little book on warfare, and if you've never heard of 4th generation warfare, you really should. We cannot win a war if we don't know what kind of war we're fighting, and it seems almost none of us do.

Answer 8

One specific was the Tet Offensive of 1968. The North Vietnamese were roundly beaten in those battles, but the IMPRESSION we got was that they North Vietnamese had beaten us in those battles. Everybody believed the inaccurate impression.

Vietnam was complicated. I've heard that the military wasn't allowed to fight hard. Limited "rules of engagement." Politicians scared of fighting harder.

The American public lost its will to fight, and that caused the politicians to quit. We pulled out of Vietnam, and the communist North took over the South Vietnam, and over the next several years, about TWO MILLION peasants were murdered by the communists. And America was humiliated for many years. That's why our quitting was such a terrible idea.

We were pursuing a noble cause in Vietnam. South Vietnam was a pretty crummy government, but, the communists were much, much worse.

The parallels between the Iraq war and the Vietnam war are more numerous than the peaceniks realize.

Answer 9

There is not much debate about weather America won Vietnam militarily or not. America won the battles, hands down. The "Tet" offensive cost the VC almost 100,000 troops. THAT WAS JUST ONE BATTLE! The US lost 58,000 the entire 9 year war. However, the treasonous media reported the war in a very unfavourable light turning Americans against the cause. Sound familiar? So anyway, we left before the job was done. Although many historians now agree that America would have won if they stuck out the fight for a few more months. The VC was almost entirely destroyed after the Tet offensive.

And guess what. After America pulled out, 3,000,000 South Vietnamese were killed by the resurgent VC, after our pull-out. What do you think would happen if we pulled out of Iraq now??

NEVER TRUST THE DEMOCRATS.

Answer 10

The US hasn't won a war since WWII. Korea ended in a cease fire, VIet Nam ended with the US barely getting out before being over run by a bunch of under funded, ill equiped short people that barely had enough to eat. For some reason the Military isn't allowed to win a war any more. Just wait and see what happens in Iraq, We will pull out, Iraq will fall into civil war and hundreds of thousands if not millions will be killed. THe US pulling out will kill more Iraqi people than Saddam ever did. Political correctness doesn't work in war. You either go in and kill and destroy to acheive your goal or you fail. Political correctness has coused the US to fail in Korea, VIet Nam, Iraq.