Why the United States could never have won the war in Vietnam?

Question

Assuming that the United States DID lose the Vietnam war, why do you think that they could never have won?

Obviously there was no popular by the American public but what were some other reasons

Answer 1

First of all, "winning" and "losing" are terms that beed to be defined. If you think of war as a way to effect a regime change, then the U.S. certainly lost and North Vietnam certainly won. If you think of a war in terms of occupation (the winner occupies the loser), then North Vietnam won, South Vietnam lost, and the U.S. lost what could be called "a regional ally" or a "puppet state" depending on your persuasion. If you think of war as a needless loss of life, then everyone lost.

Could the U.S. ever win the war? Anything's possible, but it's highly unlikely. To end the hostilities, the U.S. would have to commit more and more troops and equipment. At some point, the administration that made the decision to escalate the war would be voted out and replaced by whoever promised the soonest withdrawal.

Now let's say that the U.S. troops got lucky and the U.S. established control over the entire territory of Vietnam. What next? Vietnam used to be a French colony, and the Vietnamese have been fighting the French for almost a hundred years until the French withdrew. What makes you think the U.S. would prove to be a better colonial administrator than France? Also, what makes you think that nationalists whom the U.S. backed in their fight against communists would be grateful forever rather than say, "we have no further need of your services"?

Answer 2

Well, a simple answer would be that in order to Vietcong to win, all they had to do was to "Not lose" meaning only way we could have won was to defeat the Vietcong and have them surrender. This was a tall order when considering the fact that it was extremely difficult to have a stand up battle. Most of the battles took place at battalion/company level skirmishes save for major sieges like Khe sahn or the Tet Offense(which by the way was the onlly major offense under taken by the Vietongs).
So, to summarilze, only way we could have won was to defeat them completely and to invade the north vietnam and take the fight to them, which was not possible due to political reasons. The Causis bellum was protection of South Vietnam and invasion of north would have not been supported by UN or the world.
Hope that answers your question

Answer 3

One "no win" theory is that by the American government's restraint from invading North Vietnam provided a sanctuary that despite bombing and mining a core of anti-American Vietnamese could survive unbeaten. Another theory is that China and/or Russia would have intervened before allowing an American total victory in Vietnam.

Answer 4

- A regular army is in a disadvantage when confronted with a population where the majority wants independence, and with a history of winning against superpowers : China, Japan, France.

- They didn’t speak the language, didn’t understand the local culture, and couldn’t effectively distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys when the latter weren’t actually shooting at them.

- They lacked sufficient force to achieve their mission, with statements by military leaders as to the required force being overruled by their civilian superiors.

- They had no clear idea of when, or even under what circumstances, to declare a victory

- At its peak the Vietnam War was taking 500 US lives per month, and did so for many years

- The opponents had a secure base of operations in North Vietnam with its regular army, and the support of nuclear-equipped superpower China.

- The opponents had jungles and a population to hide in, while most of the US troops weren't trained or equipped for a jungle warfare, nor for a counter-insurgency campaign.

- A president who arrived in office with questionable legitimacy : LBJ by way of assassination.

- A war authorized by Congress in response to questionable, politically tainted intelligence : the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

- A lack of clarity by political leaders as to the war’s purpose, justification, duration, costs, and exit strategy.

- A disconnection between political pronouncements at home and realities on the ground, with ideology substituting for objective analysis in the generation of either overly dire or overly rosy predictions : "We must stop Communism in South Vietnam or the other nations of southeast Asia will “fall like dominos” ".

- A bait-and-switch approach to escalating involvement : “mission creep”. While Johnson promised not to expand the war, his administration deliberately expanded its role in the war by conducting air strikes over Laos, raids along the coast of North Vietnam, and offensive actions taken by U.S. Marines well before the American public was told about the actions, as revealed by the Pentagon Papers. A decision to bomb North Vietnam had already been taken in 1964, before the election.

- Public support was never high, and dropped fast.

Answer 5

There really are no factual reasons of why they couldn't win... despite the big difference in people, weapons, and technology. To win a game, or in this case war, there needs to be teamwork, cooperation, strength, intelligence, and diligence. I'm glad Vietnam didn't lose, though. Since I'm Viet myself.

Answer 6

Politicians and the American media...much like they are trying to do now.