What did the US do wrong in Vietnam?

Answer 1

Stan--wrong was to go their in the first place... NV was trying to unify the South in to one country. ---Civil War--- The south resisted and the US like France took sides and symphy with the South. The French lost and pulled out and US too. The politics;;;If the south fell to the communist north then Thailand would be next and Laos so on and so on all will fall to communism. Didn't work out that way--waste of lives----man power---materials---division of America----best thing for Nixon to do was to end the war. Wrong: Congress and Generals would not let the military knock the crap out of everybody and win. It would be a cycle---NV loses---Cambodia takes over that country so on so on to defend all of SEA is too big, Should have never gone to SEA

Answer 2

Vietnam wasn't lost in Vietnam but in Washington. The US went into Vietnam to check communism, and it's fine to be against something like that, but strategically useful is there's something to be for, as well, and there wasn't. The Pentagon also had its eye on the Fulda Gap in Germany and was developing doctrine for the big war that never happened, so Vietnam took a strategic back seat. If you will recall, though, the NVA still didn't get into Saigon until after the US had been gone for years. Only when Congress cut off funding support for the South Vietnamese was there a final collapse.

Answer 3

The ARNV (the army of the Republic of Vietnam, South Vietnam) achieved some stunning victories over the North Vietnamese Army (NVA, communists) but as the U.S. slowly withdrew from Vietnam, the USA failed to fully support the Vietnamization of the ARNV and it could not sustain the Chinese and Soviet backed NVA. The ARNV collapsed as the US pulled out.

The U.S. Army defeated the North Vietnamese Army in every single major engagement, forcing the NVA to adopt guerrilla tactics against the US. But these guerilla tactics failed to remove the USA from Vietnam. But the US failure to fully supply the ARVN allowed the NVA to succeed.

Answer 4

They tried to run the war from Washington. They backed a very corrupt government, had trouble adjusting to changes in the tactics of the VC and NVA. Militarily we were successful especially when the NVA decided to meet the US on the battlefield face to face. When this didn't work they returned to guerrilla tactics. The government put restrictions on what the US military could do and where they could go. They were unable to wins the hearts and minds of the people due to the Huge propaganda machine of the NVA. Many people in VN believed this was nothing more than a continuation of the war with the French. I believe what did us in was the corruption of the VN government and its infiltration by NVA members. The record of the South Vietnamese, with some expections, was very poor. Many American troops did not want to serve with them. Since this was a very political war it made the job of the military difficult.

Answer 5

One large mistake - we attempted to prevent the unification of one people, the Vietnamese, a majority of whom were determined to fight for several generations if necessary to end foreign domination within their borders.

Britain would have suffered the same fate if they had attempted to intervene during the American Civil War - the North would have fought even more doggedly to win the conflict and Britain would have suffered many casualties.

It is not entirely accurate to say we "lost" that war, since we inflicted far greater casualties and never lost a battle and we left South Vietnam intact and functioning, no worse than we got there. The most accurate description would be that we "disengaged militarily without political victory".

Answer 6

Forgive me if my total disdain for this war, our leaders who kept us in this war, and the citizens who protested our soldiers comes screaming through in this answer...............

From what I have read about this war and talking with my father who was drafted and fought in this war, I believe that the list is endless as to what "we did wrong". "We" being our government.

The BIGGEST mistake we made, in my opinion, was not knowing our enemy. Intelligence in the areas of Vietnamese history, political policies, cultural and social customs was extremely poor.

Then, Eisenhower and the whole "Domino Theory". The American support for the "rigging" of the 1955 elections in South Vietnam, especially the support given to that nut Diem.

The "Shake N Bake" training of our soldiers. Our bombing of this country, "Operation Rolling Thunder". The total lack of civillian support for our soldiers. Which is really unfortunate seeing as most of these soldiers had no choice in the matter but were drafted into fighting a war that the American people did not understand. Mostly, due to the "minimum candor" policy of the Johnson administration.

Of course my all time favorite, Jimmy Carter and his 1976 pardoning of approximately 10,000 draft dodgers. I'm not sure what to say about that it's so sad and pathetic.

I realize this is a simplistic list and the details are far more complicated and the list of errors much longer. It is, to me, a very sad time in American history.

Really, I suggest you talk to veterans of this war, maybe read some books about it, (other than what is published in the school history books). My favorite book on this war is "They Marched Into Sunlight - War and Peace - Vietnam and America - October, 1967" by David Maraniss.

Answer 7

someone else will probably write an entire treatise for this question which in reality is the only correct way to answer. i will give my idea on the short and sweet of it ......the US was not prepared to fight an in-your-face, guerrilla-tactic (we would call the method terrorism today) underground war with an enemy that looked no different from our South Vietnamese allies whom we originally were there to train in modern war fare. what a joke.

Answer 8

Their overall goal in denying freedom and independence from the Vietnamese was their first and most egregious error.

Answer 9

Become involved militarily in the first place. Then, once in, not commit to total war.

Answer 10

It tried to support a corrupt and repressive regime