Today 39 years ago the world's greatest World Power was defeated by a bunch of jungle dwelling pajama wearers.
They did great in the frontlines, but they lost at home, with soldiers being spit on by their own country when they have returned home.
How the fuck did this happen Veeky Forums?
Also I want to know more about the american allies that participated in this war.
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something something it ain't me
Fucking liberals and boomers ruin everything.
Not enough bombs dropped. Not enough people killed. America needed a Roman peace, but weren't willing to take it.
I hope army dog is final charged with crimes against humanity someday.
>hippie peace-nik defended
Dogs like him are why you can strut around protesting and undermining the work of good boys.
You weren't there. You didn't see how ruff things were.
Don't mind me, I like writing long-ass greentext essays.
>in between 1961 and 1964, the Viet Cong insurgency in South Vietnam becomes a serious problem
>during the same time, a number of foreign policy setbacks happen for the US, including the Gary Powers shootdown, the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall, the Neutralization of Laos, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and probably some other shit I'm forgetting
>in '63 there is serious civil violence between the Buddhist majority in Vietnam and the Catholic government of Ngo Dinh Diem
>Kennedy decides that Diem, who is a personal friend of his because they're both Catholic and they met while Diem was touring the US in the early 50s, is leading his country into disaster
>reluctantly, he gives his blessing to a plan by the South Vietnamese generals to unseat Diem and install a military junta
>the coup works, but Diem and his brother Nhu are killed the following day by one of the officers involved
>Kennedy just about loses his lunch over his friend being murdered because of his own orders, but it doesn't matter that much, because he gets shot a few weeks later by some weirdo, who was probably motivated by a combination of attention whoring, the aforementioned US confrontations with Cuba
>LBJ, who had been at the periphery of the Kennedy administration for the past three years of fuckery, inherits a Vietnam that is now extremely unstable, as the generals who unseated Diem turn on one another
>LBJ never fully believed that Oswald acted alone, he figured the commies got Kennedy
>he cut his teeth working as an underling in the FDR administration in the 30s, and sees the events of the early 60s as a repeat of the Nazi expansion of the 30s
>the US has had an ongoing program where South Vietnamese special forces infiltrate into the North in small boats to try and stir up local resistence to the communists
People were sick of war
The entire premise of the war was built on top of bullshit. Gulf of Tonkin incident didn't even happen.
It's really easy to say we should have just fought harder and killed more when most of us are just a bunch of comfy millennials. Fuck you, these were our brothers and sons that were being shipped over and routinely broken by the stress of a fucked up jungle war.
You useless hawks can smack your fist on the table and act like it was just some dick measuring contest we had to stay in, but that's not reality. We had plenty of resources sure, we could've burnt down that entire country while letting our soldiers feast every day, but it was taking a massive toll on most men we sent over there.
Remember when everyone hated the Germans for invading other peoples' countries for no reason? Remember when it was the French before them? They say Rome conquered the world in defense.
Do you think of Diem stayed in power things would have been better for south Vietnam?
>this is little more than a political gesture by the ARVN generals, as the infiltrators always die right away, and no insurgency forms in North Vietnam
>US SIGINT vessels like to tag along behind the small boats, to observe the North Vietnamese communications and radar systems while they fight off a threat
>on August 2nd, 1964, the USS Maddox, one such signal intelligence ship, reports getting into a shootout with three North Vietnamese torpedo boats
>on the 4th, she reports another shootout
>even at the time it isn't clear that the second incident really happened, but LBJ is unwilling to let the war continue on its present course
>LBJ goes to Congress, and convinces them to give him war powers, in the aptly named Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
>this is more or less a blank check
>air raids against North Vietnam begin within weeks
>when US bombers based in Vietnam are destroyed on the runway by Viet Cong attacks, a battalion of Marines is sent
>somehow, the 16,000 advisors that Kennedy sent turns into a combat mission of 550,000 US troops
>ground operations in Vietnam are run by General William Westmoreland, who is a conventional general through and through, and totally unwilling to adjust to the needs of counterinsurgency
>the US ground strategy is based on attrition, with victory measured in body count
>the US Air Strategy is based on "graduated escalation" with targets being bombed mainly for political effect to try and bring the North to the bargaining table
>it's doubtful that any air campaign at this stage of the war could have achieved strategic objectives, as the primary combatant force in the South is the Viet Cong, who are a guerilla military that get their supplies from the villages, and their weapons from dead soldiers
>However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear?
The American Intelligentsia lost its nerve and as a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. That small Vietnam had been a warning and an occasion to mobilize the nation's courage. But if a full-fledged America suffered a real defeat from a small communist half-country, how can the West hope to stand firm in the future?
Anti-war liberals BTFO by based Solzhenitsyn. They still do not admit that their Vietnam policy led to more suffering.
>suffered a real defeat from a small communist half-country
Would literally be a crater if we cared to make it so
Ho Chi Minh apparently thought so.
Supposedly the first thing he said when he found out that Diem had been was "I can't believe the Americans would be so stupid."
Still, it isn't a bright idea to try and push a Catholic oligarchy in a Buddhist country, especially if you ban Buddhist celebrations and parades.
anyway
>this being said, the North makes it a point to improve the infrastructure supporting their forces in the South, and between 1964 and 1967 they expand the Ho Chi Minh trail to a semi-mechanized trail moving through (officially neutral) Laos and Cambodia
>for the Americans, the first three years of the Vietnam War is a monotonous slog, with casualties steadily mounting, the spin doctors in the Johnson administration constantly promising victory soon, and no obvious signs of progress
>independent of Vietnam, the political temperature in the US is steadily rising over civil rights issues, to the point where there are riots in 50 major American cities in what is called the Long Hot Summer of '67
>at this point, the North decides to make a gamble
>80,000 infiltrators in the South have been given all the supplies the South they can muster, and a mission to start the revolution in earnest
>the Marine base of Khe Sanh has been under a siege for a month, it's still unclear whether this was a diversion or the North actually thought they could pull off another Bien Dien Phu
>on January 30, 1968 coordinated attacks are launched against every major military and political target in the South
>NVA commandos breach the US embassy in Saigon, but are killed in an extended firefight with US forces
>in Hue City, the second largest city in the South, the Viet Cong take over and begin to run down lists of Southern government officials and security forces, killing everyone they can find
>something something
I want Brits to leave
>we weren't even trying
Vietnam should've been Catholic, even the Emperor Bao Dai converted to Catholicism even though he was in exile.
>The entire premise of the war was built on top of bullshit.
Not really. The tonkin incident may have been false, but the reason to go to war with the commies pretty justifies itself.
The red disease would've spread throughout SEA and my country would've been fucked.
You guys should've been fighting the commies in your own country, those hippies.
McCarthy was right you guys didn't listen.
>Also I want to know more about the american allies that participated in this war.
Documentary about the bloodiest Australian engagement of the war. Really well done film, worth your time.
youtube.com
The Australians had a better understanding of the type of war Vietnam would be, something the Americans wouldn't really come to embrace until Tiger Force (a recon platoon of the 101st Airborne).
>Not really. The tonkin incident may have been false, but the reason to go to war with the commies pretty justifies itself.
The red disease would've spread throughout SEA and my country would've been fucked.
We can go back and forth on the domino theory but at the end of the day it really is just a geopolitical theory. Wars need a casus belli, and we didn't have one. The government deliberately riled up its population for a war against an enemy that hadn't truly attacked them.
No shit, didn't you guys do that in both world wars?
Army dog did what he had to do. Blame those who sent him to war
Yer a cheeky cunt aren't yeh
>the South Vietnamese fail to react the way the North had hoped
>instead of joining in the revolution, they run for cover
>once the element of surprise is exhausted, US forces in the South begin to counterattack
>within a few days, two thirds of the forces who began the Tet Offensive are killed, captured, or wounded
>the Tet Offensive does prove to the American people that peace is not in fact around the corner
>in a shocking reverse of the policy of the last 4 years, Johnson ceases bombing of the North and begins immediate peace talks, and announces that he will not be running for reelection
>the 1968 election is worthy of its own thread, but in the end Richard Nixon wins with vague promises of "peace with honor" in Vietnam and to restore order to an America that has been wracked by civil unrest
>at this point, there are two different historical models for what happens next, and I can't, for the life of me, figure out which one is correct
>there's the "cover your ass" angle where Nixon knew that the Vietnam War was lost, and decided to put the best fig leaf on it he could
>there's the "stab in the back" angle where Nixon actually achieved America's strategic objectives in Vietnam and then had it taken away from him by self-interested liberals
>anyway, Nixon introduces a policy of Vietnamization, where South Vietnamese forces are again to take the lead in military operations, with the US gradually returning to an advisory role
>he also starts bombing the shit out of the North
>in between 1968 and 1970, combat in Vietnam becomes much more conventional, instead of the guerrilla warfare that is more famous
>this is probably because of some combination of the Tet Offensive wiping out experienced Viet Cong units, Project Phoenix removing the support structure for insurgent operations, and CORDS pacifying the countryside
>a conventional military is a military that needs supplies
>Nixon decides on an all-out campaign against the war infrastructure of the North, termed Operation Linebacker 2
>this succeeds in getting the reds to the bargaining table
>the details of the Paris Peace Accords are what causes controversy to this day
>US forces withdraw while the South Vietnamese military is still in serious trouble and the conflict is still ongoing
>Viet Cong forces (at this point it's just NVA roleplaying as peasant guerillas) are allowed to keep whatever land they control
>Nixon secretly promises the government of the South another air offensive on the scale of Linebacker 2 if the commies start coming again
>the US is supposed to resupply the South on a 1 to 1 basis, any supplies that are lost, expended or destroyed will be replaced
>as the Paris Peace Accords are taking effect, it comes out that Nixon had been having his political opponents illegally burglarized and spied upon
>presidential authority collapses overnight, and Nixon ends up resigning to avoid impeachment proceedings
>Democrats take control of the Senate, and pass the Case-Church Amendment, prohibiting future US military aid to Vietnam without Congressional approval
>in the spring of 1975, the communists launch the Ho Chi Minh offensive
>the oil crisis of the mid 70s is in full effect, and the military of South Vietnam finds themselves without fuel or supplies, when they've been trained in supply intensive American style warfare
>the President of South Vietnam flees the country with the treasury of his country with him
>
>the final offensive is a thoroughly conventional war, spearheaded by top of the line Soviet tanks, and it ends with those tanks rolling through the recently evacuated US embassy
>a lot of people get put in reeducation camps, and the late 70s and early 80s are marked by millions of boat people fleeing the country
>the newly unified Vietnam ends up resembling the South as much as the North, as the lure of western luxury goods overcome the generals of the North, who fly down in military cargo jets and come back with tons of looted marlboros and prada handbags
>Vietnam stays fucked until the early 90s, in part due to the physical destruction of the war, part due to the political repression, corruption and turmoil following it, and partly due to its unfriendly place on the international stage, with the Soviets losing interest, the Chinese going to war with them. and the US unwilling to establish diplomatic relations
Reminder that during this time, Cambodia became the most bombed country in history.
Shouldn't have aided the reds.
>what happened
We incorrectly sided with the South instead of the North.
I'm glad the King is back.
Look at this smart ass commie faggot.
>aiding the red shits
Thanks for this user. If you don't mind answering, Do you know why the Vietnamese people like the United States so much today? I would think that after a vicious war that only happened 40 years ago there would still be lingering resentment between the two countries.
>jungle dwelling pajama wearers
You do know there was near constant trench warfare going on between the NVA and UN forces at the DMZ right? Artillery fire and all the trimmings of conventional war.
Playing hide and seek with the VC in the south may have been the majority experience and it's certainly what most people focus on, but it's not the war in its entirety.
>Today 39 years ago the world's greatest World Power was defeated by a bunch of jungle dwelling pajama wearers
Wow, it's almost like you know nothing about the Vietnam war
Uuugh....
>NVA and UN forces at the DMZ
One such battle;
youtube.com
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>the King is back
The current king is a literal faggot who is too busy dancing to stop his horrifically corrupt prime minister from stealing all the land in the country and pawning it off to foreigners.
telegraph.co.uk
>Do you know why the Vietnamese people like the United States so much today?
Those opportunistic enough made a lot of money during it.
>Vietnam should've been Catholic
you should have been aborted
Cuckolded race
You're the same guy, aren't you? Kill yourself lmao
Because the war wasn't between the USA and Vietnam, the war was between Southern Vietnam and Northern Vietnam with USA supporting the South. South Vietnamese people hate the shit out of northerners to this day, they aren't the same ethnic group or the same culture.
>le samefag argument
Kill yourself
No, my friend.
YOU kill yourself.
>the Americans wouldn't really come to embrace until Tiger Force (a recon platoon of the 101st Airborne).
Here's an interview with Hackworth, the guy who commanded Tiger Force, and his opinions re: losing Vietnam. Worth a listen.
>Vietnam should've been Catholic
They worship Jeanne d'Arc, Pasteur and Victor Hugo as saints now.
en.wikipedia.org
Rarely has a country been so subtly cucked.
Ho Chi Minh once said during the First Indochina War "would you rather smell French shit for 5 years or eat Chinese shit for a thousand."
The Vietnamese feel the same about the Americans.
They simply aren't a very big threat compared to China.
Was this war even worth it? Indochina was lost, Vietnam occupied Cambodia, USA was humiliated. Even with those succeses, there wasn't a full-blown war in Thailand and why would you think, that US hadn't intervened, all of SEA would be lost?
There's a lot of
>le HCM said
stories on Veeky Forums that have no historical basis.
What's funniest of all, is that the only Sino-Viet conflict was a one month border war in 1979 after Vietnam invaded a Chinese ally.
Since then it's been pretty quiet.
In hindsight?
It was not worth it.
SEA was strategically meaningless anyways. But at the time we thought once a Communist regime was in place, it never would fall apart. There was a real fear that Communism was a stable and dominant economic ideology.
>Since then it's been pretty quiet
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
The Vietnamese have been fighting the Chinese for literally millennia.
The US fought them for about a decade.
I'm retarded.
That second link was supposed to be en.wikipedia.org
Their intense hate for China combined with very lucrative business potential with the U.S. heavily outweighs any lingering bitterness over a war that occured half a century ago.
>Not enough bombs dropped
They were secretly dropped in Laos
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the Vietnamese bear little resentment for the Americans, instead focusing it on the French and the Chinese because, you know, GEE WHO STARTED THE VIETNAM WAR for the former and GEE WHO'S BEING A GIANT CUNT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA NOW with the latter.
America did not give a shit if they lost the war. They wanted to make it apparent to the rest of the world that if you converted to communism that the US would engage in a long and terrible war with you. In that way, communism really has to be worth it.
>the world's greatest World Power
wrong
>a bunch of jungle dwelling pajama wearers
wrong
>They did great in the frontlines
wrong
>but they lost at home
wrong
>soldiers being spit on
wrong
>How the fuck did this happen Veeky Forums?
Given that you're a right wing cunt, you invented it as pure fantasy.
>Also I want to know more about the american allies that participated in this war.
South Korea, Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Australia, New Zealand
The South Koreans and Australians were the worst.
Also you should ask about the fucking ARVN.
Even if the home front didn't spit on veterans and vote for people who said they would end the war...
The war was untenable because the leadership didn't know how to fight total war or didn't want to.
There was never an invasion of North Vietnam
There strategy was to sit in the south and try to kill as many commies as possible.
That said, and to be even really fair, China did commit total war against Vietnam several years later and they did not win.
They only way to have defeated North Vietnam was genocide.
who's was the greatest world power at that time then
>They worship Jeanne d'Arc, Pasteur and Victor Hugo as saints now.
The statement itself is contradictory, but wtf.
At least some of them are.
It kinda is because it showed that America is willing to contain the reds.
There are parts of SEA with a strong communist threat such as the Philippines.
>There was a real fear that Communism was a stable and dominant economic ideology.
I don't mean to be mean, but that's kind of a stupid thing to say.
It's more likely they were afraid of how insane it is.
Nice b8, m8.
>There was never an invasion of North Vietnam
I never got why they never tried to invade the North, but then again it might've sparked another world war.
>they did not win
Is that the first time the Chinese have never won a invasion against the Viets?
>who's was the greatest world power at that time then
The issue was famously in dispute if you remember.
That was absolutely part of the problem.
The anti-war crowd and the media itself effectively ended the war.
It was in modern times:
en.wikipedia.org
Technically the Chinese claimed victory but Vietnam still occupied Cambodia.
>Australians
>the worst
What.
They fought in two jungle wars before 'Nam.
They were some of the most effective combatants.
>They were some of the most effective combatants.
And their conduct of war was unnecessarily brutal, unlawful, and targeted at civilians; in this they were exceeded only by the Sorks.
This pic never fails to get me hard
>wah wah wah, bloo bloo bloo war is unfair and people die!
t. you
Based Hack. Steel My Soldiers' Hearts is an awesome read.
Whine more war criminal.
American won the Vietnam war though
>Vietnam
>Catholic
Catholics are a minority in Vietnam. Catholicism as the Vietnamese state religion would be pants on head autistic and enrage a ton of people. Diem was a Catholic with many anti-Buddist policies, and you know what happened to that bastard? He got assassinated. Not even his back, the US, wanted to bail him out. However, even if Vietnamese are different religions, at the end of the day we agree that we're all just Vietnamese.
As a Vietnamese though, the whole war is pretty depressing. It was never America's war to begin with, and all we wanted was independence, not revolution. The real ruler of Vietnam should be a king. I'm not a fan of Commies, but I respect Ho Chi Minh's strive for Vietnamese independence, and I would take commies over the corrupt shitty Southern government any day.
In 1946, this was possible, but as the Iron Curtain descended and perceptions of Socialism thus hardened, even anything close to being anti-colonial was immediately categorized as a Communist initiative.
People forget that the US via the OSS aided Ho Chi Minh resist the Japanese - so much so, that Americans saw him more of a nationalist than communist at the time. Heck, their Declaration of Independence was patterned after the US Declaration of Independence.
Why do you have an interest in history if you're such a sensitive little boy?
Why do you wish to deny the actions of the Sorks and Australians?
How about no.
>It ain't me starts playing
You will hear a lot about why america lost the war. Most of it is bullshit. This narrative of an unwinnable guerilla war is simple wrong. The Vietcong was mostly destroyed and defunct for a good part of the war ( after Tet the Vietcong wasn´t really able to participat in a meaningful way). The other onme you will hear is that no amount of firepower can win against a determined enemy which is also wrong. The USA were simply not rutheless enough to bomb the agriculturial infratsurcture of the north to cause a massive famine. To boil it down the USA lost because of some serious political missconceptions:
1. Due to their experiences in germany they believed that they were able to create prospering and free market oriented democracies everywhere. So instead of applying a more colonial mindset that would have suited them better they constantly expected too much from the south vietnamese army and state. The best example for this is probably how the ARVN was trained as a modern army with a HUGE demand for ammunition etc. As soon as the US cut the life support cord they became completly useless, things actually became so bad that artillery officers charged infantry units for fire support.
2. The trauma
The war in korea really shocked the military establishment and they wanted to avoid another war against the chinese behemoth. This prohibited them to simply attack the north and end the support for the guerilla.
3. The sino-soviet split
The USA took way to long to see that the socialists weren´t a monolithic bloc and that there was huge potential for political maneuvre.
>bombing agriculture when interior lines of supply to friendly third parties
Keep in mind that while there were parties that were glad to stop Vietnamese communism, there were also socialist parties that were glad there was war in vietnam, and sought to prolong it as it tied up US forces in a backwater region. All Chairman Mao needs to do is turn on the faucet and millions of men and arms can replenish any losses. Any war score less than 100% is meaningless.
The more intresting question is if china would have been able to support north vietnam with enough food if their agriculture would have broken down.
The main reason the US lost the war was because the new sensibilities the public had about wars. In South Korea, it was very easy to believe we were the good guys, and the current state of South Korea and North Korea continues to validate that idea. Vietnam, it was a bit harder to do that. And ever since the end of the World Wars, the idea that warring was such a noble thing had been crushed largely, and now was viewed more as a horrible necessity. Finally, the war lasted a long time, so the doubt set in by the previous things were allowed to take hold.
>It ain't me starts playing
>The Vietcong
The PRG/NFL still functioned politically and was not dissipated by Tet.
>The USA were simply not rutheless enough to bomb the agriculturial infratsurcture of the north to cause a massive famine.
Would have required chemical weapons and caused the loss of West Germany.
>they believed that they were able to create prospering and free market oriented democracies everywhere.
This is not the internal position of US cabinets. Ike was real politic. Kennedy was a dilettante playing at imperialism. LBJ simply did not give a fuck about brown boys overseas. Nixon was Ike without the decency to hide it.