How the fuck the USA managed to lose a war to Vietnam?

stinger missiles?

>they thinks K/D matter

America didn't lose the war in Vietnam

US Media > US Armed Forces > Commie Gook Collection of Armed Forces

>They got blown the fuck out
No, they didn't. The NVA was on the ropes, the VC ceased to exist as an entity, Hanoi and Haiphong were smoldering craters (thanks Nixon for actually doing what the Air Force and Navy had been asking to do for 8 fucking years) and the physical effects of the war are still felt in Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia) TO THIS DAY. The U.S. wasn't BTFO in any measure and the Paris Peace Accords being forced onto North Vietnam is pretty good proof of that. It was hamstrung by politicians in the highest offices, anti-war civilians, and a biased media coverage of the war and unwillingness to support South Vietnam in any way when the conflict resurfaced despite being under treaty obligation to do so.

Please let's not start the semantics HURR IT WAS SOUTH VIETNAM THAT LOST! NURR HURR IT WAS ACTUALLY THE UNITED STATES! The US backed side lost. That's what matters.

War isn't Call of Duty.

>The US backed side lost.

No, the US signed a peace accord with North Vietnam and pulled out of the south. After they pulled out the North Invaded the South again.

It's not like the US decided to take its toys away after they couldn't subdue North Vietnam. The North was happy to go to the bargaining table as soon as the US started bombing Northern infrastructure.

Have you ever been to the jungle?

I've been to that shit. I saw a centipede so big i could hear it walking, even today i can never walk around grass without having PTSD with flashbacks from that abyss monster.

The jungle is fucked up, man.

The US completely failed to achieve it's political objectives.
The Paris Peace accords were a farce to save face.

>but muh bombs
Didn't achieve any political goal.

They went in there mocking their small weewees. But they forgot about the sweetcunts that also live there. #thenamxxx#veterantraumacounsellors

Balance of commitment outweighing material advantage. It wasn't the first time such had happened, and would hardly be the last. Hell, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan is basically the same thing.

The Soviets actually employed more artillery than the Americans did in WW2. Not as effectively on a per shell basis, but on volume of fire, they had us beat out.

>After they pulled out the North Invaded the South again
Two years after.

>It's not like the US decided to take its toys away after they couldn't subdue North Vietnam
Clarify. If you mean that the U.S. didn't pull almost everything out of South Vietnam and stopped supplying them because of people like Al Gore, sr., you're wrong.

>The Paris Peace accords were a farce to save face
No, they were not.

>Didn't achieve any political goal
Achieved the goal of bringing North Vietnam back to the table they had walked away from, which was the whole purpose of the Linebacker II campaign. Do you actually know anything about the Vietnam War or do you just spout the usual myths?

Can you imagine (me) how fn hrny they were, all on acid at the landing, then those sweet bitches all crawling forth... #vetman

Well weapons in general. Soviets gave vietnam plenty of AKs themselves.

we didnt lose we killed the most chinks

historynewsnetwork.org/article/150424

>This was no mere passing doubt. On his first full day in office, he'd asked military, diplomatic and intelligence officials how soon the South would be able to handle the Communists on its own. The answer was unanimous: never. The Joint Chiefs, CIA, Pentagon, State Department, and the U.S. military commander in Vietnam, General Creighton W. Abrams, all agreed that Saigon, "even when fully modernized," would not survive "without U.S. combat support in the form of air, helicopters, artillery, logistics and major ground forces." (Emphasis added.)

Everyone who fought the NVA lost. France, South Vietnam, Cambodia, China, the anti-Commie insurgents, the US-led alliance. They were simply very good at leveraging their strengths and exploiting enemy weakness. In this case, the US government being beholden to public opinion.

The Americans and their Allies at least killed 1 million Commie troops and did way better than the French or Chinese, who were flat-out routed from the country in setpiece battles.

>Achieved the goal of bringing North Vietnam back to the table they had walked away from
Which ultimately makes no political difference. It just allowed the US to walk away less humiliated.

The same way the British managed to lose a war to the American colonists.

Not nuking hanoi

Vietnam War memes on Veeky Forums and /k/

1. We never really tried!
2. HCM wasn't even a communist!
3. We could have nuked them!
4. They were about to surrender!
5. We didn't lose! It was the Democrats stopping the funding!
6. We signed the Paris Peace treaty! That proves we won!
7. McDonald's in Hanoi = Victory
8. Muh Kill/Death ratio!
9. We stopped the spread of Communism!
10. Vietnamese people are pro-American so we won in the long-run!

When the US pulled out, North Vietnam and the VC controlled 40% of South Vietnam in clear violation of the peace treaty.

>or Chinese, who were flat-out routed from the country in setpiece battles.
Chinese controlled about 5% of Vietnam at the end of their operation.

Vietnam lost that war. The real (Southern) Vietnam that is.

>we
What about us non-Americans who think USA didn't really lose?

I don't see the issue with what I posted.

We goes for everyone

South Vietnam was a US puppet state. Not even sovereign or internationally recognized.

Simple we had no home/public support for the war so our moral dropped

We severely underestimated the enemies ability to wage a guerrilla war thus turning into a surprising bloody conflict

And 90% of our tactics were "let's just try and bomb them till they surrender", which all edge aside, wouldn't have worked unless we did drop the nuke

And if you really want to be that assholes yes we never officially declared war on Vietnam, but that doesn't change why we lost (muh tactical retreat)

The Soviets went ahead and did the same shit in Afghanistan

>defeated and broken by the American war machine, Vietnamese soldiers go for a ride around Ho Chi Minh City, former Saigon

>that guy with the phone
"No, this is patrick"

itt: american damage control

>South Vietnam was a US puppet
>implying North Vietnam wasn't a Soviet puppet
Might as well say it was a war between the US and the USSR and the Russians won

Epic meme, bro. Kill yourself.

That was the american perception, which was proved more or less wrong as the vietnamese had their own regional ambitions and remained relevant even after the soviet collapse while being at odds with China since much earlier.

So what? Cuba was also a Soviet puppet that outlived the USSR?

Cuba wasn't a puppet state either.

Yeah it pretty much was.

we won at one point (paris peace accords) but then we changed our mind i am not sure

>B-BUT MUH K/D RATIO

lmoa

Castro set that shit up all on his own.
Sure he aligned with the Soviets, but his position was not thanks to them, nor did it depend on them.

His foreign policy at least was 100% directed by Moscow.

Not the other poster, but you can make a more convincing argument that Cuba was a Soviet puppet as comapred to Vietnam.

But distance matters. The Soviets never had a serious blue water navy that could match the USN, so the fact that Cuba was an ocean away, and that Vietnam was seperated from the USSR by an increasingly hostile former ally matters. Compare that to North Korea, which was a puppet in almost every way.

China had no reason to stop sending troops over the border, american public didnt support the war.

>No, the US signed a peace accord with North Vietnam and pulled out of the south. After they pulled out the North Invaded the South again.
They knew this would happen

Germany didn't lose WW2

DOLCHSTOSS!

>The NVA was on the ropes, the VC ceased to exist as an entity
if this was true then why could the fighting be heard from Saigon for months before the US departure?

US was BTFO in classic way.
Try to hold till the end, until heat came to embassy itself.

Well he was right about VC. They factually ceased to exist by '69 because they were eradicated, after that NVA was responsible for all of the action.

yes, they were blown the fuck out. the anihilation of entire wings of b-52s by SAMs on operation linebacker II were as costly as the battles on the mig alley back in the korean war.

as clausewitz-user pointed out, it was a battle of wills. the paris peace accords is a proof that vietnam was on the brink of extinction as well as the incapacity of the us of using its air power to force anything unto anyone.

how did france and china?

Random fact - i read on a survivalist forum years ago from a Vietnam vet that AK's were pretty rare and that Mosin Nagants and SKS's were (the former) way more common

I was pretty surprised. Always think of the m16 vs AK meme

North: ruled by Ho Chi Minh and his successors, incredibly popular amongst the peasant masses
South: ruled by whatever foreign backed general is most favourable to France/America, only popular with the rich and (sometimes) catholics

lmao this. real life isn't fcking call of duty

This. Honestly while I understand a lot of the points Vietnam war apologists bring up, the K/D argument is inexcusably retarded for several reasons:

1. Many cultures flat out don't value human life as much as Americans do. Americans do elaborate rescue missions for every retarded soldier while the Russians outright didn't give a shit and had a batallion clear a minefield by walking through it.
2. Overall, nothing matters more than achieving the objective and outfragging your opponent in casualties like it's a videogame is hardly ever the objective.

For the same reason they failed in Iraq. Because of the rise of visual media and instantaneous reporting, generals, at the behest of politicians, were forced to adopt strategies that minimize casualties. Soldiers are at their most vulnerable when they're stationary and guarding things or territory, so this meant that forces needed to always be on the move and always be on the offensive. The problem with this is you never actually make progress in a war unless you can hold territory, the troops come in, clear out the area and then move on leaving nobody to hold the hard won objective. All the enemy needs to do is run away and wait for the Americans to leave and then retake whatever town they were fighting over. This has huge morale implications both for the troops who never feel like they're winning anything and for the enemy civilian populations that Americans are trying to win over, because why would you cooperate with the Americans when they're not going to guarantee safety and you just know they're going to leave and let the enemy retake the town?

The only way to really rectify this is to heavily censor wartime reporting like they did in every other war before Vietnam because then the politicians wouldn't be so worried about elections and civilian backlash, which enables them to loosen the reign on the generals.

t. American lindybbeige

>our druggies got an extended trip abroad

Well, Iraq was objectively conquered, Saddam was deposed and executed, and an US-approved government was installed. The fact they pulled out years later is irrelevant. So it's a completely different situation than Vietnam.

>China had no reason to stop sending troops over the border
Is it true that Chink sent troops to participate in the war?

Great meme!

The second term of the Paris Peace Accords is that the NVA and Viet Cong must withdraw from South Vietnam.
And yet the day the US began withdrawing in accord with the treaty, 40% of South Vietnam was in NVA/Viet Cong hands

Wrong

It's obviously incorrect. May have happened once or twice on accident, but the Chinese only provided arms/aid support.

Vietnam was a real Dolchstoß

The army was undefeated,the pople lost the will to fight.

>deseretnews.com/article/46743/CHINA-ADMITS-IT-SENT-TROOPS-TO-FIGHT-THE-US-IN-VIETNAM.html

They sent over 300K soldiers, mainly to bolster the number of North Vietnam. They ofcourse dismissed the claims when US wanted to know if China was involved. However the US intelligence were well aware of their involvement. If they hadn't then America would've easily taken the entirety of Vietnam without much issue.

However, China wasn't there entirely to help the North Vietnam. They were also there to keep Vietnam in check in case they became too powerful. They also were there to keep Soviet Union from building too much relation with Vietnam.

This can be attested with the China invading Vietnam shortly after to prove their point.

>desertetnews

Not a fucking credible source. Kill yourself retard

>Keep Vietnam in check in case they got too powerful
Wow you are so retarded

They were FACTUALLY active until 1975. Kill yourselves you stupid Veeky Forums shitposters

God I fucking hate this crappy board.

Did you forget the whole April 2003-March 2011 part?

Such a success!

>How the fuck did the Mongolian Empire managed to lose a war to Vietnam?

No they weren't. It existed only on paper to give the communists an additional signatory during the negotiations, they got absolutely crushed years before the war ended.

The Americans lost because it wasn't our homeland and most of the war was through guerrilla warfare, giving the vietnamese an advantage, another reason and the most important reason is because they had more will to win, they lost more men but still won because they cared more than we did, it was their home and they would practically all die if it meant gaining liberation from the french.

The US never lost a battle in the Vietnam war. Even the Te Offensive--where scumbag Walter cronkite infamously said that he "did not see how the war was winnable" after that, was actually a resounding victory for the US. The VC.NVA were turned back everywhere. There was, briefly, a hole made in the fence of the US Embassy, and both intruders were killed quickly.

The battle of Khe Sanh which followed was also a complete route by the US forces. As William Westmoreland famously said, the NYT was "the equivalent of a 5th column" and "worth as much as 100 enemy divisions on the field."

Do you know something very interesting? The US has now been at war for 12 years, and there has been no peace movement at all among the public or media or in academia.

Now, why would you supposed that is? I have my own theory, but I'll let people figure out out for themselves.

addendum: Once the press managed to force Nixon from office over nothing (he won by one of he greatest landslides in US history) in began to embolden the NVA, because they were literally terrified of Nixon and saw it as their opportunity to make their move as soon as the concerted case of press harassment managed to push him out of office.

But, the festoon still remains. Why do you think it is that one group in the Usually noted for their cynicism and irreverence suddenly takes their hat hat, begins singing the star-pangled banner and glares at anyone who isn't singing loudly enough? No huge, communist demonstrations for peace in DC, NYC...NOTHING...strange. Almost as if, when the interests on one particular group in the middle east are threatened and Us military action is seen as useful to the ultimate goals of that group, they can call off their dogs.

Very strange.

[Credible citation needed]

Not my problem you're uneducated

>The US never lost a battle in the Vietnam war.

Factually wrong and inaccurate

>ad hominem

Chinese don't want a powerful Vietnam that's aligned with Soviet Union.

This was the during the breakup of China/Russia relations.

No spoonfeeding.

Wait how is Deseret News not credible?

t. not that user

t. idiot who underestimates the Afghan

Look at this: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brydon

Reagan played a small part, thanks to our strong Aryan blood we are basically the best fighters on the planet.

Note: fuck islam and fuck the radicals who got rid of the soviets. Fuck communism too, Afghanistan was best as a kingdom and a republic

It did its purpose of securing support for Johnson in office for the first 4 years of his presidency, what a shitty president.

>Factually wrong and inaccurate
OK, please give the name of a single battle the US lost. an actual "military battle," not an ambush were 2-3 people were killed. You won't find one. Nothing is funnier to me than people who come on here and speak didactically without knowing ass from elbow. Very basic study-- don't speak didactically unless you know something. And you are quite simply wrong.

The first actual "battle" of the Vietnam was was Operation Starlight (originally named "Satellite,"it was mistyped due to a blackout 2 nights before).

I repeat, the US never lost a battle in Vietnam in the military sense of the word where an opposing army stood and fought.

The US never lost a battle in Iraq either.

>hurr durr the guerillas don't count because they make us lose

But they're the reason why you lost the war. You can't just cherrypick the parts of the war where you were successful and ignore the fact that YOU LOST.

Yes, that's right! You lost a war, American! Cry. Cry harder! You lost another one in Iraq too! Cry harder over that.

>Baghdad government still in place

America lost the War on Terror, but won the war on Iraq.

Similar to how America won the Cold War, but lost the Vietnam War.

change the pronoun or substitute with the word faggots

It wasn't exactly a loss. It was possibly even more humiliating. The US got BTFO by a bunch of Southeast Asian guerrilla fighters who were at every disadvantage, aside from being in their home court and being supported by the USSR. The US didn't lose, as much as it kept losing and finally wiped it's hands in humiliation.

>IF they hadn't, then America would've easily taken the entirety of Vietnam without much issue
The Americans never tried to take the entirety of Vietnam, they literally didn't attempt operation too far north as to not be seen as invaders. If the US wanted to occupy all of Vietnam, they could have done it, whether China was sending troops or not.

>The Americans never tried to take the entirety of Vietnam, they literally didn't attempt operation too far north as to not be seen as invaders. If the US wanted to occupy all of Vietnam, they could have done it, whether China was sending troops or not.
The US didn't send troops to North Vietnam because they didn't want a second Korean War, allowing VC and NVA to retreat back into North Vietnam and attack the South Vietnamese border with impunity.

Same with the British, Confederates, and Germans in WWI. By this logic the U.S. is actually pretty bad at fighting symmetrically.

>thinking America lost in Vietnam
easiest way to tell somebody has zero education

Insurgency is impossible to stamp out unless you're willing to cross the line into massacring entire towns, which the US isn't. Iraq's military was destroyed in a matter of days. Longterm occupation of the country was never the goal but that's how it ended up because the situation was so unstable that the country would've collapsed completely if the US pulled out.