Was Vietnam winnable?

They were beamed up to safety shortly after US forces withdrew from South Vietnam

The problem is

>Chinese have nukes
>Mao is not afraid of nuclear war
>the last time US troops brushed up against the Chinese border, half a million screaming Chinamen drove them back
>Laos and North Vietnam border China
>Laos and North Vietnam are where the enemy is located, and the borders between there and South Vietnam are so porous as to make containment impossible

and, as pointed out, South Vietnam was too survive against North Vietnam without a constant infusion of fresh American blood.

In order for the US to win in Vietnam, the South would have to shape up, or the North would have to give up.

Neither of these things were directly within American control.

*too weak to survive

China would never allow it

Underrated

> Was Vietnam winnable?

Sure, but it required showing the Vietnamese (not just telling them lies) that siding with the West was a better deal then what the Communists were promising them.

telling them that siding with the West was a better deal would be a lie tho

I'm wondering too. Maybe deserting troops figured that military issue boots would give them away.

> t. edgy jr.high "communist"

They ended up siding with the West anyway.

The Republic of Vietnam was definitely a weak, illiberal authoritarian shithole that the US pushed with all its propaganda might a lot of what the US predicted would happen if it fell ended up true. I'm sure the 1.5 million people sent to reeducation camps and the several hundred thousand that died simply trying to sail away from the commies can attest to that.

The Communists won in Vietnam because the majority of the Vietnamese people believed them over the West.

A vague question gets a vague answer. YES

>hahaha people in France drive German cars so Germany won both world wars hahaha xDdxDxd

Yes, and the Vietnamese won.

t. Charlie

Can anyone explain to me what the point of that war was? Like seriously, Vietnam was and is completely irrelevant. Why would a superpower get involved directly?

Domino theory

> Can anyone explain to me what the point of that war was?

To prevent S.Vietnam from going Communist.

> Like seriously, Vietnam was and is completely irrelevant.

Containment. If S.Vietnam went communist, then Laos and Cambodia would go communist, followed by Thailand and so on.

The Cold War was mostly a sting of successes for Communism (Russia, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, ect.) and it was only until the Triumvirate of Reagan-Thatcher-Pope John Paul II came on the scene that this was halted and finally reversed with the Fall of the U.S.S.R.

From the perspective of US policymakers, the US was getting the shit kicked out of them in the Cold War and if they let another ally be taken over by communists, they'd be in serious risk of major countries like Japan or Italy deciding that the US couldn't protect them any more.

It seems crazy now, but the early sixties was nothing but continuous bad news for the US, and policy makers were desperate not to lose anywhere else.

Absolutely. All it takes is the United States not being assholes. Compare the clusterfuck of the Vietnam War with British experience in the Malayan Emergency or even the earlier American experience in the Hukbalahap Rebellion.

from a military standpoint, yes.
from a political standpoint, fuck no.

They may have helped, but the Communist states were in a state of either decline or de-commieication for decades by the time they came to power, even if they were able to make a couple territorial gains by the end. All Reagan did was perform the mortal combat finishing move.

I wrote a long-ass paper a while ago comparing the Malayan Emergency to the Vietnam War, let me give you the upshot

>Malaya was governed by British people, using institutions designed by British people
>South Vietnam was governed by a shitty Catholic klepto-oligarchy and a series of revolving door generals, using institutions designed by the French
>everything that the British tried in Malaya worked fairly well, because the British had committed to good government and devolution of powers, and the federal, state, and local administrations all worked reasonably well
>everything that the US tried in Vietnam turned into AIDS, because every layer of government was corrupt and the only thing option that the US had to change the situation was to have another coup, which would only make things worse
>the insurgency in Malaya was concentrated among ethnic Chinese, who were a bunch of poorfags out in the jungle, the majority of the country was ethnic Malays who hated both Chinks and commies, and jumped at the chance to join the security forces and keep commies out
>the insurgency in Vietnam was Vietnamese people, who were the entire country
>Malaya bordered Thailand, where communism was legal, but which was not a communist state and sometimes even cooperated with the British on crackdowns
>South Vietnam bordered North Vietnam, which was actively communist, and Laos and Cambodia, which allowed communist forces to travel from North Vietnam, through their countries, and into South Vietnam
>the PRC considered the Malayan insurgents to be worthless fuck-ups, and the USSR had no contact with them at all
>North Vietnam bordered China, and the USSR and PRC stopped bickering amongst themselves to ship supplies directly from the USSR, through China, and into North Vietnam, where they would show up with South Vietnamese insurgents, by way of Laos and Cambodia

Shittiest analysis ever.

Fuck, it got me a 96.

What'd I do wrong?

>the British had committed to good government and devolution of powers, and the federal, state, and local administrations all worked reasonably well
This really cannot be understated. The French really are the most retarded of all colonial masters.

Seemed pretty solid to me

Could it be won? yeah
Should it be won? nah

America should learn to choose their battles wisely.

When saigon fell southern troops ditched their uniforms because they thought they'd be killed or arrested if it was found out they had been ARVN

Not without an entirely new South Vietnamese governmental system with a real democracy

And plus Nathan,propping up an unpopular corrupt dictator in the South certainly did not help either. Even after Diem was assassinated that still didn't help with the issue of the South Vietnamese government. Also it was a wasteful endeavor. Vietnam was unified under a communist state but the retarded system had to reform itself either way and by the 1980s, Vietnam was already dabbling in Chinese style reforms a decade later after the reunification of Vietnam.

>South Vietnam shouldn't be protected or supported
>communism and the power of the Soviets should be allowed to progress unchecked

Korea was a different situation in that both America and the Soviet Union could be seen as liberators from the colonial oppressor: Japan. In Vietnam their anti-colonial struggle was spearheaded by the Viet Minh and the communists, while the southern regime was associated with French colonialism, which the Americans very obviously sided with. In other words the people of Vietnam wanted their genuine independence and didn’t trust what they saw as a collaborator regime in the south to deliver to to them. Instead they sided with the person who had devoted his life to the Vietnamese nation and its freedom and actually fought to achieve it. America was basically competing with Vietnamese George Washington.

4 days after JFK's death LBJ signed an order reversing Kennedy's decision to scale down the war following the recommendations of the McNamara-Taylor report, LBJ decided to escalate the war

Absolutely, in fact if the US had not abandoned South Vietnam and Cambodia after the Paris Peace Accords than you I believe you could have argued that America had "won" by preserving South Vietnam's existence. I believe if America had kept its promises to keep supplying aid and support for South Vietnam than the North would not have tried a major offensive to push for unification.

The problem facing the Saigon government and ARVN wasn’t a lack of equipment, it was a lack of support among the population and total lack of motivation among their soldiers. The exact same reason the Iraqi army collapsed in front of ISIS in 2014.

I don’t think so. Once every person in the country becomes a potential enemy i don’t think a war is winnable. Partially why I think the US is still in the Middle East

No it's because it's real Islam Isis is Real Islam. The Iraqi Army surrendered because that's what Islam does its surrender to Isis. It's not that hard it's really simple Islam makes them do it because their holy book The Korean tells them to kill the infidels and make people submit to Allah.

LBJ was a real cocksucker

TAKBIR!!!!

An overwhelming majority of the population very clearly favored the north, it doesn’t matter how much aid you send when only a select few want it

At first it was about France preserving their colonies (Vietnam) after losing them by being conquered by Nazi Germany and the world map shakeup of WWII.

But since it wasn't the 1800s anymore with spear chucking jungle barbarians vs. European professional armies that wasn't so tenable anymore and the French (along with US assistance) through in the towel.

Then it was about nation building and preserving western hegemony.

It became apparent that the Vietnamese nationalist rebels that were going to make a Vietnam for the Vietnamese people were also radical socialist/communist. The U.S. said "fuck that" and tried to stop the global appeal/spread of "communist" economic-political systems by inventing South Vietnam from their butt out of the remnants of the French colonial area in the South.

So the war was actually literally a police action like they say. The nation building attempt to manufacture a pro-capitalist pro-west alternative state was failing miserably. People liked Ho Chi Minh and socialist/nationalist Vietnamese rebels. The U.S. was called in to fight internal insurgents against the unpopular South Vietnamese puppet government and they couldn't even succeed at that. Apparently evil foreigners dropping bombs on villages does not make the local government more popular.

From what I read the North preformed several small attacks to gauge US commitment. When they saw that the US had pretty much abandoned South Vietnam they knew they could launch full scale operations. If America had shown commitment to defending the South Vietnamese government I don't think the North would have invaded like they did even if what you are saying is true about the support from the population.

>An overwhelming majority of the population very clearly favored the north
source: your ass

They probably would have gone back to their old tactics of supporting geurillas in the south and gradually escelating. By that point they would have known that the US wouldn’t have sent troops again, and I doubt the south would have lasted in the long run even with US support.

Source is the fact that the North was able to operate effectively in the south at all. Guerrilla armies can’t operate without local support. Furthermore anti communist resistance after unification was basically nonexistent.

The NVA controlled a third of the country when we withdrew.

It's not fair to say that the Paris Peace Accords were 100% fig leaf, but even in 1973 everyone knew that it was more likely than not that South Vietnam was toast.

Honestly, no. The south Vietnamese government was so broken and corrupt it was a drain on the US to try to support them. Without US support, the south Vietnamese government collapsed back to the north.

He's right. Find evidence to the contrary if you think that's wrong.

Didn't Uncle Ho make overtures towards the US seeking support for a state led by him? And then only after being rebuffed did he really buy into the dream of a fully gommunist Vietnam. I remember hearing that from one of the earlier episodes in the Ken Burns Vietnam doc. The idea that Ho Chi Minh would have sold out to the US as a freedom fighter had US supported Vietnamese efforts to break away from colonialism seems questionable to me.

Ho thought that because they were allies during the war the US would support their bid for independence, but he was still a communist even though he was also a nationalist.

>operate effectively in the south
>effectively
It wasn't effective. Why did Tet offensive fail so utterly hard if most of the people supported North like you claim?

>find evidence to something claimed without evidence
You first.

The Tet offensive failed because the VC tried to transition from a guerilla force to a conventional force, and got BTFO in combat. The main function of sympathetic civvies in a guerilla war is to provide a logistical and intelligence network without which they couldn’t function. It doesn’t magically give them the ability to overcome superior technology, equipment, and firepower.

I thought ho never really bought into communism at all, he just used it as a way to unite the people because it was the most favored system? He seemed like he really did just want to see an independent vietnam, no matter how he got there

FDR’s death really screwed their movement before it even started.

>Tet offensive
>VC
It was mostly PAVN you fuckwad, the only thing Viet Cong did during the offensive was massacring civilians especially in and around Hue.

>tfw FDR died
>tfw Wallace didn’t become prez
>tfw Kruschev didn’t join NATO
>tfw the US and USSR didn’t disarm and engage in jolly cooperation to the moon
>tfw they didn’t collaborate to determine the best system through peaceful means

Guerillas trying to assault a major powers base with superior firepower will always lose. There’s a reason the war went on for another 7 years, because the people so desperately wanted to kick the Americans out.

>Whether by accident or design, the first wave of attacks began shortly after midnight on 30 January as all five provincial capitals in II Corps and Da Nang, in I Corps, were attacked.[82] Nha Trang, headquarters of the U.S. I Field Force, was the first to be hit, followed shortly by Ban Mê Thuột, Kon Tum, Hội An, Tuy Hòa, Da Nang, Qui Nhơn, and Pleiku. During all of these operations, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese followed a similar pattern: mortar or rocket attacks were closely followed by massed ground assaults conducted by battalion-strength elements of the Viet Cong, sometimes supported by North Vietnamese regulars.

Either way my point stands, since both the PAVN and the NLF used the same tactics.

thats not even the point he was making you stupid asshole.

The entire point of Tet was to trigger a popular uprising all around Vietnam, and this never happened. Why? I'll tell you why, because the commies weren't nearly as popular as you think they were.

I guess my definition of winnable is different. I am looking at "winnable" for the US as an acknowledgment from the North of the South as a legitimate state and international actor. I'm not saying the accord was a complete dropping of arms and that it meant no one would try to undermine the other, but I see it as a victory in the way the Camp David accords were a "victory" according to Israel, in the sense it was a signed international treaty that they could sign with recognized authority from a hostile party. I'm sure guerilla tactics sponsored by the North would have continued but imho I think that opinions towards the South would have changed for the better the longer it would have existed, and since guerilla based warfare takes longer than direct warfare, I think there is a good chance that the South could gain enough popularity or indifference to prevent total internal collapse.

I'm sorry if I am coming off as arrogant, it's not my intention.

Then why was there no postwar resistance to the communists? Why did the PAVN collapse as soon as any pressure was put on them?

>PAVN

Meant to say ARVN.

>You first.
It's a known fact. I don't even know why you're in denial. So I'm not going to put effort in.

But the fact the promised 1956 elections for a government for a Vietnamese State had to be scrubbed by the CIA and the puppet government in the south, since it was clear Ho was going to win, is a big sign.

Also the fact the majority of battles fought were in the South Vietnam territory fighting people like the "Vietcong". AKA local rebels, not north Vietnamese military in pitched battles on the border a la the Korean war. You don't spend decades swatting violent internal insurgencies if you're popular.

>Then why was there no postwar resistance to the communists?
Because the US refused to support anti-communists.

I mean, the odds of South Vietnam surviving in any form after a US withdrawal were already viewed as remote when Nixon assumed office in 1969.

Nixon gave them every possible chance, but it was always a long shot.

To simplify it to a stab in the back is going too far.

>"Vietcong"
>Find evidence to the contrary if you think that's wrong.
>Military aid given to North Vietnam by the People's Republic of China[246]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_PAVN_strategy,_organization_and_structure#VC/NVA_use_of_terror

>But the fact the promised 1956 elections for a government for a Vietnamese State had to be scrubbed by the CIA and the puppet government in the south, since it was clear Ho was going to win, is a big sign.

Because the N.Vietnamese elections that were 101% for the Communists was totally fair...

America took over the jobs from the frogs to appease them
accepting Ho's overture was very juicy but could alienate the frogs,overall it's hard to read about what would happen if things change

>Fast forward to 2018
>Afghan government is negotiating with the Taliban
America learnt nothing.

The planned elections weren’t like the single party elections in the North. There would have been a referendum on whether Ho Chi Minh and his party or Ngo Dinh Diem and his party would form the government of a united Vietnam, and every indicator showed that Ho would have won in a landslide. He was a national hero by that point, a longtime advocate of independence and a wartime leader of the anti-Japanese and anti-French resistance, whereas Ngo and the entire southern government had been set up by the French and were seen as collaborators. He was Vietnamese George Washington, and there was no competing with him.

Insurgencies are very hard to beat.

>He was Vietnamese George Washington

That must be why a bazillion Vietnamese fled to the south when the Commies took over the north?...

There was an exchange both ways m8, overall the North actually had a higher population, and during the period of partition there was free movement between the two countries. The North also deliberately send thousands of demobilized Viet Minh to act as sleep agents in the South.

Vietnam only went communist because France refused to grant them independence after WW2.

Vietnam could have become a US-aligned country in 1950 if Foster Dulles wasn't retarded.

The point you’re ignoring is that there were shit loads of Vietnamese who didn’t care for Ho and weren’t cool with communism.

And while S.Vietnam and the U.S. could have and should have done better to present the people with a better option, that’s not easy to do when you lose half your country and population and are subject to a violent insurgency.

> Vietnam only went communist because France refused to grant them independence after WW2.

Jane Fonda, please. Ho Chi Minh had been a Communist from his youth and the Communists were never going to allow honest elections and representative government, communism was the plan all along.

> Vietnam could have become a US-aligned country in 1950 if Foster Dulles wasn't retarded.

At best, Vietnam would have played the “non-aligned” game like Yugoslavia or India but communist insurgencies would have absolutely staged out of Vietnam into surrounding countries, as that was the nature of Communism

I’m not denying that the South had some support, I’m just saying that it was far less than the support for the North.

>Da Nang

We're back, baby!

>Vietnam was and is completely irrelevant
The Japanese would disagree.

if Nixon won the 1960 election against Kennedy and had been the one to take the US into Vietnam. Because Nixon was a maniac who'd have done literally anything to win, just like the North Vietnamese leadership were.

Only two things determined the outcome of the Vietnam War, Resolve and Accountability.

The North Vietnamese central committee had unlimited resolve, and also had zero accountability. Le Duan answered to literally nobody so he could do whatever the fuck he wanted with the war, and if people questioned anything about the war they went to prison or got murdered. And they won, they got what they wanted from the war, a unified Vietnam.

The US had seemingly little to no resolve, and also had a comparatively massive amount of accountability. The US government had to answer to the country, and people went fucking apeshit over the war, they went through like 4 fucking presidents during the course of this impossible war nobody wanted, one got murdered in office (JFK obviously not due to opposition to the war) By te time they got Nixon, who actually bombed the ho chi min trail etc, it was already over so he dragged them out.

certainly not an unfounded fear though, gommies love retribution killings

Pretty common for any army that loses. Didn't work too well for ol' Oskie.

>tfw Ho Chi Minh could have been SEA's very own Tito
>tfw Vietnam could have been the Asian Yugoslavia

how did we fuck up so bad bros

>Vietnam still hated China on the DL even tough they supported them in the Vietnam war
>Vietminh were clearly uninterested in joining in the Comintern faggotry alliance
>Vietnamese literally only cared about Vietnam

kek his distinctive look fucked him in the end

>when you war criminal looks like the exact sort guy to do that shit

he looked like a rapist pedophile and an unemployed supply teacher

Good thing commie country would only affect the irrelevant SEA countries
The Philippines,Malaysia,Singapore and Thailand and Indonesia would never sway to commie ideals

Indonesia almost did. There was a huge fucking black operations in that country during the Vietnam war to prevent that from happening.

There were three types of people who came to the south:
1. Christians aka "God has gone South". Vietnam while it was still a monarchy had been destabilized by Christians and the kings could only ban Christians from entering the country. They knew when the Viet Minh came to the top there would be nowhere to escape from punishment for selling the country to French
2. People who generally believed the country would be united under Ho and his party
3. Poor people who were looking for jobs and such since the north was also devastated by constant wars (French and Jap)
People keep saying this but they have no idea what kind of people and why they move to the south

>Ho Chi Minh had been a Communist from his youth and the Communists were never going to allow honest elections and representative government, communism was the plan all along.
Ho was a nationalist first and commie second, even the USSR didn't really like him because he wanted to liberate his country first
Ngo had literally zero chance to win election even if Americans pointed guns at every single citizens because he did jackshit. Really he thought that faking the result would make people believe in him. Pol Pot would agree with Ngo though