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by zhdc1 1848 days ago
> The Vietnamese won because they managed to inflict sufficiently large number of American casualties that the US lost the will to war. Some folks say wars are won by logistics and not tactics. But it seems that Vietcong guerrilla tactics were far superior to American ones at the time.

It's also worth mentioning that the US had no reasonable way to "win". The threat of Chinese involvement prevented them from invading the north, and strategic air campaigns alone aren't enough when it comes to guerrilla warfare.
2 comments
pmoriarty 1848 days ago
Not to mention that the US had a huge antiwar movement, a widely despised draft, and a media which actually did real reporting on the war.

Without these it's quite possible that the US might have used overwhelming force (like nukes) to "win" the Vietnam War.[1]

[1] - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nixon-want...

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mturmon 1848 days ago
Nixon admits within the tape that he's trying to incite Kissinger, whom he is addressing. Both of them knew the risks of increasing the stakes in Vietnam.

The threat of Chinese reaction to American over-reach was very real. It happened in Korea and the Americans didn't want to repeat that mistake.

The U.S. did try to use overwhelming force in Vietnam. It literally dropped more bomb tonnage on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia than it did during the whole of WWII. It drafted all the men the country would stand. It destroyed one, if not two, Presidents. Still not enough.

I guess the point of my comment is to push back against the suggestion that the US "could have won" except for pesky morals and domestic critics.

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Khaine 1847 days ago
America lost Vietnam because they failed to understand how to undertake counter insurgency operations, they threw untrained conscripts (who didn’t want to be there, and fucked up) into it. They also didn’t care about winning hearts and minds of the local population to drive support away from the VietCong, measuring success by bodycount.

Vietnam massively scared the US military for a long time, only really going away with the massive success of the Gulf War. It is always valuable to get the other sides perspective on a conflict.

Ultimately in a civil war, both sides are usually good and bad, depending on the perspective you take. The vietnam war was no different. It is good to see that the wounds of the war are mostly healed.

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