We Brits don't know too much about it, generally speaking. But I've always wondered how the Americans could have lost this war. Was it just a lack of commitment, or does it go deeper than that?

This bloke? In reality, I think public opinion meant they couldn't keep up operations.

There were a lot of reasons that caused the US to pull out of Viet Nam.

There were protests in the US, pressuring the government to pull out; the tactics used by the US were ineffective against the Vietnamese, and often turned the 'Hearts and Minds' of civilians away from the US (cf My Lai, Napalm, various chemical warfare weaponry); the morale amongst troops was often low - they were usually draftees, who's only aim was to get through their year of service alive, and in times of combat, over-enthusiastic officers would be 'accidentally' killed by friendly fire (cf 'fragging'). There are a slew of other reasons which I can't remember off the top of my head.

It's very difficult now to win colonial or neo-colonial wars, isn't it? The Brits did it for centuries in various parts of the globe, but insurgency now is much more powerful. See the Soviets in Afghanistan, the French in Algeria, the Portugese in Africa, the Brits in Ireland, etc. etc. This is partly owing to the power of nationalism, and partly the more sophisticated military and political organization of insurgents.

In a sentence;

Westmoreland was playing chess,Ho was playing Go.

I just don't understand why - early in the 'game' - someone didn't say "Fuck it, let's get this thing won, asap"... and then pump in the sufficient manpower. A bit like WW2, I suppose. I mean, I have very-little knowledge of the politics of the era, but if you want to start a war, then you have to be prepared to win it, surely?

Here is the most condensed and concise outline of the events I know of:
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/
It wasn't even a war in the traditional sense. Sometimes referred to as a "police action", but our troops were never free to takes actions that would have made it winnable. Troops basically patrolled at the border just waiting to be attacked. The only actions taken inside north Vietnam was bombing runs late in the war.

1. In the eyes of many Vietnamese, we merely supplanted the French colonialists - same uniforms (we supplied the French after WW2 in our fight against godless Communism), and, for the most part, same superior racial attitudes. (And that was a bad association, given how the French had "pacified" the locals over the past decades, how they forced natives to work the rubber plantations so Michelin could make tires, shipped food out of the country for cash even in times of famine.)

2. Tactically, we learned virtually nothing from the French debacle of the 1950s.

3. We envisioned a monolithic Communist bloc controlled by Kremlin puppeteers, not recognizing the nationalist/anti-colonialist sentiments of the Viet Minh, and ignoring the fiercely independent sentiments of the Vietnamese. Little nuance to the rabid anti-Communism of the 50's and 60's.

It's funny - while in high school, I read a book called The Ugly American, about myopically arrogant American foreign in SE Asia post WW2 - as well as effective techniques for winning "hearts and minds." Reading it now, after studying the Viet War, I'd say it was accurately prophetic for a book written before we even got involved in the mess.

1) Winning was never defined. "Take Berlin." "Hold the parallel." These are objectives a military can accomplish. "Prevent communism." "Free Vietnam." These are objectives they cannot. The military had no procedure in place at the time for fighting a war that could not be won.

2) Genocide. We lost our taste for it. Genocide is a tad of an acquired taste, and America decided it just did not have the stomach to acquire it.

3) We insisted on fighting (we should have been winning). The military attempted to describe the objective as 'how much stuff can we destroy in a fight? The real question was 'what can we do to succeed?' The answer would have been establish security in various sections, establish peace, communicate with locals, paint the Chinese as aggressors and the Northern government as in their pay and collaborators, remind others of any Chinese/Vietnamese racism or nasty past history, publicize the results of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, and attempt to win the hearts and minds of the populace.

4) Agent Orange. Seriously, we sprayed half of it on CROP LAND. They were STARVING. You think they LIKED America? We fucking targeted them in a way that has rarely been done to any nation, ever. They fucking retaliated in kind. They. Hated. The. United. States. Ever seen the Episode of Top Gear where they're in Vietnam? Guy signs on the beach with a stick "Deaf. B52. Bombs. Overhead. This my beach."

5) The B-52. Seriously. That was our high precision weapon. The Stratofortress has one role in combat, and it is to rend all life near its shadow into component parts. 35 tons of ordnance.

Modern equivalent: B1 Lancer. 66 in service.

B-52: 744 produced (77 still in active service)

Operation Rolling Thunder.

There are shades of Vietnam in Afghanistan. I mean, there are insufficient troops there to get the job done. So, why are we fuckin' bothering? We won't win unless we go 'balls out', as we say here. It's just going to drag out until we try to make an honourable retreat. But, in the end, history will view it as a defeat.

The US actually won the Vietnam War.

The US spent about a decade on a peace treaty with North Vietnam. With the treaty signed the US left in 1973 with the war over.

The North started a new war in 1975 and beat the unaided South. This is the war that people pretend the US lost when they show footage of US Embassy Guards, and Marine sent in to evacuate the Embassy, leaving, calling them combat troops.

The US and Allies slaughtered both the VC (who were basically wiped out during the Tet Offensive) and the NVA whenever they were met in battle. Large portions of South Vietnam were basically free of any "communist" influence by the time the US and allies left.

The US's aim was always to get that peace treaty since the only other way to win would be to invade the Soviet backed North, which was obviously off the tables. The US achieved its aim, that's a victory.

The other aim was to show that the US and allies would fight against communist take overs in the SE Asian area.

It was a victory, but sadly left wing hippies (I'm left wing) like to pretend that the US had to flee Vietnam because the VC were beating them badly.

Rome Existed wrote:The US actually won the Vietnam War.

Assuming this isn't a joke, when was the US officially at war with Vietnam?

ughaibu wrote:

Rome Existed wrote:The US actually won the Vietnam War.

Assuming this isn't a joke, when was the US officially at war with Vietnam?

Since when is that required to win?

Rome Existed wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

Rome Existed wrote:The US actually won the Vietnam War.

Assuming this isn't a joke, when was the US officially at war with Vietnam?

Since when is that required to win?

Are you suggesting that a war can be won in the case of there being no war? Presumably you're modelling this statement under a non-classical logic, what logic are you using?

ughaibu wrote:

Rome Existed wrote:

ughaibu wrote:Assuming this isn't a joke, when was the US officially at war with Vietnam?

Since when is that required to win?

Are you suggesting that a war can be won in the case of there being no war? Presumably you're modelling this statement under a non-classical logic, what logic are you using?

The US constitution is not the defining article on what is a war. The Vietnam War was a war whether the US declared it or not.

Rome Existed wrote:The Vietnam War was a war whether the US declared it or not.

In short, there was no war, officially. So, tell me, how does a country win a war which they are not conducting? Or is the winning of the war an unofficial statement issued by you?

ughaibu wrote:

Rome Existed wrote:The Vietnam War was a war whether the US declared it or not.

In short, there was no war, officially. So, tell me, how does a country win a war which they are not conducting? Or is the winning of the war an unofficial statement issued by you?

A war is not defined by it being declared.

The Vietnam war, was, IMHO both a strategic and a tactical defeat for the USA and it's allies.

The first strategic blunder was not identifying Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist, because cold-war blinkers had typecast him as just a communist. The Second strategic blunder was the conflict between the need to woo DeGaulle for his participation in NATO prompted the US to get involved in [formally] French Indo-China.
At the operational level, the leadership was lacking. Generals like Westmoreland were gurus at conventional warfare, and had proved their expertise in WW2. They were not so good at COIN. Yet the US did have some good COIN officers, such as John Paul Vann, but failed to take note of their advice, and failed to promote them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bright_Shining_Lie

The US also pissed about a lot. It should not have supported the RSVN governments, which were corrupt, and did not enjoy the confidence and support of the people. But the US self-deluded itself into thinking it could either reform the South Vietnamese govt, or it just pretended that the corruption was not there.
Tactically, operations involving officers like the US Col. Paul Vann, and allied operations involving the Australian Task force were a better model for winning the war.

Even elite US troops have lost their balance. The balance I am talking about is when to use "rock and roll" and when to use human assets. To try to preserve their soldiers lives by using air or artillery is a laudable concept, but it can be overdone.

Under the British and Australian system, the army uses patrolling to gain information and security. For example, at dawn and dusk, Pommies or Aussies use clearing patrols to secure against attack. The US army tends to use arty, air, or firepower to clear the area surrounding a base preemptively. [That is, to fire into no-mans-land to try to deter an enemy who only might be there]. I even saw a documentary where a US Green Berets used firepower instead of a clearing patrol.

The USA and military did not get the media on board like they did in WW2. Thus, the war was lost before a shot was fired because the public [quite rightly] became too sensitive to casualties in a war it did not understand or agree with. There was just too much hypocrisy and duplicity involved for the American public to maintain it's political will to fight. People soon saw through the nationalistic hype and "Yellow peril", anti-communist propaganda. Not that most Americans loved communism, but they could see from the McCathy era how crazy and obsessed the rabid anti-communists were.