Was it? And how would other Western country fare if they took America’s place? Viet Cong seemed very strong, well-organized and was determined to use every possible means to win. In addition they were supplied by the Soviet and China at that time.
Seems to me The US was the only capitalist country able to fight effetively against VC. The US military never had a military defeat in Vietnam, and the final withdrawl was due to politcal pressure from the anti-war sentiment rather than military defeat.
The United States never had a military defeat in Vietnam but it also never had a military victory in Vietnam. At some point, you have to wise up and stop engaging in a stalemate that was killing thousands of American troops year after year for no purpose.
Not sure I understand the question. France fought the Vietnamese (composed of Viet Cong irregulars, and much more importantly, the Viet Minh/North Vietnamese Army) for some years before the US took France’s place.
Of course Australia and New Zealand participated. But they were there because the US was there. Did they have the power to fight against VC on their own? I don’t think so.
He may mean that a victory has to be more lasting than just allowing your enemy to retreat.
It is difficult to tell what you are asking. We did not succeed in fending off the VC, they won in the end. If you are asking what country had the capability to hold them off as long as we did, then the answer is probably no for any one country. But that presumes using the same strategy that we did.
Clearly the United States was not able to defeat the Vietcong. It tried hard, over many years, and failed. After France had left, most other countries had more sense than to try to defeat what was an indigenous nationalistic movement supported by the mass of the Vietnamese people, and did not really see why the Vietnamese should not be allowed to choose their own destiny, and political and economic system, rather than the one the United States wished to force upon them.
To answer your question directly, of course the United States was not the only nation able to fight. Anyone can fight anyone. Although the US, as the world’s strongest military power at the time, probably did have a better chance of winning against the Vietcong than any other single nation, they were not the only nation able to win (if that is what you really mean) because, after much effort, they did not win. Almost certainly, therefore, no outside nation could have won that war. The Vietnamese people were determined to decide their own destiny and they were not going to let any other nation decide it for them.
I may be misremembering my history lessons, but as I recall, the VC was effectively destroyed during the Tet Offensive (one of the largest tactical victories for the US and their allies in the war). The NVA (different organization, regular troops from North Vietnam as opposed to the VC’s irregular/insurgency type troops from South Vietnam) were the ones who took South Vietnam after the US military withdrew from the conflict.
Going back to the Tet Offensive, it was a huge tactical victory for the US (the VC were effectively wiped out, having exposed themselves en masse and engaged the Americans and South Vietnamese out in the open) but it was in the long run a strategic victory for the Communist forces (VC, NVA, and various other assorted acronyms), partially because the American leadership had been bragging about how the VC couldn’t stage a major attack because they had been beaten so badly by the American forces so far. Basically, the American people lost faith in the American military’s ability to prosecute the war and political pressure to withdraw got much stronger.
History lesson aside, there were various forces from capitalist nations involved in Vietnam, with varying degrees of success. The Republic of Korea (South Korea) sent troops to fight there as well, though I understand they were badly hindered by typically not being able to communicate effectively in Vietnamese or English - a bad combination fighting in Vietnam in support of the Americans.
So, in short (too late), the answer to the OP’s question is “No, the US was not the only capitalist country able to fight the Viet Cong”.
The French Foreign Legion, the most effective military force in the world in those days, was defeated at Dien Bien Phu. This is one of those turning points in history, an unbelievable battle where small determined men in pyjamas hauled mortars up cliffs onto mountain tops and beat the cream of the French military.
France capitulated and pulled out.
Following that the United States sent “advisors” to South Vietnam to bolster up the government. The theory in those days was that the communist infection from the new republic of China would cascade through Asia in a domino effect. If that happened South-east Asia would become red and a giant military block against the forces of mom and apple pie.
That could not be allowed. Thus the USA, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Taiwan sent soldiers to South Vietnam to fight the war.
the battle was a loss, but it was one of the factors that caused the US to pull out of Vietnam, letting the North win the war.
you keep repeating an inane statement. the US lost the war and pulled out of Vietnam, so they failed to “fend off” the VC. you can win as many battles as you want, if you lose the war it’s all meaningless.
England won most of the battles of the American Revolution, and George Washington’s record on the battlefield was mediocre at best (his major victory at Trenton was a sneak attack and he only won at Yorktown because of the French). But England didn’t lose, primarily because Washington overall strategy (keep the army together until England quit) was so brilliant. So winning or losing particular battles is not always how to judge military success, and the Viet Cong were much like Washington, with guerilla tactics added (Washington considered guerilla warfare, though decided against it).
Am I the only one who has this itchy recollection of the US also fighting the NVA? Vietnam was not a straight-up dichotomous conflict where A fights B. The NVA was a legitimate, well-trained army with supply chains and such (Ho Chi Minh Trail…).
From a military perspective, I would posit that we won - the objective (to prevent the Communist takeover of South Vietnam) was accomplished. Until we drew idown (signalling the end of the engagement - basically, we said, “f*ck this… it’s going nowhere”). In an actual full-blown war, the objective would have been to invade the North, blow the hell out of it, and capture territory. The US was very obviously not interested in doing so (for political and logistical reasons). Instead we chose to provide assistance (MACV = Military Assistance Command Vietnam). The US achieved the objective of providing assistance until it was deemed to no longer be worthwhile.