However he does have pockets of genuine ( for whatever reason, tribal or political ) support. Further there is the issue of propaganda and its relationship to the “defense of the homeland”/“rally around the flag” issue. It is an open question just to how strong such a sentiment might be, but given the relentless deomnization of the U.S. over so many years ( and the propagandistic evidence offered to back it up, like the street-level effect of sanctions ), it is conceivable some may prefer the “demon they know”. Hope not - But ya never know.
Oh, this is actually not true at all. Iraq has been a much fought-over and frequently conquered chunk of territory, actually. It was a major battlefield in several multi-year ( sometimes multi-decade ) wars between the Ottomans and the Safavid Persians just as one example
The difference with Vietnam is more that Iraq is a relatively young and artificial nation. However they do seem to have constructed a certain nationalistic pride, at least in certain quarters ( which doers not necessarily imply a majority of the population ).
The most in-depth professional military analysis of why we lost in VIetnam that I have read is Harry Summers’ On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. It’s been quite some time since I read it, but as I recall he faulted the U.S. for not having any real strategy for victory, instead merely having a kind of “grand tactics” that devolved into the use of the body count as a measure of victory. The crushing irony is that, if the body count had been a valid measure, America would have won. The Vietnamese communists, on the other hand, had a clear and workable strategy: to hammer at their enemy’s weakest point, which was the bond of alliance between the U.S. and South Vietnam.
Summers faulted the U.S. military leadership for failing to recognize North Vietnam as the source of the war, and thus diverting most of America’s military strength into hunting a secondary target, the Viet Cong. The worthlessness of this tactic was revealed after Tet, which all but eliminated the VC but failed completely to end the war in America’s favor. To have won, America would have needed to carry the war into North Vietnam on the ground, which the civilian leadership considered too risky.
Summers also faults the civilian leadership for not producing a declaration of war on North Vietnam.
I do not know to what degree Col. Summers’ opinion may be considered the opinion of the U.S. military. He was retired from the service when he wrote his book.
Interesting discussion, although I’d still like to hear if the Pentagon or the DoD ever released a formal paper on the subject. From my own readings, I draw the following conclusions, some of which have already been mentioned:
The failure, or inability, to carry the war to it’s strategic source. The US was apparently afraid of either (A) a repeat of the Korean War, with an attack or invasion of the North drawing the Chinese into the fray; or (B) A direct threat from the Soviet Union to withdraw or face a nuclear showdown. How realistic such concerns were is debateable, at least in 20/20 hindsight: China was in the middle of the Cultural Revolution upheaval, and getting the USSR involved might have actually motivated them to force a real truce on the PRV. As it was, the US could not destroy the communist forces’ material ability to continue the fight. This left the “break the enemy’s will to fight” doctrine, which meant a war of attrition that the US could only win by the near-genocide of the Vietnamese.
The extreme unpopularity of the draft in America. The older generation of leaders who’d come of age in WWII had grown accustomed to a permanent draft, from 1940 onward. But historically this was abnormal- conscription has only been popular when a clear threat is present, such as in WWII. The widespread resistance, evasion and even rioting against the draft is a time-honored American tradition going back at least to the Civil War. Trying to fight a quasi-imperial war with draftees was a tremendous political blunder on the part of America’s leaders.
The situation in South Vietnam could not have been worse suited for the US. The Vietnamese had suffered extreme exploitation under French colonialism, and the national character was xenophobic from centuries of invasion. The dense jungle was ideal for guerilla warfare. The leadership of the South did not have the popularity the North did, and CIA sponsored coups only made it worse. Ironically, by the time Johnson decided to drastically expand the US ground presence, the “hearts and minds” battle had already been lost.
So how could things have been different? One suggestion was to build an “anti-infiltration barrier”- a barbed wire and minefield perimeter around the South to hamper or cut off the VC’s supply routes. The US should have dropped the draft except in times of declared war, and gone with a professional military. If the South still faced defeat, then Johnson should have gone to Congress and asked for a formal declaration of war against North Vietnam. If the Soviet Union had a fit, then we should have said to them: “you don’t want us to invade them? Then tell Hanoi to stop attacking the South and accept a real peace”.
Well, the biggest and most obvious restriction was that we couldn’t invade north vietnam. There were lots of other, smaller, restrictions - for instance, we couldn’t attack sites where we suspected chinese and russian technicians might be. Fighter and bomber pilots had to sit by and watch a SAM site being built, because they couldn’t attack them because of the presence of chinese technicians - and those same sites would later shoot at them.
We had no clear goal and no clear way to achieve it. I agree with Danimal that Sumner’s classic Clausewitzian analysis of the conflict is an excellent place to start understanding what happened.
There was no strategic goal. Instead, tactical matters became elevated to strategy, strategy became elevated to policy, and policy fluttered loose in the wind.
I am worried to see that the Pentagon has already resorted to body counts in Iraq.
It’s harder to realize a mistaken view, if you grasp a portion of the truth, than if it is totally in error. We viewed the conflict mostly as an attempt by the Communists/North Vietnam to take over the South. There was merit in that view but it wasn’t the entire truth.
Some in the south wanted a change in government, we took the government’s position, and the North supported the rebels. As more and more American troops entered, we became an issue to what was largely a domestic dispute.
The South Vietnamese disagreed as to government or rebel support but there was increasing agreement who they didn’t like and that was us.
I don’t know if it’s true or not but the story is when Gandhi was trying to get the British out of India, they told him their government would be better than the leaders that would rise if they withdrew from the country. Gandhi is reported to have responded that yes it might be true but India would prefer their own tyrant .
To step out of the GD territory that this thread is rapidly devolving to and get back to the OP. The sort answer is No. The slightly longer answer is Not Really.
The full answer is that even during the war there were numerous study groups, command staffs and other groups that were trying to come to grips with the question of why we were “losing”. Immediately after the war, one such group at RAND produced a study (which I unfortunately do not have with me) that analyzed the war. Its conclusion was that the will of the American people failed. Since then, there have been many, many papers and seminars about virtually all aspects of Vietnam. Some of these have been inside the Defense Department or the services, some outside, some (like the RAND study) from government-sponsored research organizations. As Paul in Saudi indicated, these topics are actively studied and debated at the service academies and at the Naval War College (Newport) and Army War College (Leavenworth).
None of these are “the definitive, absolute, final, official” explanation for why the Vietnam War was lost. Many of the various reasons or sides of the debate are addressed above. From my experience (I was a civilian naval historian), the various views you might find in the military or DoD are adequately represented.
In short, the Vietnam War continues to be a debated subject.
Whew. Thanks for explaining Paul in Saudi 's references. I had confused “Newport” with “Portsmouth”, and was wondering exactly what kind of colorful career had led him to spend time in both Army AND Navy prisons discussing war strategy…
To expand a little bit on the “hearts and minds” issue. America never had any chance to win that battle. Our troops would move into a village, dispense food, medicine and other goodies, and then pull back, leaving the village to the mercy of the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong, needless to say, dealt rather savagely with any village elders who evinced any sympathy for the USA. According to one anecdote I encountered:
The only solution to such tactics would have been to leave the hamlets we wanted to win permanently garrisoned - which would have made them magnets for VC attacks in which the inhabitants would inevitably have been decimated and dispossessed. Even if US soldiers had all been saints and none had ever deliberately hurt any civilian (which, of course, was far from the case), our presence there could not fail to be harmful, and thus resented.
I would add to Tamerlane’s excellent post that there are probably many Iraqi’s living now, in fact all circa 69 or older, with memories of being part of the British Empire… Iraq was part of the the Ottoman Empire from 1638 until that empire collapsed after World War I. The British then ruled Iraq until it was granted its independence in 1932.
