Why did Murica lose Vietnam?

Democracies aren't able to win offensive hot wars without incurring huge amounts of backlash from sectors of the populace who question its validity. Mix in media showing how shit war is and you have a deadly mix.

Plus, I guess on an International Relations level, the US deemed that it was no longer in the national interest to prevent the fall of South Vietnam.

>>1454341
There was little interest in winning

>>1454341
Essentially yes. ABC and hippies lost the Vietnam war.

Because nobody on the home front could figure out why we were there in the first place.

The American people showed a surprising amount of trust and respect for their leadership to even allow the Tonkin Gulf Resolution to happen.

Unfortunately, it is very hard to bomb an insurgency until it runs out of supplies, so Rolling Thunder was strategically ineffective.

In addition, Westmoreland, and most of the other general staff, were totally unable to adapt to the needs of counter-insurgency. CORDS didn't start until 1967.

The US eventually managed to wipe out the Viet Cong, through the combination of Project Pheonix, CORDS, and the Tet Offensive being brutally crushed, but by that time the US government had thoroughly spent its credibility with the public.

The US managed a great deal of success once the NVA became the primary combatant, but South Vietnam simply never got their shit together, a consequence of constant corruption and infighting in their own general staff.

By the Spring '75 offensive, the US wouldn't even supply South Vietnamese forces, there was no oil for the fancy equipment thanks to OPEC, and the US had no intention of bombing the North to thwart the invasion.

>>1454341

The measures we would have needed to take to secure victory would have been unacceptable to the American people. Once it was understood that the US wasn't fighting a conventional enemy and couldn't win, Nixon realized a shift in objectives was in order - namely, using China's interest in the now-destabilized Vietnam to NATO's advantage, which took the form of opening up China to American investment and halting any growth of Sino-Soviet relations in exchange for not giving a shit when China invaded Vietnam, which they did shortly afterwards.

>>1454351
>the US deemed that it was no longer in the national interest to prevent the fall of South Vietnam
Because it was political poison and the country was in a tough economic situation.

The only reason it went on for as long as it did was because of Nixon. Kissinger wanted to pull the plug a lot sooner, even though both agreed it couldn't be done in a short time frame, but couldn't because Thieu had personal assurances from Nixon.

I always got that the US, since Korea anyway, was always looking for some way to continue to maintain it's edge while not wanting to risk actual global annihilation.

This has lead to a number of short, slam-dunk style military operations (Gulf war I, Panama, etc.), and protracted wars against fanatical combatants in historically unwinnable conflicts.

The Vietnamese had a long and glorious history of repelling every invader they had ever been subjected to (Chinese, French).

What happens when an unstoppable military meet and undefeatable foe? A lot is learned, contracts are fulfilled, doctrine is tested, but winning was never an option. This formula seems to repeat with Iraq II, and Afgan "Worked so well for the Soviets" istan.

There might be some holes in this theory, but that is as it currently stands.

>>1454359
>Rolling Thunder was strategically ineffective.
US aerial combat doctrine was terrible, further reducing the effectiveness of both tactical and strategic offensives in the skies
> Westmoreland, and most of the other general staff, were totally unable to adapt to the needs of counter-insurgency
There were several different approaches tried to fight the Viet Cong insurgents, but most were poorly implemented, defeated, nonviable due to South Vietnam's political situation, or outright sabotaged by rival flag officers within the US military

>>1454400
Johnson badly fucked up strategic bombing during his term, but even if he hadn't, when the primary opponent force is insurgents, attacking their supply lines isn't that effective.

Vietnam is more proof that the abundance of rifles and the ease of dissemination of propaganda and communication make annexation of a country by a foreign power basically impossible.