How come the North Vietnamese couldn't be defeated?

Because China had nuclear weapons and offered them a security guarantee against ground invasion.

That being said, in 1973 all of their guerrillas had basically been killed, which meant they depended on conventional offensives, which meant that the US could basically stop the NVA with a large enough strategic bombing campaign.

It's just that the war was so thoroughly unpopular that Congress straight up refused to enforce the Paris Peace Accords with a renewed bombing campaign.

>>2484035

It's not that they couldn't be defeated, but they couldn't be defeated on the level of commitment of resources and international involvement that the U.s was willing to put in Southeast Asia.

Remember, for starters, that you have the USSR hanging over things, and the possibility of this turning into WW3 if things escalate too badly, the sort of nuclear exchange that will lead to mass devastation on both sides, which nobody really wants over a jungle shithole. That rules out a lot of stuff like "raising an army and just seizing Hanoi"

Secondly, in large part to appease their own domestic base, the U.S. wasn't about defeating North Vietnam, it was about preserving South Vietnam. Unfortunately, the administration in Saigon were some of the most corrupt and ineffective pack of retards to ever assemble, and could barely hold off non-Communist revolts without the U.S. holding their hands. Trying to win a war shackled to those idiots made things pretty impossible right then and there.

>>2484058
>which meant that the US could basically stop the NVA with a large enough strategic bombing campaign.
>It's just that the war was so thoroughly unpopular that Congress straight up refused to enforce the Paris Peace Accords with a renewed bombing campaign.

Yes, that's why the Paris Peace Accords left the NVA in control of somewhere between 20-40% of the country. But it was peace with honor! The war was a draw! It was only refusal to commit LATER that meant the war was lost!

>>2484075
I honestly doubt the NVA could have taken the country with the US bombing the North and supplying the south.

I also doubt that that ever would have happened, being how sick of the war the US was.

>>2484083

That is not the opinion of the pentagon.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/150424

>On his first full day in office, he'd asked military, diplomatic and intelligence officials how soon the South would be able to handle the Communists on its own. The answer was unanimous: never. The Joint Chiefs, CIA, Pentagon, State Department, and the U.S. military commander in Vietnam, General Creighton W. Abrams, all agreed that Saigon, "even when fully modernized," would not survive "without U.S. combat support in the form of air, helicopters, artillery, logistics and major ground forces." (Emphasis added to "major ground forces".)

>>2484094
>Nixon's first day in office

I'm not saying you're wrong, but you got anything from like the mid 70s?

>>2484123

Not with strategic bombardment but no "boots on the ground" projections, I'm afraid. It always seems to be either "Material support but no combat support" or "Full force commitment with the whole nine yards and everything short of nuclear weapons".

>>2484035

US Couldn't Invade the north and refused to invade Laos and Cambodia until there was already war fatigue.

No favorable KD ratio or bombing run is going win a war if the enemy's power base and key supply lines are not destroyed and subjugated.

>can't invade NV, due to WWIII with Russia, China and the end of the world
>can't stop Russia and China from fueling NV, who in-turn fuels guerrilla war in SV
>have to stand around and fight a purely defensive war in SV, against NV, taking on the Soviet Union and China, by proxy