Could have USA won Vietnam if they had more public support and

>>2853397
Neither.

The war would really only be solved if USA invaded NV.

But lord knows where that can of worms will lead.

No. US had literally no goal in Vietnam.

US public support is one factor. The other factor is Vietnam public support (which the US didn't have, nor the South Vietnam govt).

What even was the strategy/idea Johnson had behind escalation of the conflict? Nixon's handling makes some sense, while Johnson seems to be all reaction, no action stretched into four years.

>>2853397

Don't trust American statistics, the total armed forces against them consisted of eleven female rice farmers armed with chopsticks.

>>2853397
If the USA lost the war in Korea it would have invaded North Vietnam and pacified the country completely.
There was just no need for it because the authority of captalism was not so wounded.

>>2853397
Public support from Vietnam, yes. Public support at home wouldn't have made a difference.

Staying longer would have only made things worse. In a war like that, you really gotta end the problem before the ongoing killing turns the general public against you and starts empowering folks working against you in surrounding areas. It was less than two years before half the folks shooting us had no ties to the VC, plus the Khmer Rouge, previously a tiny organization with no support, grew like wildfire.

Sometimes there is no military solution. I mean, if the goal had been to just kill everyone there, it wouldn't have been a problem - but the goal was to change the nation and sway it away from communism. Suffice to say, the military is the wrong tool for that sort of goal (not that some of the other tools for that job don't sometimes involve some killing - just considerably more selective killing).

>>2853441
The idea was to bomb the North into submission using a carrot and stick approach. The problem was that Rolling Thunder was all stick. He didn't want another Korea and literally every advisor was telling him that boots on the ground was a horrible fucking idea, but the bombing campaign necessitated U.S. ground troops to protect air bases and escalation pretty well went from there as NVA and VC contingents attacked U.S. forces. If you ever get the chance, the abridged edition of the Pentagon Papers by George Herring is probably the best primary source on the mentality of Johnson during those crucial first few months, including the drafting of a bombing campaign by JCOS. However, Herring leaves out that Johnson proceeded to completely ignore the fucking target list and the schedule for it.

>>2853397
No, considering that we weren't allowed to go into north vietnam due to it probably resulting in war with china.

>>2854508
>considering that we weren't allowed to go into north vietnam due to it probably resulting in war with china
A common misconception, but it is what people at the time thought so it's a fair statement. Contrary to popular belief, we know today that China was doing the exact maximum of what they were willing to do in Vietnam as they weren't in a good enough position to become fully involved militarily. The Soviets are a different story, but considering how many """"advisors"""" they sent under Brezhnev, it seems unlikely that they would become involved in a greater capacity either. Had the U.S. acted sooner, it's unlikely that either would have gotten involved at all as the Khrushchev had no interest in Vietnam and had actually rebuffed Hanoi's aid requests and China was in no position to intervene due to the Great Leap Forward.

>>2854490
>and literally every advisor was telling him that boots on the ground was a horrible fucking idea

Rusk, MacNamara, and Rostow were telling him to escalate.

Hell, Maxwell Taylor was asking for ground troops in 1963.

>>2853397
No.

There's only one way to win Counter Insurgency wars, and only one nation has ever really been totally successful, once; Britain in the Boer War.

The reason the US would have still lost is the media were open season on Vietnam, and the Boer War was won by going to such extreme and brutal lengths - truly 1984 and beyond - that the US would have lost home and international support and politically lost.
Rhodesia is the US's only realistic parallel - using strong COIN tactics (as opposed to conventional warfare used in Nam) to genuinely thrash the enemy, but would have still lost politically like they did. They would have just had a better casualty rate.

How legit are the Vietnamese losses though, and how many of them were actual combatants?

>>2854530

But the fact remains the military wasn't allowed to go into the north.

it was a massive half measure

>we can't conquer them because China
>we can't just do nothing because muh capitalism in Vietnam and muh containment policy
>so let's just sit around on the border for a decade like retards and lose 50 thousand men for notbing

>>2855876
Please don't ever post again. Pretty much everything you said in that post was wrong, outside of the fact that the Boer war was an "insurgency" for some of its existence.

But "lol brutality is the only way to win counterinsurgencies" is simply wrong, which is why groups like the LTTE, the Mau Mau, and the JKLF are all gone; and the Soviets lost in Afghanistan, and the Germans weren't able to put down the Yugoslavian partisans in WW2.

>>2854687
Allow me to rephrase: every advisor that had actually been to Vietnam was telling him that boots on the ground was a horrible idea.

>>2856104
It wouldn't have mattered.

>if we keep killing civilians will they like us?

>>2856159
Er no.

Reason Boer war is the only successful counter insurgency example is literally because they went to such extremes the boers were cowed into submission.
True general brutality doesn't work, which is why there is only this one example where they went beyond all reason with their methods that the soldiers who participated said 'never again'.

Hearts and minds is useful for intel gathering, but it's never won the war anywhere.

>Mau Mau
Brits won the battle and lost the war. The Kenyans had nearly all their demands met. It's like the Rhodesians,who were perhaps the most successful modern COIN of recent history, but still lost politically.

>LTTE
I was unaware of these, so fair enough.
Though preliminary reading shows the Sri Lankan government decided to use full military force "to eliminate the LTTE".
That's moving the goalposts on my part though, so I concede that.

>JKLF
is still active, it just lost a lot of support, especially from Pakistan. And like the IRA which is also still active, it splintered into spin-off factions which still operate.

And I never said by brutality, though granted it was implied. Pointless killing, like the My Lai massacre for an OP relevant example didn't help.

I was just pointing out that the British went to very extreme lengths with the concentration camps and scorched earth tactics and so on. But they were successful at ending the war, especially the insurgency part (relevant as the VC were insurgents) through their extreme tactics. Both Soviets and Germans, and I'll even add the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian war, all failed because they didn't go far enough, so their actions end up only fuelling the insurgents.
Hearts and Minds can work sometimes, but I can't think of an example of it ever decisively ending an insurgency. If you can, please shout out as I'd like to know.


History is littered with examples of mass killings stopping wars or discouraging revolt from conquered peoples.