Was Vietnam winnable?

>>34601662
We did do that. Nixon cut a deal with the North. Then he resigned, and Democrats repealed his deal to cut on costs

>>34601662
War is an extension of politics. The politics of the situation was intertwined deeply with Vietnam.

The Vietnam war was an asymmetric hybrid type conflict, and the mistake of the US was to treat it like a conventional conflict. We counted our wins by how high the bodies were stacked, and that is not a metric you win this kind of war by.

Had we stayed in Vietnam to enjoy our "victory" it would have been marked by constant unrest and violent insurgency. With very little direct gain to the US itself while we continued to support the nation at great expense. ASW is won by making the insurgent ideal irrelevent, and we couldn't have done that becuase the USSR would have propped up insurgent forces for as long as the US military was there.

>>34601662
I think the VC would still pose a problem since you really can't fight guerillas integrated into the population without exterminating the population so there are no more guerillas

The North Vietnamese had pretty much exhausted their available manpower with the 1975 offensive. If the democrats hadn't cut funding and prohibited US air combat operations South Vietnam would have survived. It probably would have mirrored South Korea with a corrupt military government that lasts into the 1980s, but that still would have been better than allowing the communists to win.

Basically the dems sold out a people to suit their socialist domestic politics.

>>34602089
>Basically the dems sold out a people to suit their socialist domestic politics

Nice rewrite lol

>>34601662

"Winning" in Vietnam didn't mean anything, and that was the problem from the beginning.

Vietnam is now a relatively major trading partner of the United States, and it has one of the world's fastest growing economies. The war was a massive waste of life, money and time.

>>34601662
>We basically withdrew at the cusp of victory
Not even close. The North was curb-stomping the south at the time you guys were withdrawing. The images of the mass crowds trying to get into that last helicopter and the helis being pushed overboard exist for a reason - people were shit scared of what the north would do to them once they had control -
and they wanted to get out. The North took over the entire area you were trying to protect. That is nowhere near "on the cusp of winning". The US was never close to winning.

If they done linebacker and linebacker II in 1965 and not let up with the bombing of north Vietnam until it was a cratered mess, that probably would have helped. Send SEALs or some other special forces in to Assassinate Ho Chi Minh and destroy the supply, production and food sources of the North Vietnamese and that would help. It still wouldn't mean certain victory - look at Afghanistan - you can bomb the shit out of them and as long as the population think you're trying to tell them how to live their lives in their own land, they will fight you to the death.

>>34602089
You are an idiot.

>Was Vietnam winnable?
It was completely avoidable.

>unite the country under the South
The South Vietnamese government was deeply despised by most of the population.

Yeah but it felt like the entire war was gimped to drag it out was long as possible. Maybe this was the first time we actually saw the let's have a war to make fuck loads of money making and selling weapons to the government because politicians where heavily invested in the company.

>>34602107
>Nice rewrite lol
Clearly your response was the product of an American education.
>>34602196
>Vietnam is now a relatively major trading partner of the United States, and it has one of the world's fastest growing economies.
Correct, but only because Vietnam abandoned the Soviet and Chinese economic models with Doi Moi in 1986. Arguably Vietnam's (and China's) adoption of a market economy are the only reason we see communist political models surviving beyond the Soviet Union's collapse.
>The war was a massive waste of life, money and time.
Only if you believe the simplistic view that there was no value in opposing communist takeovers and draining resources from the Warsaw Pact/China.

>>34602302
>You are an idiot.
After the US congress placed severe restrictions on the executive's power to supply South Vietnam with equipment and funds the Soviets ordered a huge buildup of materiel to support a conventional push into South Vietnam.
http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0001166499.pdf
If this had been countered with the use of USSF to conduct large scale mentoring and training of ARVN units, combined with the use of say a US CAS formation against PAVN armour or logistics depots things might have been different.

The South Vietnamese government was corrupt and self-serving, but the these memes that the north were unstoppable are rubbish. A stalemate was achievable and that's all it needed to be.

>>34601662

>forced the North to the bargaining table on our terms?
We literally did that in late 72 - early 73.

In 1973 the war was literally won. Then Nixon resigned, Dems swept congress, defunded all aid to the South, (the North was still getting aid from china), and basically outright stated they would not lift a finger to help the South.
The North saw this, and invaded soon after, claiming their eventual victory.

This isn't my opinion, this is what North Vietnamese generals have themselves said in interviews.

The fact that so few people know this basic information is mind boggling.

>>34602281
>look at Afghanistan - you can bomb the shit out of them and as long as the population think you're trying to tell them how to live their lives in their own land, they will fight you to the death.
Except that's a dog shit understanding of the war in Afghanistan.
>Comparing a country divided amongst four major ethnic groups and two major languages tied to neighbouring countries to a country with one major language and ethnic group (with some minorities in the mountains) who have always been nationalistic
>Comparing conflict at the height of the Cold War where two super powers supported regimes based on opposing ideologies to an insurgency after an ethno-theological group (Taliban) were removed after 20 years of occupation by the Soviets and then civil war.
>Thinking that loyalties amongst Pashtuns are bought on anything other than whoever will give them the most gibmedats this week
>Not understanding that the only reason the war has continued is because in 2011 Obongo told everyone when he was withdrawing so the Taliban and Haqanni Network just waited until December 2013
>Not realising that with a few thousand combat troops the US could push the insurgents' shit in

>>34603018
This basically. There are even written testimonies from the NVA that the Democrats were funding the North with weapons specifically designed to kill US soldiers. They were even exploring biological options that would only affect Caucasoid males.

>>34601662

The problem is that the vietnam war was taken from a conventional aproach and in the sense of avoiding the expansion of communist influence in South Asia(but seeing what the chinese did after the North won... meh, the US could have done nothing from the start and still get a late win in 1992)

This conflict required not only a military intervention, but also a serious political change in the South, uplifting the living standards in the South, even if it was done artificially, would have starved the North of recruits since people is not communist or capitalist by nature, they don't care from where the bread comes just that it comes.

Of course this would have been seen as an imperialist intervention, pretty much like the British did in Africa and one of the reasons the North went to war the first time was to fight french colonialism, but still, the wrong idea in this war was that you weren't fighting an enemy but rather an enraged population with a deeply corrupt and inefficient tyranny, attack that in a combined effort from the economic, political, social and military viewpoint and at the very least you would have done for sure a bit more than just killing some riceniggers.

That, or starting a genocide.

>>34603018
>The fact that so few people know this basic information is mind boggling.
That's because during the 80s and 90s the teacher's unions and university history departments made sure the curriculum never mentioned this. When most Westerners read the PAVN general's books they can't believe their open acknowledgement of the PAVN fighting in the south, their own vulnerabilities and successes.

>>34603082
Teacher's unions, uni departments and covert communist/Muslim groups like the ACLU and NAACP.

>>34601755
The Viet Cong as a fighting force was broken in the tet offensive.

>>34602281
>Not even close. The North was curb-stomping the south at the time you guys were withdrawing...

I see you don't shit about the vietnam war.

>>34603018
>In 1973 the war was literally won. Then Nixon resigned, Dems swept congress, defunded all aid to the South

and something few mention is at that time the SV economy tanks and to make matters worse they are put under an oil embargo by OPEC.

>>34603018
The Democrats were also paying NVA and Vietcong to kill as many civies as possible using M16s so it would look like Americans did it. Basically every problem in American history can be traced back to their acts of blatant treason.

>>34601662
Absolutely 100% winnable in terms of military aspect.

Not even 5 years earlier the british commonwealth fought their own communist insurgency in maylaya and won - twice.

>>34601662

Should of just glassed it.

>>34601695

This. The US could have fought their way through Vietnam and straight to their capital. Instead the Army sat on its hands patrolling the south and repelling attacks from the porous borders of neighboring countries.

Part of that was because the North Vietnamese were stringing along the idea of a peace treaty, and part of that was the underlying threat of Russia or China posturing to join the war if the US did invade.

So the US got what they set out to do. A peace treaty between the North and South and the reunification of Vietnam later with the promise to support the south if the north broke the treaty.

When the democrats got into power they refused to help when the north invaded again after the US army had left the south.

>>34603162
Ironic too considering they were the ones who started it.