Could America won the Vietnam War?

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The issues in Nam were two fold:
1. The USA government didn't have clear objectives, so they would have been forced to flee eventually since "stick around killing insurgents forever" isn't viable. Something they forgot after the first desert storm.
2. The USA army allowed journalists in, who proceeded to tank moral and absolutely fake controversy for political/career goals:

Did you know that the guy being executed isn't a civilian, but a monster that murdered an entire family including the children and the grandma and then tried to disguise himself as a civilian? Because USA media doesn't care enough to punish the subhuman who took the photo who knew how it will be perceived.

 

[Smug]

 Could they have? Fucking easily. They had nukes which they decided to not use. Whether they should have or not is a whole different discussion, but if they really wanted to they could have removed that country from the map entirely.

 

[Serbian Peacekeepers]

Even if the US won and beat the north, i feel like it would have been like Afghanistan, where the new Vietnamase government wouldn't actually be able to survive without the full support of the USA, and the instant the US started to pull troops out it would start to collapse.

 

[MadStan]

Highly unlikely.

The goal of the offensive in the first place was based on an incorrect notion, ergo the intended outcome from the onset was always an impossibility.

 

[AgendaPoster]

With relative ease, although it's good that it lost.
America could've leveled all the population centers in NV and put its economy to work like in WW2.
The problem with the Amerifats is that they are superficially bound to liberal, humanist ideals. So their leaders are nearly always trying to be the "good guys", at least for that era. Fighting communism! Fighting Nazis! Fighting Soviets! Fighting terrorists who hate us for our freedoms!
It's all allegedly righteous and for "freedom and democracy", which is a lie, but it does have decent infiltration in normie populations.
So when a war is not won fast enough, casualties mount, and the press starts to posts footage of dead civilians and "our boys" get home with missing legs and arms, the normies get restless, they become hippie leftoids, and try to sabotage their own country, which they naively expected to conform to some liberal principles - "Hey they firebombed Dresden but those were Nazis! Hey we nuked 2 civilian cities but those were fascists and we didn't want our boys to die!".
So in all conflicts, America is caught between maintaining its benevolent liberal hegemon image and the dire reality of war. That means that if it can do surgical, from afar strikes, and when the media only has to show columns of Abrams tanks and Iraqi cities in fire while ships hundreds of miles away launch rockets, it's all good. But the longer it drags, the larger the possibility some Glenn Greenwald nerds start seething about war crimes, and from there it's only a matter of time until Amerifats have to leave.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

The issues in Nam were two fold:
1. The USA government didn't have clear objectives, so they would have been forced to flee eventually since "stick around killing insurgents forever" isn't viable. Something they forgot after the first desert storm.
2. The USA army allowed journalists in, who proceeded to tank moral and absolutely fake controversy for political/career goals:

Ver archivo adjunto 4506014
Did you know that the guy being executed isn't a civilian, but a monster that murdered an entire family including the children and the grandma and then tried to disguise himself as a civilian? Because USA media doesn't care enough to punish the subhuman who took the photo who knew how it will be perceived.

There's an article then American Thinker published about that photo.

Another Pulitzer Prize discredited as propaganda

Remember all that political hay the far left and its media allies made during the Vietnam War about the wickedness of America's South Vietnamese ally and the importance of abandoning that country to the communists? Here's the Pul...

www.americanthinker.com

March 6, 2023

Another Pulitzer Prize discredited as propaganda​

By Monica Showalter

Remember all that political hay the far left and its media allies made during the Vietnam War about the wickedness of America's South Vietnamese ally and the importance of abandoning that country to the communists?
Here's the Pulitzer Prize–winning AP photo that was supposed to prick our consciences and make us turn against that "immoral" war against a communist takeover:

There's no doubt about it, the photo is hard to look at. It's crude, rough, wartime justice, a picture of South Vietnamese Police Captain Nguyễn Ngọc Loan coldly executing Viet Cong Captain Nguyễn Văn Lém. The film is even harder to look at.

It ran on the front page of the New York Times, cropped from the original to fill the space and make its impact even more immediate.

And it got the results the anti-war left wanted: public sentiment abruptly turned against the war as a result of this photo. The Vietnamese people were abandoned by the Americans, whose cut-and-run evacuation from the Saigon embassy rooftop was only recently bested by Joe Biden's Afghanistan pullout. After that, the re-education camps rolled in, the boat people launched into the high seas, and the killing fields of Cambodia began.

Jane Fonda must have been so proud of herself.

Just one problem, though: The context was missing, and that context mattered.

The guy who got shot, who went by the nom de guerre Bay Lop, was a death squad psychopath in the Viet Cong who had just gotten done massacring 34 innocent people.

 

[Strix454]

Could there have been a way for the United States, South Vietnam and allies to beat back the Viet Cong and to prevent the North Vietnamese invasion in 1975?

Probably not. Contrary to usual mythology, the war ended in 1975 because North Vietnam launched an all-out conventional military invasion of South Vietnam with tanks, artillery, SAM systems and just about every weapons system the Soviet Union could supply them.

The "Viet Cong" in the sense of an insurgency threatening South Vietnam was effectively beaten in 1968. They were still around after 1968 and still caused trouble, but the military threat to South Vietnam after 1968 was the North Vietnamese Army.

North Vietnam also launched an all-out conventional invasion of South Vietnam in 1972 after the US ground troops were effectively gone. That invasion was only stopped because the US was willing to go all the way in terms of the use of air power and willing to give the South Vietnamese whatever they wanted in terms of replacement equipment. They mined the harbors of North Vietnam, they destroyed the transportation infrastructure with the first generation smart bombs and really put a whole lot of hurt on North Vietnam. And they used everything they had. It wasn't the "playtime" air war of 1965-1968 over North Vietnam.
But even in going all the way, the US and South Vietnam were not able to take back all the territory lost to North Vietnam in 1972. The North Vietnamese Army was after 1972 parked within South Vietnam at multiple critical points.

If the US had been willing to react in 1975 the way it had in 1972, North Vietnam might have been stopped. But that wasn't possible politically. And even then, the whole thing would have just continued onward until a time when the US wasn't willing to make that total commitment and South Vietnam was going to fall.

There were only ever three ways to end the war:

a) Creation of a South Vietnamese Conventional Army strong enough to defeat the North Vietnamese Army
b) A deal with both the Soviet Union and China that ended their open-ended military support of North Vietnam.
c) A US invasion of North Vietnam which would have led to a Chinese intervention and the same sort of ending to the Vietnam War as the Korean War had.

And none of those things was ever really possible for various reasons.

The best theory today on why the US went fully into the Vietnam War in 1965 was that it was a gimmick to keep Vietnam out of the headlines long enough to get Medicare through Congress. There was under Johnson never really a US national commitment or even any sort of rational plan for what to do in Vietnam other than keep it quiet. Its the kind of thing that happens when a bad man (Lyndon Johnson) and the party that follows him gets too much power as happened in 1964.

 

[A-Stump]

The NVA were handed a win because the American public were getting busy smoking weed and fucking niggers. Losing 1.1 million soldiers is in no a way a win under most ordinary circumstances. In comparison the US lost around 58K while South Vietnam lost I think like 200K. I have no doubts in thinking another Korea could have arisen from Vietnam but again, people decided war was gay and that's fine.

 

[SIMIΔN]

The issues in Nam were two fold:
1. The USA government didn't have clear objectives, so they would have been forced to flee eventually since "stick around killing insurgents forever" isn't viable. Something they forgot after the first desert storm.
2. The USA army allowed journalists in, who proceeded to tank moral and absolutely fake controversy for political/career goals:

Ver archivo adjunto 4506014
Did you know that the guy being executed isn't a civilian, but a monster that murdered an entire family including the children and the grandma and then tried to disguise himself as a civilian? Because USA media doesn't care enough to punish the subhuman who took the photo who knew how it will be perceived.

Close, one of the nine year old's he shot twice played dead and survived to testify against Nguyen Van Lem.
The kid actually grew up to be an Admiral in the USN.

 

[thx1138]

If your whole strategy is winning through attrition, but the enemy is replacing losses at a 3:1 rate, then you aren't winning.

At the end of Tet they didn't have the manpower reserves to do that. Vo Nguyen Giap said as much. They were tapped out, and the Vietcong had ceased to exist as a fighting force (this was partially on purpose, as the Vietcong had gotten out of hand and the government in Hanoi needed to find a way to get rid of them, the easiest method was try to use them as regular troops so they'd be annihilated, which they were).

Could Britian have prevented the Japanese from taking Singapore?

Yes, the dumbasses surrendered to a much smaller force. The brits were entrenched and had massive harbor-covering artillery they could've swung around and fired at the Japanese coming up from the land. "Oh but they only had AP rounds" well, guess what, they still explode too.

The British absolutely could've held Singapore. They got psyched out by the Japanese, that's all.

 

[Balalaika Z Bree]

The war went on for decades, the French and US suffered, but only a tiny amount compared to the native population of Vietnam and surrounding areas.

Had God permitted it, it could have been. May the Lord have mercy on all those who died, and all the wounded and traumatized who have suffered for decades.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

The issues in Nam were two fold:
1. The USA government didn't have clear objectives, so they would have been forced to flee eventually since "stick around killing insurgents forever" isn't viable. Something they forgot after the first desert storm.

Except a solution was found and implemented: Vietnamization. Under the reorganization in '71 (?) the US would continue to supply materiel and air support to the South while ceasing ground operations. The Full Metal Jacket/Apocalypse Now/Platoon memes stopped under Nixon while preserving the South. How do you think he won 45 states in '72? The North even agreed to this deal in the Paris Peace Accords.

Of course, we all know what happens next: the North attacks and the US launches reprisals, which are spun by the fifth column media as "war crimes." Nixon gets deposed in a palace coup led by the FBI, and his successor has no power, letting a Democrat-controlled congress zero out the budget for supporting the South. North launches an all-out invasion and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Rei is Shit.]

At the end of Tet they didn't have the manpower reserves to do that. Vo Nguyen Giap said as much. They were tapped out, and the Vietcong had ceased to exist as a fighting force (this was partially on purpose, as the Vietcong had gotten out of hand and the government in Hanoi needed to find a way to get rid of them, the easiest method was try to use them as regular troops so they'd be annihilated, which they were).

North Vietnam had something like 250k men turning 18 every single year during the Vietnam war. Now compare that to how many North Vietnamese the US was managing to kill each year.

Yes, the dumbasses surrendered to a much smaller force. The brits were entrenched and had massive harbor-covering artillery they could've swung around and fired at the Japanese coming up from the land. "Oh but they only had AP rounds" well, guess what, they still explode too.

The British absolutely could've held Singapore. They got psyched out by the Japanese, that's all.

Could they have held out? Not for a few days, but months on end? Remember the British have a bit of a war going on in Europe that was a higher priority for them.

Nixon gets deposed in a palace coup led by the FBI, and his successor has no power,

Yeah the guy who was the head of the Warren Commission totally had no power.

 

[verissimus]

The only way the US could've won the war decisively and not also had to deal with a forever war would've been to somehow stop Chinese and Soviet support.

Which wouldn't have happened.

In my opinion, even if we had "wiped out" North Vietnam as some posters say we should, there is no guarantee there wouldn't be a sequel that didn't end well for us or South Vietnam.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Sure, if it had fought offensively instead of defensively. If the US had bombed North Vietnam as aggressively as it did in Linebacker II earlier in the war and coupled that with a serious offensive north, the NVA and VC couldn't have stopped it. Not that there was a VC after Tet anyway, the NVA created a fake and gay VC manned with its own soldiers to cover up the fact that the VC got annihilated by Tet

This. We needed to move fast, to move hard, to pound absolutely anything that moved with artillery and air power. Absolutely no mercy, especially if we wanted China to back the fuck off and not get involved. Instead we let them dig in, get better equipment, better experience fighting us.

 

[Strix454]

Could Britian have prevented the Japanese from taking Singapore?

Maybe. But only if they had made different choices and had substantially different priorities in 1940-41. The troops in Malaya on the outbreak of war were strong on paper and in numbers, but in reality most of them were garbage. They were second-rate wartime raised formations that had never fired a shot in anger before arriving in Malaya. In terms of aircraft, they were mostly equipped with trash like the Brewster Buffalo. There was also no navy to speak of in the far east and certainly nothing that was going to take on the Japanese.
They couldn't stop the Japanese landings in Malaya. They couldn't hold a defensive line in the entire campaign for Malaya. They got pushed south by the Japanese with very little effort. They retreated to Singapore island. They destroyed the causeway. They vastly outnumbered the Japanese, but were unable to stop them from crossing the water and landing on the Island.
The choice became one of either trying to fight to the last man using the city as a sort of fortress or surrendering. Surrender was the choice made.

What would it have taken to save Malaya?

- Two experienced divisions would have had to have been withdrawn from the middle east.
- 500 good modern aircraft and experienced pilots to go with them. They would have had to have been withdrawn from either the middle east or from Britain.
- A significant number of royal navy ships would have had to have been moved to Malaya. Enough force such that the combination of land-based aircraft in Malaya and naval ships could have held off the Japanese navy.

If you look at the numbers and the choices when you end up is that the British could have done it, but the likely outcome would have been a weaker defense in Egypt followed by a more likely loss at the first battle of El Alamein.

-----
The other thing that always comes up with Singapore is the idea that it could have been saved by using the coastal artillery in Singapore. That the Japanese landings over the strait could have been somehow stopped or forced back by firing 15 inch shells at them. Or that more fortifications facing Malaya would have saved the day.

Neither makes much sense. The strait that separates Singapore from Malaya is only 3/4s of a mile wide. The guns were not going to stop small boats from crossing over. Fortification of the entire northern coast (if not more) of Singapore was also not remotely practical. Honestly, if they couldn't hold southern Malaya and had to retreat to the island, they were not going to be able to hold the island either.

 

[Freezard]

Ver archivo adjunto 4506014
Did you know that the guy being executed isn't a civilian, but a monster that murdered an entire family including the children and the grandma and then tried to disguise himself as a civilian?

All I see is a man putting down a feral animal in a quick and humane fashion.

 

[TeenGirlRapist420]

The US was actually winning the war all the time and even North Vietnam admitted if the war went on a little longer they'd have given up. The reason the US "lost" is because they just felt like leaving on the verge of victory. The war was unpopular among the American people due to the draft, resulting in successful mass protests. Also, the reason it took so long wasn't because the North Vietnamese were good warriors, but because the US couldn't attack North Vietnam directly for fear that China could use nukes. So the war had to be fought on Southern territory until the North gave up.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

If America wanted they could have stayed there forever, same with Afghanistan, its just a terribly stupid idea that was always gonna end with burguers leaving and the vietcong and the taliban rolling back in as soon as they did.

That strategy of coming in as "support" for some weak corrupt puppet state that the locals don't want and will flee instantly after the USA is not backing it simply won't end well, If it was a traditional full on war of conquest it'd be very different. The South Vietnamese goverment (or the Afghani government) was never going to hold their own without America, it was a sunk cost scenario, all the insurgents had to do was wait.