Could the US ever have won in Veitnam?

wrecked_2477

Only at a huge cost in lives on both sides, just remember the Americans were the invaders to the majority of the Vietnamese who were only defending their country. The Americans lost an unwinnable war.

Robbo_op_98

Had the war been fought by Generals and not Politicians yes. Same as with Korea.

Neil T

Your points are well made. It is quite possible for the US to have won in SE Asia if the politicians had left the military to get on with it.

Matty - go read a book on the Malayan Emergency!!

RayN-here - in Korea the UN Forces were pushed a "little" further south than the 38th parallel.

jerry r

a veitnamese general wrote his autobiographby and was stated on the news that the us had the war won and the veitnamese were ready to surrender. the us only had to stick it out for a couple more days he said and they would have won. the politicians were the ones who lost the war.

DietrichVonQuint

I have heard some theories in how the war could have been won. I suppose that it is possible.

thinpinblue

I feel very sure they would have succeeded had it been left to the Military. I also recall the French got a bloody nose there prior to the U.S.A.

trixie

The war was fought by polititians.....and democrats/liberals, just as they are doing now with Iraq....claimed from day one that we can't win, we won't win and we shouldn't win, and did everything in their power to see to that. When you have a country divided that way...it's hard to win. Look back at wars like WWII, Korean War, etc. Everyone was on board with winning, and we did. That's all it takes. Instead we have USA hating liberals that try to degrade everything we are doing.

Jim B

As a former Vietnam veteran I say this. If it had been a war fought by those in the field yes we could have and would have won. The problem we had was there were to many politicians lining their own pockets who would not turn it over to the commanders in the field because it would have cut off their gravy train.Yes we still have those types in our government today,and will always. When is the last time we had politicians who really cared what happened to us the people.There is probably no one alive that remembers that.

MICHAEL B

Everyone's answers are correct. We actually won militarily but lost politically. And that's how Al Qaeda and the insurgents are trying to win now. Roadside bombs are not gonna beat the US military. Body bags and a loss of public support will. And to a degree, it's working while the politicians are looking for votes.

Matty

Impossible. Even if you win militarily (and the US army did, never losing a single major battle) , if you further allienate the population you cannot win. Colonial British was the same, the Empires soldiers were far better trained than the colonists in the revolutionary war, but the more the British fought, the more they alienated the American people, hence the war becomes un-winnable. They realised, and they left.

The only way you can win a war in which the enemy percieve they have the moral high ground and will not quit is by commiting genocide. And whats the point in that?

Militarily, we easily won every battle. But the problem is, what did we win? We could still be there, and the North Vietnamese would still be fighting us. It was an unwinnable war because there was nothing to win. We were just fighting people.

THEAmericanPatriot

We were winning when I left in 1967.

the devil wears camo

as an ex-Brit soldier i have to say yes for the same reason we could have ended northern Ireland long before that too came to an end,in both cases the military were not allowed off the leash that was held by the limp wristed politicians both in congress and Whitehall,as ever ,afraid of public opinion and in both conflicts the military in charge were sidelined by their own respective governments and not allowed to do the job they trained for,of course they could have won,pity there was no one in politics who was prepared to pay the price or find a backbone.

Croxx

Yes they could have, it would have taken a heavy US body count.

In hindsight they did nearly 'win' on several occasions depending on what perspective you take.

FlyingScooter

All we had to do was Nuke 'em. That would've been a win.

But like the first answerer said: had it been fought by generals...

Slowblinker

No.

We were hampered by the politicians, fighting against an enemy on their home turf and in a war we did not understand how to fight on its terms. Plus, while there were a lot of great soldiers, many of them should never have been over there, much less in a uniform.

I liken that war to battling mother nature. Sooner or later she is going to wear you down and win.

Ben

No, the US could never win in Vietnam. To begin with America had no logical reason to be fighting in there. Then, almost the whole of
America was against that war. The morale went down to minus zero. There was no way to win.

robert43041

The US tried to fight a "WWII" type of war while pitted against a guerilla bunch. No way could they win that one, I agree.

John R

If you check history you will find that the north Vietnam's military was ready to give up not once but twice. they didn't because of the politicians and the American people themselves. we more than likely will lose this war for the same reasons which will make the third one in a row.

older redneck

It is highly doubtful. The NVA and VC had cave systems that we never did find the complete extent of. We would advance and take some ground and they were under us waiting for us to leave. Some said put in more troops. Well if we'd had troops shoulder to shoulder across the entire country, they would have kept popping up behind us and killing our guys. Endless war.
We supposedly learned from this that a conventional military cannot defeat an insurgency, but someone obviously forgot to tell Bush about that. These dim bulbs went and did it again.....

one shot

No.

Like Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq they were fighting an unseen enemy

Marcus

You can draw a direct comparison with the Colonial British, followed by the mighty Soviet Union in Afghanistan and now us and the USA.

War is a commercial venture and a political graveyard if you're not winning.

When the cost of war is greater than the spoils of victory it's time to pull out.

Iraq on the other hand has oil.

oscarsix5

Vietnam was not lost in battle, it was lost at the negotiation table during the Paris Peace Accords. The American people gave into the Anti-war movement losing the will and dertemination to fight the war. Sadly millions of Vietnamese and other SouthEast Asian paid the price with their lives...

robert c

No!I agree with the previous contributor!I would add this as well!The soldier in the front line did not have the full backing of the general public!The final crunch came when celebrities like JaneFonda took the side of the enemy;The American soldier lost the will to fight!The American soldier did not lose the war!The General Public;Politicians and Celebreties lost it for them!I was always of the opinion it was like a heavyweight champion defending his title with his hands tied behind his back!

kingleo_99

We could have we bascially used everything execpt nukes to kill them, we would have never been able to use nukes cause of the high tension with China, that what it comes down to really <China>!! Like we been in this dance with Russia and China now for last 30+ years!

Ed J

Possible, but not probable. With very few exceptions the majority of the population were not behind the war, it was political, when the people support one side over the other, the side with the greater support of the population usually wins. The vast number of the population just wanted to tend their crops and live a day to day life.

desertviking_00

Yes. If we had executed Operation Tiger Claw, North Vietnam would have been cut in half and all lines of communication to South Vietnam would have been cut as well. Unfortunately, the President of the United States would not sign the order to execute the operation. He turned it down seven times.

bijjee

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