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Senior Member
Actually he got ****ed over by a hurricane ("divine wind"), the Japanese defenders had little to do with it.Originally Posted by Fjallhrafn
As for US forces in VN, I'm glad we finally withdrew them. It's not like we were going to let them win the war. We destroyed their military at Tet but dickfaces like Cronkite declared it an enemy victory.
It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.
Chuck, we miss ya man.
كافر
Member
The NV won. As far as who lost you must stick to the basics. If you are in tge game and don't win you lose.
That doesn't make the efforts of our warriors there any less.
It seems like some hrre still feel insulted when the word loss is attached to our involvement there. Why?
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Cute.
Fact is a fact. The French were outright defeated at Dien Bien Phu, and sued for peace. Show me where WE were driven out of Vietnam. (Hint: we weren't). Sure, perhaps they "outwaited" us, or "outendured" us, whatever. Militarily they could not take SV with us there. Show me evidence otherwise. Hell, they couldn't even take it with just our airpower there (Easter Offensive). We had to be totally gone for two years before they could make SV communist.
And oh yeah----the Russkies weren't driven out of Afghanistan either, although I will submit that we actually did better against the NV than they did against the Muj.
ETA---with regards to the Revolutionary War example you used: the British had suffered a string of defeats at the end, Yorktown being the last straw and they decided the colonies weren't worth it (same with the French in Indochina). Show me a similar defeat suffered by the U.S. in Vietnam, and an unfortunate platoon being overrun somewhere doesn't cut it on the strategic/big picture level.
Last edited by ABNAK; 10-06-13 at 20:49.
11C2P '83-'87
Airborne Infantry
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Unfortunately the real world pokes it's ugly head in and things aren't quite that black and white. We were in the game in Korea, even all the way to it's northern border at one point. Did we "lose" there too? I mean we didn't "win" per se so did we therefore lose?
Vietnam was a failed effort on our behalf for a myriad of reasons but militarily we were not defeated. If an enemy cannot dominate a field of battle and you "leave" without being forced to I wouldn't call that defeat; not sure how I'd label it but again, in the real world things aren't always cut-and-dry.
Last edited by ABNAK; 10-06-13 at 20:45.
11C2P '83-'87
Airborne Infantry
Senior Member
Because those fighting never really lost the battle. In fact they crushed the enemy at Tet. But sadly not all wars are won or lost on the battlefield. VN was lost at home by a traitorous population and elements of the government who made a winning virtually impossible. Some of this was to prevent an element of the Cold War from escalating into WWIII which is the reason we stalemated in Korea.
So when you say "we lost" you are correct. Our country lost the war, but it wasn't the fault of those doing the fighting. And that is what many are sensitive about.
It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.
Chuck, we miss ya man.
كافر
Senior Member
But those aren't the only reasons. Giap saw the benefit of an insurgency and guerrilla war, and very few in the US military establishment saw the utility of fighting fire with fire with SF and other, less conventional forces. For Giap this was nothing new...he kicked the French's ass, and although France was on its very last leg as a colonial empire, it was a long and bloody war which came on the heels of getting its ass kicked in Algeria.
My point is that as a military strategist Giap knew they could not win a conventional war without involving China and/or USSR, and knew that as long as the US was fighting itself internally (with as you so correctly describe as the culture and politicians) and causing all sorts of division, as well as a lack of commitment of the South Vietnamese, all he had to do was wait us out with the insurgency and we would eventually leave like the French did.
Senior Member
Interesting, if somewhat incorrect conclusions.
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Explain what was incorrect in what I said. Show me where the North Vietnamese were able to take over the South while we were there and institute a communist government, driving us out by force of arms. They couldn't, so asserting that we were militarily defeated by Wiley E. Giap and company is what is in error. I'm not saying Giap was incompetent but Clausewitz or Hannibal he was not.
Also, your previous comment about insurgency is only accurate for the early days of the war. In fact, the bulk of our casualties came from fierce fighting with regular NVA units. It started in late 1965 and built to the point (especially after Tet) where the VC were a deadly nuisance and hard-core NVA conventional units constituted the biggest threat. It was small-unit, conventional combat in extremely rough terrain. The geography makes it appear as though the whole war was "guerrilla warfare", but due to that circumstance it was impossible to have divisions side-by-side sweeping across swaths of countryside (like Europe in WWII). A platoon vs. platoon or company vs. company fight is still "conventional"; doesn't have to be corps vs. corps or similar scale to qualify.
Last edited by ABNAK; 10-07-13 at 09:50.
11C2P '83-'87
Airborne Infantry
Senior Member
Now this I don't really disagree with. Giap, et al., insurgency started in earnest in 1945 and never really stopped. In certainty he had to 'modify' it as US forces substantially built, but he was smart enough to know that by disrupting and infiltrating the S VN government and military (who were luke warm to begin with), using insurgent forces/guerrilla to keep conventional forces "off balance" (if we have to spend 150 men to track 25, then the 150 could not be used to fight en masse), terrorizing the populace, and fighting outside the "rules" (i.e., the trail in Laos and Cambodia), the North would, eventually, cause the US to leave. Just because Giap was not an equivalent of Clausewitz does not mean he was not a brilliant strategist. After all, his military decisions to use both insurgency and conventional units did cause the US to abandon its goal and leave the country.
If we were 100% committed, militarily, socially, politically, could we have won? Don't know. We could all guess but I don't think anyone own's the market of truth since we'll never know.
And please don't think (I am not accusing you of this) I have a love-fest with this guy; I don't. I recognize that he was a large part of the reason two western countries were kicked out and his goal achieved.
Senior Member
My Japanese history is a little bit fuzzy, but I seem to recall that Japanese pirates played a not insignificant role in keeping the Mongols from utilizing their fleet to its fullest potential before the kamikaze. (And that those pirates were no longer pirates, once all was said and done.)
Withdrawal is typically almost always preceded by defeat.
You're right and wrong. The United States won lots of small battles. Lost a few really small ones. But lost the strategic/big picture level. We lost the war strategically and politically, not militarily. But they're the two sides of the same coin.
You don't withdraw from a country you're actively engaged in conflict with because you've won - if you won, you wouldn't be fighting them any more. You do it because you've lost.
Whether that's because you were defeated at Yorktown or Dien Bien Phu or in the smoke-filled back rooms of Paris is irrelevant.
" Nil desperandum - Never Despair. That is a motto for you and me. All are not dead; and where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it. "
- Samuel Adams -
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