From 1965 to 1973, the United States military sent over 536,000 combat troops into the jungles, villages, and swamps of Vietnam. Of these 536,000, over 58,000 men would never return. Despite air superiority, artillery, and the most technologically advanced armed forces in the world, the United States slumped to defeat by the hands of both their enemy and themselves. Unpreventably so, the United States of America was defeated in Vietnam due egregious errors in political and military judgment, lack of popular support and an extreme unpreparedness to fight the Vietcong and North Vietnamese in a guerilla war. On the ground, the United States squared up with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. The Viet Cong were mostly a Southern rebel group, comprised mainly of teenagers and younger adults from villages in South Vietnam. Since they lived among civilians, it was often impossible to distinguish between VC and civilian. Although many were motivated by idealism, they were also pressured and threatened into joining the ranks. They did however harbor serious doubts about their abilities to combat the Americans, heavily armed and well trained. Contrary to popular belief, the Viet Cong did not find combat often in comparison to the North Vietnamese Army. The People’s Army of Vietnam, commonly known as the North Vietnamese Army or NVA were the regular armed forces of North Vietnam. They had massive support from communist superpowers the USSR and China, receiving training, weapons and supplies. Lastly, the NVA were logistically superior to the United States. According to John M. Van Dyke’s Northern Vietnam’s Strategy for Survival, the NVA were often armed with black market weapons, and even captured U.S. weapons like the Thompson submac... ... middle of paper ... ... since the onset of the Cold War. The United States was ultimately doomed to lose in Vietnam. Unable to gain enough public support, the war dragged on as the anti-war ideas further circulated and festered in the homes, TVs, radios, and newspapers of the U.S. public. The United States military was unprepared to fight a guerilla war against a highly nationalistic, motivated enemy. The massive tank and air arsenal, and tactics developed to defeat the Soviets proved ineffectual against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army and their advanced network of tunnels, and booby trap weapons. Inescapably so, the United States of America was defeated in Vietnam due to egregious errors in political and military judgment by the United States government, lack of popular support from the U.S. public, and egregious unpreparedness in the preparations to fight the North Vietnamese.
On the contrary it can be argued that the Americans had lost the war for not being able to win the hearts and minds of their own people and thus already losing support of their country additionally their inability to cope with the rigorous environment of the Vietnamese landscape and the Vietcongs use of guerrilla tactics proved devastating to their war effort.
In the early 1960s the U.S. began sending military advisors to South Vietnam beginning the Vietnam War, arguably the most controversial war in United States history. This incident followed Vietnam gaining its independence from the French Empire’s Indochina in 1954. The nation soon split, creating a communist North Vietnam, and a noncommunist South Vietnam. In fear of communism spreading the U.S. supported South Vietnam and sent troops. As the incident dragged on it caused a huge anti-war movement and a lot of political turmoil.The troops were withdrawn in 1973, the whole country fell to communism, and the U.S. failed. How did a superpower such as the U.S. take defeat from a small country like Vietnam? Many have wondered and continue to wonder
The Vietnam War was the longest and most expensive war in American History. The toll we paid wasn't just financial, it cost the people involved greatly, physically and mentally. This war caused great distress and sadness, as well as national confusion. Everyone had that one burning question being why? Why were we even there? The other question being why did America withdrawal from Vietnam. The purpose of this paper is to answer these two burning questions, and perhaps add some clarity to the confusion American was experiencing.
The Vietnam War was one of the most prolonged wars in US history. Although there were no exact dates, it is believed that US involvement lasted for around 20 years. The US went into this war hoping they could stop the spread of communism and defeat the northern Vietnamese. The battles were like nothing they had seen before and it was very difficult for the soldiers to differentiate between the enemies and civilians. To make it even more difficult for the soldiers, their “information was based on faulty intelligence”. Võ Nguyên Giáp, a northern Vietnamese general, believed that the US and the southern Vietnamese had an unstable relationship. He hoped that through the Tet Offensive the US would believe they were no longer worth defending. Fighting was done using guerrilla warfare which blurred the lines of legitimate and illegitimate killings and this had effect of bringing peoples morales down. Support for the war had always been split but this battle caused even the government to reconsider their involvement. The Tet offensive changed the US's attitude towards the Vietnam war by leading to further anti-war protests, a credibility gap in America, and for President Johnson to negotiate peace and not seek reelection.
The U.S. attempted to apply conventional warfare strategy to the communist insurgency in South Vietnam. The result of this strategy was that U.S. forces were victorious in almost every military battle, but could not translate tactical achievement into operational and strategic success. However, during the course of the war, the U.S. discovered three elements of strategy that, if melded into a cohesive whole, could have achieved American objectives for a reasonable cost. First, the U.S. should have fully resourced and implemented a counterinsurgency strategy of pacification, as the primary U.S. military effort in Vietnam. Second, a robust network of South Vietnamese paramilitary forces, integrated with U.S. pacification, would have been the vital link to winning South Vietnamese popular support. Third, the synchronization of pacification with air mobility and air power operations would have effectively incorporated U.S. conventional firepower with the counterinsurgency effort. Next, the claim that U.S. military forces could not have been organized or resourced to implement an effective counterinsurgency will be refuted. Finally, a bridge forward explores whether the U.S. learned from Vietnam how to identify and fight a complex insurgency.
Both the British in the American Revolution and the Americans in the Vietnam War were faced with a guerilla war within the early periods of conflict. The British who accepted after the initial stages of the war that the American regular army was the key to defeating the rebellion, the Americans never deducted that more than limited offensive operations against the Hanoi regime was needed in order to bring the conflict to a successful close. Unlike the British, the Americans in Vietnam never had a significant defeat in the field.
Now, years after the last Marine left Vietnamese soil, the debate continues, but evidence places the majority of the blame at the feet of America’s foreign policy makers. Because, as Paul Elliott writes in his book Vietnam: Conflict and Controversy, “Everything in Vietnam was being viewed through the distorting lens of the Cold War, and against the fear of atomic holocaust” (92), Congress and the President refused to make a total commitment to victory in Indochina. That lack of commitment led directly to American defeat.
For the sake of conciseness, and in order to focus the bulk of the content on the main topic, this essay will make certain assumptions. Most importantly, the essay assumes that the conflict in Vietnam was, indeed, lost by the US. It also presupposes that � due to the political climate in the US � the war itself was unavoidable. Finally, the essay takes for granted that the reader has a basic knowledge of the reasons and major events behind the US military intervention in Vietnam from the mid-1950s until 1975.
The Vietnam War was the first major war American’s had suffered defeat. The Vietnam war was a war of confusion, competition and biasness. The outcome of the war was far greater than an upset American nation, but a severe breakdown of the Vietnamese culture, economy, environment and government. It also had a tremendous impact on American society even up to present day. It was unclear from the beginning of the war if the American’s should even be involved. It was a war between Northern and Southern Vietnam but the U.S saw it as an indirect way to challenge the USSR’s sphere of influence in Southern Asia and to prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism. The Vietnam War completely changed the way the United States approached military action and helped establish the role of the United States within the new world order.
No 7. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose, and the conventional army loses if it does not win.
The greatest loss caused by the Vietnam War was probably the togetherness of the American society. American idealism led to an opinion that the Vietnamese society can be relatively easily transformed to democracy. When this optimistic thesis fell down, it unavoidably led to disillusion. The prevailing phenomenon was also the misunderstanding of the military problem.
Many believe that America's involvement in the Vietnam War was a disaster. The majority of the men and women fighting in the war had little or no idea why they were there in the first place. The staggering number of lives that was lost cannot and will not be overlooked. The importance of this war was decimated, and the actions of political leaders were scrutinized by there own people as well as other countries. One question that comes to mind when thinking about the Vietnam War is our reasoning for entering the war and what our enemies thought about America's intervention in the war. America's intervention in Vietnam changed the lives of many people and families in our country today.
The Vietnam war was a defensive battle fought mostly in South Vietnam. The Contenders were the SVA(South Vietnamese Army) and the U.S. Military against the NVA(North Vietnamese Army) and the VC(Viet Cong), a guerrilla group in south Vietnam. The Communist side was supported by China, Russia, North Korea, and other communist countries, while the U.S. and South Vietnam were supported by South Korea, Britain, France, And other Anti-Communi...
The Vietnam War was a brutal and bloody conflict that took the lives of more than fifty-eight thousand American soldiers and an estimated two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. In addition, air bombings, mortar attacks, and gun battles destroyed countless forests, farmlands, villages, and city neighborhoods in both North and South Vietnam. As the war progressed, it also took a great emotional toll on its American and Vietnamese participants as they struggled to keep themselves, their comrades, and—in the case of Vietnamese civilians—their families alive.
The Vietnam War has gone down in United Sates history as one of the longest conflicts the country has faced. This prolonged war was not only costly in economic standards but also in American lives. In a time when the cold war turned hot disputes erupted in the various areas in Vietnam. Along with its southern allies, otherwise known as the Viet Cong, Northern Vietnam raged war against South Vietnam. With its main ally, the United States continued to fight to “save” South Vietnam from turning into an entirely communist country. While the war continued it became increasingly unpopular in the United States. With media advancing and increasing, the people of the United States could comprehend the war in ways never seen before.