The question asks if the CCP really won the war because of tactics and skill or if the KMT lost the war not because the CCP beat them but if they brought their loss upon themselves.
As the CCP and KMT were preparing to fight, the majority of people perceived that the KMT would win the war easily. After all, America was prepared to pour billions of dollars into funding the KMT in order for them to win the war. With America on their side the KMT had a powerful American-trained and American-equipped army of three million men. They held all the big cities, all the main railway lines, and some of the richest provinces. Money was abundant and they had large stocks of weapons. In comparison, the CCP were nothing. They held only countryside areas, no air force, no navy and an army of only one million men. They did not have the backing of a single foreign country. I think that the KMT could easily have won the war but instead lost it.
The KMT had always been very cowardly. Their cowardice was shown during the Japanese Invasion, when they moved west to Chongqing. This isolated themselves from main cities and could be seen as them isolating their people. The relocation showed that they were unwilling to fight against Japan for their country and therefore unprepared to fight any war. However, America made sure that the KMT were airlifted out of Chongqing and into key cities to stop the CCP from gaining more land.
The KMT were did not plan well in advance and could not handle the money that was meant to benefit them properly. The rapid inflation of the currency was causing great hardship for many civilians in the KMT-held cities. As money lost its value, many workers went on strike, hungry crowds stormed shops, riots broke out and public order collapsed. This was very bad for the KMT as people stopped supporting the KMT and went over to the communist party’s side.
Another example of the KMT not thinking ahead can be seen during the Japanese invasion. During this time, they never gained support from the peasants which made up most of China. Instead, they bullied them by imposing high taxes on them which made them even more unpopular with them. So instead of gaining supporters they lost what were potential supporters.
The North Vietnamese Communist leadership's ability to reassess and adapt during the Vietnam War was reflected in how well they combined guerilla and conventional operations to achieve their strategic goal of unifying Vietnam under communist rule. Throughout the conflict, the Viet Cong (VC) were employed to conduct guerilla operations while North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and VC "main force" units were used to transition to conventional operations. Guerilla operations enabled Hanoi to inflict a steady flow of casualties on US forces which increased anti-war sentiment in America. NVA and VC main force conventional operations reinforced the US Army's conventional approach to the fight which caused the Americans to alienate the people of South Vietnam. By alienating the South Vietnamese people, the Americans enhanced the VC's ability to conduct guerilla operations and control rural population centers which weakened the credibility of the Government of South Vietnam (GVN). The combined effects of guerilla and conventional operations supported the North Vietnamese strategy of a protracted conflict that was sure to weaken the resolve of the United States and eventually defeat the GVN.
The Five Year Plan nationalized all industries. China took the advice of the USSR and copied their Five Year Plan. In return, China received a $300 million loan from the Soviet Union. More than 11,000 soviet advisors worked in China in the 1950 's to rehabilitate the economy. Jan Wong describes the relationship between China and the USSR in Red China Blues, “For some reason the Chinese were the good guys of communism. The Russians were the bad guys. They had gulags and a menacing secret police called the KGB. The Chinese had pandas and an army in sneakers. Mao was cute, a cultural icon, like Marilyn Monroe.” Wong is commenting on how the USSR helped China because it made them look like Communism had improved their economy. This domestic policy was successful economically because the urban population prospered and grew from 57 million to 100 million by 1957. All industries grew. The heavy industry saw the most growth, while the agricultural industry saw the least. Consequently, prices on goods lowered, including grain
Conclusively, like every country will want to be independent and fight for their freedom, these countries Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnamese and Chile tried to be independent by nationalizing their natural resource while the Vietnamese fought for their independence. Kinzers book makes the point that we cannot assume the future of another country or try to impose our ideology on them. To assume that we know about a country which will barely new is the greatest mistake we have ever made. Because of our arrogance pride and greed, our mistakes have sent many innocent soldiers/civilians to their untimely grave.
After seven year war with Japan, China experiences an eruption of the long simmering civil war. The China civil war was the war between the China Nationalist and China Communist. “Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of Nationalist China and Mao Tse-tsung was the leader from revolutionary communist” (Sledge xix). American soldier involved in this war to support China Nationalist and defeat the China Communist. American wanted secure North China from the communist party. Moreover, American also wanted to secure the region from Japanese. In fact, civilian were welcoming American came to their country and they had a perception that American soldiers were the hero. It was because American successful defeat Japan, then th...
The Russo-Japanese War has many lessons to offer and this essay has discussed the three most enduring lessons about war termination in a conflict for limited aims. History has and will likely continue to show us the inherent difficulties of successful and durable war termination. The leadership foresight needed to pre-plan war termination that achieves the political goal is often beyond the capabilities of countries and their leadership. The Japanese provide us with a rare scenario where their pre-war plan was nearly identical to the post war results. As a result, the Russo-Japanese War can offer current planners and leaders several valuable lessons on war strategy, planning and termination that are still relevant to today’s conflicts.
The Korean War changed the face of American Cold War diplomacy forever. In the midst of all the political conflict and speculation worldwide, the nation had to choose between two proposed solutions, each one hoping to ensure that communism didn?t sweep across the globe and destroy American ideals of capitalism and democracy. General Douglas MacArthur takes the pro-active stance and says that, assuming it has the capability, the U.S. should attack communism everywhere. President Harry Truman, on the other hand, believed that containing the Soviet communists from Western Europe was the best and most important course of action, and that eliminating communism in Asia was not a priority.
...ia, Korea, Germany, and China have a history of an authoritarian power that abused the military on civilians. These episodes are looked down on with shame and left wrecks that had to be rectified over a long course of time. Such behaviors only lead to destruction.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon was quoted as stating that his visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “changed the world…to build a bridge across sixteen thousand miles and twenty-two years of hostilities.” By meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing, Nixon took groundbreaking first steps to opening relations and formally recognizing the People’s Republic of China. The history of the aforementioned hostilities between the United States and the PRC dates back to the Chinese Communist Party’s takeover of mainland China following its civil war in the post-World War II era. When the PRC was formally proclaimed in 1949 towards the close of the Chinese Civil War, the United States decided against recognizing its establishment and instead chose to back Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China. This decision was a product of its political environment, as President Harry Truman had just established the Truman Doctrine, which sought to check presumed Communist and Soviet aims to expand. In order to remain consistent and credible with its containment policy, a precedent was set and relations between the United States and the PRC remained closed. Tensions were only exacerbated during the Korean War in the 1950’s as the PRC intervened on behalf of the North Koreans and during the War in Vietnam in the 1970’s in their support of the North Vietnamese. Thus it is understandable that to the public eye, Nixon’s meeting with Mao Zedong in 1972 seemed to come out of the blue and was difficult to interpret given the context of Sino-US relations in the two deca...
The time period between 1945 and 1991 is considered to be the era of the Cold War. The Cold War, known as the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, each known during this time as the “super powers”. This conflict consisted of the differing attitudes on the ideological, political, and military interests of these two states and their allies, exte nded around the globe. A common political debate covers the issue of who, if anyone won the Cold War. Many believe the United States won the Cold War since (it) had resulted in the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union. While others are to believe the United States had not won it as much as the Soviet Union had lost it since they feel Reagan did not end the Cold War, but that he prolonged it (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) This has lead me to believe that there is no winner, only losers of the cold war. The cold war for the Soviet Union was to ensure security, block out capitalism, gain power, and improve their economy. While, on the other hand the United States just wanted to stop the spread of communism, which they felt, would spread rapidly throughout the world if they did not put an end to it soon. Both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to avoid WWIII in the process of trying to achieve their goals.
Comparing how Mao’s three phases of insurgency within the force structures and doctrine of the British and American forces in the two wars is relatively simple.
This shows that even though economic factors played a huge role in the collapse of the Soviet Union the Political factors out weigh them. Since Inflation and the famine only put pressure on the political factors such as the S.U government deciding to leave the eastern block countries and losing all their resources. Which caused several rebellions throughout the Soviet Union.
Sun Tzu’s strategy on war is still a very respected and influential book. The book breaks down war in a very strategic and intelligent way that gives extremely useful advice to those reading it. The book emphasizes the importance of strategy and positioning
The Viet Cong had also prepared for the previous war, which was counterinsurgency against the French from 1946 to 1954. Krepinevich says, "The strategy of the Viet Cong again under the direction of General Vo-Nguyen Giap was an adaptation of Mao Zedong's people's war in China. Insurgency is done in three phases: First, mobilize the masses against the occupying force; second, guerrilla operations and direct violence; third, the organized open warfare against the occupier. It can be summed up as contention, equilibrium, and counteroffensive"(7). The Vietnam War lines up directly with this outline, increasing violence and protests with United States entrance, increasingly powerful guerrilla strikes, cumulating directed offensives, such as the Tet offensive, which, according to Nagl, "was instrumental in convincing the United States public that Vietnam could not be won through advancing though territory"(7). Minh, the leader of Communist North Vietnam was was critical in the war, through his
One of the significant lessons on warfare and leadership put forth by Sun Tzu was having the ability to act in dynamic opposites as a tactical advantage when planning an attack. He had stated that “All warfare is based on deception” (Giles). If one’s own army is strong, one must command his soldiers to appear weak. It was of significant importance to create an illusion or a false image, like how soldiers would act weary or injured for the enemy to believe they hav...
have being so drastic; since they couldn’t use a long term goal to establish the new strategy