Vietnam War Failure

With the failure of policy makers to fully commit to the war early on it made it impossible to win the conflict. The presidents in the early days of the war had enough support for this invasion but that quickly dwindled away as they did not take the war seriously leading to a communist victory. The United States lack of military strategy contributed to the fact that they were being beaten by the Viet Cong. The strategy of the U.S was flawed from the very beginning with their poor combat missions. Military forces in Vietnam used a Search and Destroy policy, where they inserted ground forces into hostile territory, searched out the enemy, destroyed them, and withdrew immediately afterward ( Stanton 8). This strategy was unsuccessful because

The U.S strategy against the Guerilla warfare of the Viet Cong consisted of using Agent orange, a deadly chemical that kills the plant life, to\kill the crops around them and flush the enemy out (Leepson 300). This strategy was flawed in two ways. It first failed to work quickly or efficiently enough because of an unwillingness of the enemy to come out. Secondly, the U.S was fighting the enemy on their terms in their territory. This gave the Gurillias a huge advantage by being able to hide in the Jungle and set ambushes and traps for the approaching enemy in the jungle. Additionally, this strategy took to up too much time in the U.S’s limited timeframe. Early in the conflict,” The lack of quick serous movement by the U.S military is what allowed the war to go on for so long” ( Appleman 249). However, this lack of movement by the military is due to the failure of presidents to act quickly. The lack of quick

This attack was rather unsuccessful in terms of an attack. The North Vietnamese and Vietcong had 50,000 casualties including captured soldiers where as the U.S lost only 3,000 troops. However, the U.S and south Vietnamese suffered a much larger Psychological loss in the Tet Offensive (Appleman 269). Before this attack the South Vietnamese citizens had not been directly targeted on such a scale by the communists. This helped to demoralize the South Vietnamese people and the U.S troops protecting them who thought they were safe from conflict by opening them up to further attack. Correspondingly, the Tet offensive had a huge affect on the people of the U.S. This battle fueled the Antiwar movement of America. It did this by,” reinforcing the views of those who were already disillusioned with the war,”(Nev 134). The reason it boosted the Antiwar movement is because it cast doubt on the United States ability to win the war. With a new found doubt in winning the war it created an even greater lack of resolve and support for the for fighting a war in Asia. The ability of the Communist to demoralize and create larger opposition for the war is why it is the most important battle of the