[IronJack]

A formidable enemy and a worthy opponent. He shaped an army out of sticks, bicycles, and peasants.

[TWhiteBear]

His book, Peoples Army, Peoples War, is a good read. And might have lessons for many in the US in our present circumstance.
I feel and felt at the time that there was no good reason for the US to be involved in the Vietnam War. I understand the pain and the passion of many of my fellow veterans and the bitterness about being asked to do difficult, pointless things, accomplish the job, and then get betrayed on the home front.
After the war ended, Vietnam is now a pretty quiet place in the world with the attention of the Vietnamese focused on their traditional enemy, China.
TWB

[tumblindice]

“He shaped an army out of sticks, bicycles, and peasants.”

As well as massive material, arms and munitions aid from Russia, China and the communist bloc
and
invaluable moral support from the f*%#*!g American Left and Democrats who ginned the war up.

[The Antiyuppie]

“A formidable enemy and a worthy opponent. He shaped an army out of sticks, bicycles, and peasants.”

I am not a military man, but I have read that his strategy was brilliant and is now apparently “textbook” for dealing with an apparently more powerful enemy.

[elcid1970]

Vo Nguyen Giap the “tactical genius” invaded South Vietnam with tanks, artillery, personnel carriers, which were supplied by Soviet trucks on an all weather highway nicknamed the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

During the 1972 `Easter Offensive’ Giap displayed a complete ignorance of armor fire & maneuver, sending tanks in unsupported by infantry using the `converging axes’ tactic. All this accomplished was the destruction of hundreds of Soviet made T-43/85 & T-54/T-55 tanks by ARVN troops using mostly M-72 LAWs. Close air support also helped.

Giap & Le Duan were frank in admitting that they owed a huge debt to the Left in the U.S. in sabotaging domestic support for the war.

The `ragtag peasant guerilla army’ was mostly smashed in Tet ‘68. It was mostly conventional war after that.

I saw Giap’s tanks burning outside of An Loc, one of his three main objectives in 1972. I hope he’s doing the same now; he and Walter Cronkite can salute each other and Fonda will be joining them eventually.

[RedStateRocker]

Say what one will, he understood on Clausewitz perfectly. War is an extension of politics by other means.