Johnson, I can agree with you there (especially when he outright rejected his Joint Chiefs when they suggested exactly that). Nixon, not so much. Actually, when he took office, he did bombing raids on various key weapons centers and supply depots within North Vietnam, and even managed to mine the harbor. Nixon certainly did a lot more on that front that Johnson did, which acted as a black mark to the latter. In fact, what Nixon did was EXACTLY what the Joint Chiefs suggested that Johnson do. Though to be fair to Johnson, he also was worried about a potential nuclear war breaking out if they did that based on some of his (otherwise obscene) comments to the Joint Chiefs.
Besides, if we tried a direct invasion into North Vietnam, we’d probably be pushed back anyways, like what happened when MacArthur tried to make his push into North Vietnam and China.
“though to be fair to Johnson, he also was worried about a potential nuclear war breaking out”
Hardly. That was nothing more than an excuse designed to justify his half-measures. He knew there was zero chance that the Soviets were going to start a nuclear war over Southeast Asia. They weren’t even going to start a conventional war. LBJ was doing what he did best, lying. HR McMaster’s book is your source for Johnson and McNamara’s massive deceit.
LBJ’s #1 commitment was funding his Great Society, the War on Poverty and all the rest of his massive domestic programs. He wasn’t about to do anything that would distract from that. He wouldn’t mobilize the reserves, he wouldn’t increase the troop levels the JCS told him was necessary, he had lawyers and statistical analysts doing his war planning and that meant leaving North Vietnam off limits for the most part.
“. Nixon, not so much. Actually, when he took office, he did bombing raids on various key weapons centers and supply depots within North Vietnam, and even managed to mine the harbor.”
Nixon waited nearly four years to do this. Linebacker and Linebacker II were 1972. And no he didn’t do exactly what the JCS told Johnson that he needed to do, that ship had sailed. Nixon’s commitment was to Vietnamization, turning the fighting over to the ARVN and removing American combat troops. By 1972 the American role was winding down to a supporting role. And Nixon and Kissinger agreed to a “peace treaty” that left a huge NVA field army inside South Vietnam.
To win the war you would have seen a general mobilization in the States, a vastly larger Army committed to destroying the NVAs ability to fight and the conquest and occupation of the North. That wasn’t in the cards for LBJ or Nixon.