Posted on 05/01/2005 10:34:32 AM PDT by aculeus
THE Vietnam War is universally regarded as a disaster for what it did to the American and Vietnamese people. However, 30 years after the war's end, the reasons for its outcome remain a matter of dispute.
The most popular explanation among historians and journalists is that the defeat was a result of American policy makers' cold-war-driven misunderstanding of North Vietnam's leaders as dangerous Communists. In truth, they argue, we were fighting a nationalist movement with great popular support. In this view, "our side," South Vietnam, was a creation of foreigners and led by a corrupt urban elite with no popular roots. Hence it could never prevail, not even with a half-million American troops, making the war "unwinnable."
This simple explanation is repudiated by powerful historical evidence, both old and new. Its proponents mistakenly base their conclusions on the situation in Vietnam during the 1950's and early 1960's and ignore the changing course of the war (notably, the increasing success of President Richard Nixon's Vietnamization strategy) and the evolution of South Vietnamese society (in particular the introduction of agrarian reforms).
For all the claims of popular support for the Vietcong insurgency, far more South Vietnamese peasants fought on the side of Saigon than on the side of Hanoi. The Vietcong were basically defeated by the beginning of 1972, which is why the North Vietnamese launched a huge conventional offensive at the end of March that year. During the Easter Offensive of 1972 - at the time the biggest campaign of the war - the South Vietnamese Army was able to hold onto every one of the 44 provincial capitals except Quang Tri, which it regained a few months later. The South Vietnamese relied on American air support during that offensive.
If the United States had provided that level of support in 1975, when South Vietnam collapsed in the face of another North Vietnamese offensive, the outcome might have been at least the same as in 1972. But intense lobbying of Congress by the antiwar movement, especially in the context of the Watergate scandal, helped to drive cutbacks of American aid in 1974. Combined with the impact of the world oil crisis and inflation of 1973-74, the results were devastating for the south. As the triumphant North Vietnamese commander, Gen. Van Tien Dung, wrote later, President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam was forced to fight "a poor man's war."
Even Hanoi's main patron, the Soviet Union, was convinced that a North Vietnamese military victory was highly unlikely. Evidence from Soviet Communist Party archives suggests that, until 1974, Soviet military intelligence analysts and diplomats never believed that the North Vietnamese would be victorious on the battlefield. Only political and diplomatic efforts could succeed. Moscow thought that the South Vietnamese government was strong enough to defend itself with a continuation of American logistical support. The former Soviet chargé d'affaires in Hanoi during the 1970's told me in Moscow in late 1993 that if one looked at the balance of forces, one could not predict that the South would be defeated. Until 1975, Moscow was not only impressed by American military power and political will, it also clearly had no desire to go to war with the United States over Vietnam. But after 1975, Soviet fear of the United States dissipated.
During the war the Soviets despised their North Vietnamese "friends" (the term of confidential bureaucratic reference, rather than "comrades"). Indeed, Henry A. Kissinger's accounts of his dealings, as Nixon's national security adviser, with President Thieu are models of respect when compared with the bitter Soviet accounts of their difficulties with their counterparts.
In secret internal reports, Hanoi-based Soviet diplomats regularly complained about the deceitfulness of the North Vietnamese, who concealed strategic planning from their more powerful patron. In a 1972 report to Moscow, the Soviet ambassador even complained that although Marshal Pavel Batitsky, commander of the Soviet Air Defense Forces, had visited Hanoi earlier that year and completed a major military aid agreement, North Vietnamese leaders did not inform him of the imminent launch date of their Easter Offensive.
What is also clear from Soviet archival sources is that those who believed that North Vietnam had more than national unification on its mind were right: Its leaders were imbued with a sense of their ideological mission - not only to unify Vietnam under Communist Party rule, but also to support the victory of Communists in other nations. They saw themselves as the outpost of world revolution in Southeast Asia and desired to help Communists in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and elsewhere.
Soviet archives show that after the war ended in 1975, with American power in retreat, Hanoi used part of its captured American arsenal to support Communist revolutions around the world. In 1980 some of these weapons were shipped via Cuba to El Salvador. This dimension of Vietnamese behavior derived from a deep commitment to the messianic internationalism of Marxist-Leninist ideology.
Vietnam today is not the North Vietnam of 1955, 1965 or 1975. Like post-Mao China it has retreated from totalitarianism to authoritarianism. It has reformed its economy and its foreign policy to become more integrated into the world. But those changes were not inevitable and would not necessarily have occurred had Mikhail Gorbachev not ascended to power in Moscow, and had the Soviet Union and its empire not collapsed. Nor would these changes necessarily have occurred had China not provided a new cultural model for Vietnam to follow, as it has for centuries.
Precisely because Vietnam has changed for the better, we need to recognize what a profoundly ideological and aggressive totalitarian regime we faced three, four and five decades ago. And out of respect for the evidence of history, we need to recognize what happened in the 1970's and why.
In 1974-75, the United States snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Hundreds of thousands of our Vietnamese allies were incarcerated, and more than a million driven into exile. The awesome image of the United States was diminished, and its enemies were thereby emboldened, drawing the United States into new conflicts by proxy in Afghanistan, Africa and Latin America. And the bitterness of so many American war veterans, who saw their sacrifices so casually demeaned and unnecessarily squandered, haunts American society and political life to this day.
Stephen J. Morris, a fellow at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, is writing a book on the Vietnam War in the Nixon years.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
IF the US leaves Iraq too soon, the Democrats will brag over their defeat of Republicans and it would mean another fifty years of disinformation on Iraq, and failure in US foreign policy.
Agreed. I know my viewpoint may not be too smart. I'd just like to see a national debate over socialism versus capitalism, the welfare state versus individual freedom and a market economy versus government controls. People really need to understand what the two parties stand for in terms of political philsophy, and then vote.
thanks for your service. All very interesting info. Reminds me of a quote, i forget who said it, but it was something like, "If Barry Goldwater had been elected President in 1964 the Vietnam war would have been over in 1964."
see post 46, did a bit of research on it. Of course, estimates vary.
Liberals be damned.
redrock
I hate to see your comments ignored on a rapidly-aging thread.
Why not put it up as post?
It's an eye witness account of a news-worthy event. Yes, it would technically be a "vanity" but one worthy of attention.
Seconded.
Everything you said is true, but didn't Vietnam put an end to Pol Pots rule in 79.
Everything you said is true, but didn't Vietnam put an end to Pol Pots rule in 79.
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yea, and china invaded vietnam and there was wars all throughout the region, communist vs. communist. Initially the Khmer Rouge had the backing of the N. Vietnamese and Chinese etc.. cuz the cambodian government (think it might have been a monarchy) was considered pro american.
I just summed it up by saying:
"It's possible that Communism could have spread even further and the insurgencies been more successful if the newly formed Communist nations hadn't turned on each other in another orgy of violence."
What about Milosevic? What threat was he?
<<"But those changes [in Vietnam] were not inevitable and would not necessarily have occurred had Mikhail Gorbachev not ascended to power in Moscow, and had the Soviet Union and its empire not collapsed.">>
This fact amazes me to this day. I was convinced after the fall of Saigon, and Indochina in general, and even more convinced after the communist conquests of former Portuguese Africa and the Iran hostage crisis that the United States was finished as the leading world power. We--and the West in general, had become morally dissolute, torn by dissent, economically in turmoil, short on natural resoures like petroleum, and suffering a myriad of social ills (rampant drug abuse, family breakdown and sexual promiscuity, racial tension etc.). Meanwhile the Soviet Union and its allies were going from strength to strength, triumph to triumph, and the West was impotent to stop this--even, it seemed, when Ronald Reagan, Thatcher and other center-right governments came to power in the West after 1979. I used to check the Encyclopedia Brittanica yearbook every year in the late 70s and 80s, and the section entitled "Defense" was scary. You'd see figures like 21 active army/marine divisions for the USA, 190 (yes!) active divisions for the USSR, 10,000-15,000 tanks for the USA, 55,000 for the USSR, etc. And yet the amoral, dissolute, seemingly weak and ineffectual West won the Cold War. I suspect historians will be scratching their heads over this for centuries. As Mr. Spock might say: "It is not logical."
Not to sound trite, but it was called Assured Mutual Destruction.
Even Ivan knew there was a certainty of obliteration in a war with the United States. 55,000 Russian tanks? Doing what? Shipped to Cuber [sic] to invade the U.S., or take the place of the rusted out 55 Chevies? ;)
N.Korea, Iran, and any other country that would carry out a nuclear attack on the U.S. will be destroyed.
"Even Ivan knew there was a certainty of obliteration in a war with the United States. 55,000 Russian tanks? Doing what? Shipped to Cuber [sic] to invade the U.S., or take the place of the rusted out 55 Chevies? ;)"
I wouldn't be so sanguine. First of all the "certainty of obliteration" was not so certain. The Soviet Union lost most of its cities in Western Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus during WW2, and also (as the Russian Empire) in the War of 1812. Russia/USSR WON both those conflicts just the same! Soviet civil defense, reinforcement of essential industries etc. was far more advanced than that in the US--which had never progressed much beyond the "duck and cover" days.
As for the 55,000 tanks, and 190 divisions, they would have been very useful indeed in sweeping Nato from Western Europe. I was told by an active duty US Army field artillery captain in late 1978 that if the "balloon went up" that the Warsaw Pact would "reach the Ruhr" (the industrial heartland of western Germany) for sure, and that "half our men" would have been casualties--at least until reinforcements arrived. The well-known Soviet preponderance in attack subs would have made reinforcement of Europe a tricky proposition indeed.
Thank God this never happened.
There's no red in me at all.
"First of all the "certainty of obliteration" was not so certain. The Soviet Union lost most of its cities in Western Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus during WW2, and also (as the Russian Empire) in the War of 1812. Russia/USSR WON both those conflicts just the same! Soviet civil defense, reinforcement of essential industries etc. was far more advanced than that in the US--which had never progressed much beyond the "duck and cover" days."
Yeah ... and the cave men beat their women with clubs. I believe we were discussing post WW11. The fall of the Soviet bear to be more specific.
Russia, as history has shown, needed not invade Europe. It needed to feed and clothe it's people instead of wasting it's resources on an imagined enemy. As it is, Europa is as corrupt as Russia ever was and is destined to have a slave master one way or another. Russia will do just fine.
The end of nations, in today's world of nuclear physics, is but a moment away at any given time. If and when some rogue religious moron, or psychotic demigod, launches a missle strike at the United States, either we will destroy both the incoming missles and that country, or you and I will not be casually chatting on FR any longer.
Morgan, that's "Seared in my memory." As in JFK saying, "the memory of that Christmas in Cambodia is seared in my memory."
Of course, that makes it true.
Well... I knew it was something. I forgot the quote. LOL
LOL! Wonder if Lurch still carries his happy hat around in his briefcase?
Nominating that stiff was one of the dumbest things the Dims have done in a long time. He sure energized the veterans' vote all right - for the pubbies.
Folks, what's seared in my memory is how close that election was, how vote fraud still carried key states, and how much money is left in the Kerry war chest.
E.G., Kerry still fosters the urban legend of racist Republican vote suppression in Ohio (defined as the effort to limit urban minorities to one vote apiece, making sure that they are indeed alive, live where their registration says they live, and are actually citizens).
Yeah, Kerry is a stiff, a traitorous gigolo, and definitely a prevaricator of the first water. But he is smart enough to make course corrections and be a more viable candidate next time. His VietNam service is something like Chappaquiddick is to Ted Kennedy: it means a lot, but to fewer people with each passing year. If he lives long enough, it might go away.
Potential Winning scam-issues for the Dems: The economy, which might well tank because of high energy prices ala Jimmy C, Social Security reform, which the Dem's PR campaign may have already killed, and illegal immigration. This last issue is just coming on the Democrat radar because,IMHO,the African-Americans have finally noticed that it is hurting them big-time and that the Republicans have been AWOL on the issue.
All of these items, especially the economy and Social Security, are so damn complicated that common sense cannot be explained to swing voters. They'll swing Dem with fear. They have done it before and Kerry has the money to help direct them there again.
JFK2008 pingo-rama
I agree that LBJ was one of our worst presidents and corrupt to the core. I also agree at this point that McNamara is, to put it nicely, a grade-A moron. Heck, I hold them in contempt for grossly mismanaging Vietnam as well.
However, LBJ was NOT the guy who had JFK assassinated if that’s what you’re implying. You want to blame anyone for assassinating him, try Castro or Khruschev. That’s certainly what Ion Mihai Pacepa and various other former Eastern Bloc spymasters seemed to think, and Pacepa in particular gives quite a few convincing arguments.
I won’t comment on Henry Marshall and Mac Wallace, though. That murder LBJ may have actually been involved in. Won’t surprise me, since I heard he killed his own sister.
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