Wrong. it did have drastic effect. The war was won until the Democrats suceeded in chopping funding for the war. That in turn made the retreating NVA turn around and invade the south. John Kerry caused more deaths in vietnam and Cambodia than the entire war did.
Are you talking about President Ford cutting of aid to South Vietnam during the final North Vietnamese offensive.
I have noticed that lots of Americans complain that it was the peaceniks that lost the war.
Well it may of had something to do with the totally flawed military political strategy.
A strategy I am glad we are not repeating in Iraq.
At the beginning of American involvement a good strategy was evolved, involving winning hearts and minds, training up the local and working with the local population in defeating the VC and NVA. This was initiated by the USMC, and they are using a similar strategy today in Iraq with some very good results
General Westmoreland changed the strategy to large scale search and destroy operations.
His rational was America was not in the mood for a long projected war and with modern technology it would be quicker to meet the VC/NVA in the field and annihilate them, a war of attrition which America would win. And where body counts were concerned his rational was right you killed around two million of the enemy.
But what is the point of military success without political social and economic strategy to back it up.
There was no real viable South Vietnamese structure to move into an area when it was cleared of the NVA/VC, so what happened as you moved onto the next big engagement the NVA and VC reinfilitrated.
The problem was that America decided she was going to defeat the enemy in the field, while the enemy, fighting in the fields was only one part of there strategy, while both sides were fighting a war of attrition the political cadres were getting out there in South Vietnam recruiting the next crop of VC fighters, setting up logistics, gaining local intelligence.
It wasn’t until Nixon started his process of Vietnamisation that you started to look at Hearts and Mind strategy again.
Until then while you fought in the field South Vietnam rotted away around you the ARVN instead of being trained to take over was allowed to steep itself in politics and corruption.
Free fire zones were created people moved of ancestral homes, ancestors are a important part of Vietnamese culture.
Blaming the folks back home may feel good, but the strategy in Vietnam was wrong, until vietamisation, which was a good strategy pity it was only enabled to allow America to withdraw rather than being part of a new strategy to win.
In Iraq and in Afghanistan an important component in the War on Terror is the training up of the local security forces that will take over.
The fact is that you wasted ten years of war, and finally hit on the winning strategy when the heart for this conflict was lost in America.
What was that winning strategy again, letting the South Vietnamese fight there own battles with American aid.
You are right if President Ford had supplied Aid the ARVN could of fought the NVA to a standstill, but by then it was too late.