Suggest you reread the book. His point was that the NCA failed to follow the principles of war. They oriented on defeating in the field while the North Vietamese oriented on the political victory, fighting a holding action in the South while the real battle took place in the US, in the media and on the college campuses.
As the LTC Summers stated to his NVA LTC counter-part..."You know we defeated you on the battlefield every time." to which his counterpart stated, "Yes, but that is irrelevent."
Again, to quote you, "Since I don't understand the argument, that would appear to be the case."
Suggest you reread the book. His point was that the NCA failed to follow the principles of war. They oriented on defeating in the field while the North Vietamese oriented on the political victory, fighting a holding action in the South while the real battle took place in the US, in the media and on the college campuses. As the LTC Summers stated to his NVA LTC counter-part..."You know we defeated you on the battlefield every time." to which his counterpart stated, "Yes, but that is irrelevent."Of course I agree that winning the most pitched battles is irrelevent, most especially in a guerilla war. But Summers argued (and again, this is to the best of my memory) that Vietnam was the fault of political and conceptual strategic errors and not, as you seem to claim, moral turpitude on the part of the American public. The public would have turned against the massive casualties in the war no matter what, for American goals were nebulous, casualties were high, and there was no way we could "win" without paying a heavy cost.