[elbucko]

Tragic blunder. What did he think was the end game??

There wasn't an end game. This war did not have , at the beginning, a "Noble Purpose". LBJ was only interested in preventing Saigon from falling to the communists before he could win the '68 election, and a second term. That's it! There is no other geopolitical strategy to apply to the start of this war.

Lyndon didn't care about Vietnam, he didn't care about US servicemen. H*ll, he thought they "belonged" to him. Lyndon was a "Kingfish", in the Southern political sense. He owned the sheriff, the courthouse and the jails. You don't think, as President, LBJ didn't think he owned the Army too?

Vietnam is not complex at the beginning. It is about political power in the USA, and not a World struggle.

[cgbg]

There wasn't an end game. This war did not have , at the beginning, a "Noble Purpose". LBJ was only interested in preventing Saigon from falling to the communists before he could win the '68 election, and a second term. That's it! There is no other geopolitical strategy to apply to the start of this war. Lyndon didn't care about Vietnam, he didn't care about US servicemen. H*ll, he thought they "belonged" to him. Lyndon was a "Kingfish", in the Southern political sense. He owned the sheriff, the courthouse and the jails. You don't think, as President, LBJ didn't think he owned the Army too? Vietnam is not complex at the beginning. It is about political power in the USA, and not a World struggle.

Your analysis was definitely correct as it related to the _1964_ election.

I think it gets muddier (;-)) after that.

The bizarre strategy of "escalate until they negotiate" violated thousands of years of established warfare strategy which said that victory could best be achieved by annihilating your enemy.

At that time we were the dominant world power and the threat (and if necessary, the reality) of a nuke or two on Hanoi would have ended the meatgrinder quickly.

LBJ lacked the vision to see victory. He was a miserable excuse for a commander in chief.