I was an eighteen year old kid when I went to Vietnam in 1966. I did two tours with the 1st Marine Division. I was a grunt. I have two purple hearts and I have refought this stupid fucking war a thousand times in my mind, trying to understand it. I still haven't changed the outcome and the only casualty of all this rehashing was me. I think Professor Herrring explains this whole thing about as well as it can be explained, but I have to say this. About early 1967 or even earlier we realized the war was a mistake. When we stayed anyway, with no prospects of success, it became a crime. My Lai really happened and many more. The mission was a lie, the body counts were lies, the lights at the end of the tunnel was a lie and practically every thing we were told was a lie. We lost the war because the objectives we wanted to achieve were not attainable and we were just to proud to admit it so we had to face failure and the way most of us deal with that is by telling ourselves more lies.
Thank you for your service. It was never your fault that said service would result in a cruel waste ov lives and, as you stated, later a crime claiming even more lives. That was so much above your paygrade. The curse that hangs over every soldier's life.
I was drafted during the goddamn war. I always knew it was bullshit... nothing but a civil war like those going on all over the world during, before and since. But! Because one side of the war was communist, Washington made it our business. In all these decades did you wonder WHY we we were against communism? You, me & everyone else born just after WWII was raised from birth to kill commies for Christ. But why? It took most of my lifetime before I accepted it, but the reason was to preserve cheap labor. Every population that communism seized was no longer available to be exploited. The corporations were not going to stand for that, and with their money power over Washington they got the war they wanted.
@@bosnbruce5837 Why? Because the South never though the slaves would pick up guns and shoot bullets at white men. The Southerns underestimated the humanity of the slaves thinking they just needed to keep out northern forces. Once Lincoln announced the emancipation proclamation well history said that 190,000 black troops and sailors would defeat the South. Every slave who could escape was going to get a Springfield 1861 rifled musket. Would you stay home shuckin' and jivin' or go for a musket?
@@kimobrien. That is an amazingly distorted view of history. 2.75mill fought in the civil war, and most Southern forces were never slave owners. Your attribution of motives is anti-historical fabrication.
z@@stevealexander8010 www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html The percentage of slave holding families in the CSA ranged form 49 percent in Mississippi to 20 percent in Arkansas. Like most ruling classes it exempted itself from conscription. (Those who owned 8 or more slaves.) Jeff Davis himself owned a plantation in the Mississippi delta with about 75 slaves. Once the slaves heard that Yankee Troops including runaway slaves were coming to free them. Slavery and defeat for the slave owners was all but over.
Our progress was determined in body count not territory taken. One example was the battle of hill 937 or the soldiers that were there called it "Hamburger hill" after 10 days of heavy fighting and casualties we took the hill, but later just left it and the VC took it back a few days later without firing a shot. It was like blowing out a candle that would light up again and each time you blew it out, it would cost the US millions of dollars and thousands of lives.
I had a classmate in the Infantry Officer's Advanced Course in 1974 who was wounded on Hamburger Hill. I told the story of having an NVA major in the bed next to him for a short time. The major told him, "You know we won the battle." He replied, "But we destroyed your unit." "That is true, but we won a great political victory." And that, is the story of Vietnam. The US, from the top to the bottom, had no idea how to win.
I have a friend who rode the last helicopter off the Saigon Embassy. Those folks on that roof were doing what they were told, by people who seemed to fail to understand the motivation of humans to defend their homes from becoming a Colony. Until we can admit that Chase Manhattan had a branch in Saigon for a reason, we fail to understand the war...... The Family that owned the Bank, also owned stock in Dow Chemical, Anaconda and a few other business concerns, that may have had interests in exploiting that Nations resources. The most famous writing that was used to support our involvement in Nam, was underwritten by that same illustrious family..... The fact that Vietnam fought to defend their nation from becoming a Colony of one more imperial power, seems strangely similar to the spirit of Americans who fought to free themselves from King George..... The folks at Chase Manhattan now have 5 offices scattered across Vietnam......
War is a business. I remember sitting in front of my locker and looking to my left and right. Guys getting set to ship out and if they got clipped, no problem, there were a lot more guys to take their place. Would love it if the politicians and businessmen who create this shit could go in place of a bunch of guys who are fighting for each other and want to go home.
I completed the Special Forces Officer's Course in 1975. The speaker for my graduation was Col. Aaron Bank, the father of US Special Forces. Seeing all the Combat Infantryman Badges in the audience (we were in a classroom), he said, "Guys, I hate to tell you this, but you deserve to know. I knew Ho Chi Minh personally and we could have worked with him. He was more nationalist than Communist. Vietnam didn't need to happen. I wrote to President Truman that the US should support Vietnamese independence instead of the return of French colonialism. He didn't listen."
The war in Viet Nam was a lost colonial conflict when the US lied itself into it. I saw recently an American veteran of that war currently living there saying he thanks God every night that the US lost, because ha it won, the place would have been unfit for humans.
@@rudolphguarnacci197 disagree - - - JFK spent his 35 months in the White House stumbling from crisis to fiasco. He came into office and okayed the Bay of Pigs invasion. Then he went to a Vienna summit conference and got his clock cleaned by Khrushchev. That led to, among other things, the Cuban missile crisis and a whiff of nuclear apocalypse. Looming over it all is the American descent into Vietnam. The assassination of Vietnam’s President Diem on Kennedy’s watch may have been one of the two biggest mistakes of the war there. (The other was the decision to wage a war of attrition on the unexamined assumption that Hanoi would buckle under the pain.) I don’t buy the theory promulgated by Robert McNamara and others that Kennedy would have kept U.S. troops out. McNamara launched a program called Project 100,000, which lowered mental standards. Men who had been unqualified for military duty the day before were now deemed qualified. By the end of the war, McNamara’s program had taken 354,000 substandard men into the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy. Among the troops, these men were often known as “McNamara’s Morons” or “the Moron Corps” or “McNamara’s Boys.” Military leaders-from William Westmoreland, the commanding general in Vietnam, to lieutenants and sergeants at the platoon level-viewed McNamara’s program as a disaster. McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam." Because so many college students were avoiding military service during the Vietnam War, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered mental standards to induct 354,000 low-IQ men. Their death toll in combat was appalling.
The North Vietnamese would *never* stop in their fight for freedom and unification against a puppet government in the South. Also, a failure in military strategy in keeping real estate won, rather than fighting a war of attrition, was doomed from the start.
The North couldn't lose without causing the Chinese army to enter the war just like they did in 1950 when MacArthur's forward recon got within sight of the Yalu river. But the real estate was worthless. VC bullets don't grow in rice fields. Keeping every tree you already fought for would just mean assigning men to guard a tree acting as bullet sponges to VC/NVA snipers just because some other a$5hole died for that tree months earlier. No war is won standing still.
Our troops were just a commodity. Kennedy took us there and Johnson kept us there because he did not want to be the first President to lose a war. Westmorland did not know what he was doing and McNamara orchestrated the war from his desk, but he later recognized the futility of it. I am still angry and despise those responsible.
Why we lost? What did they expect would happen? Victory was never was an option, for fear of Russian and/or Chinese involvement. With Victory off the table, the best we could hope for was a draw. Defeat was practically guaranteed from the start. Nor can it be said we did not know what we were getting into, because Ho Chi Mihn had been our guy, and we helped him defeat both the Japanese and the French. (Many thanks to Greg Jay, below for his comments, especially the following: "Fletcher Prouty put it best where he claims the Pentagon (aptly named) had gamed it out to last 10 years with 57k dead...") So what happened? The war lasted, you guessed it, 10 years and cost us 57 k dead, at least. Our no-win strategy worked to perfection; the US military and treasury were bled dry, and the North Vietnamese were the eventual recipients of all the infrastructure and munitions paid for by the US taxpayer and left behind when we were ignominiously chased out. Fast forward to 40 years, and what is the situation in Viet Nam today? Business is booming, and why not? Taxes in "Communist" Viet Nam, are a fraction of what they are in "Free" countries like the US. Makes you wonder why we even bothered.
No fuck you did not helped us the Japanese and the French. What kind of Weed did you have. Not just that entire of your comment like delusional. Business is booming, and why not? We have to trade with China to 2000 just for your people set our sanction off(we are the winning here but USA is sore loser). Russia help us not the USA. And those Running to USA now they even pool if compare those in Viet Nam so no an entire comment is just you delusional.
Im a former Marine who was stationed in I Corp. The TET offensive was a brilliant move by the North Vietnamese. First it was sensationalized by the American press and spun into a defeat. Actually it was not . The zviet Cong came out of their sanctuaries and fought in the open. They werecessentially destroyed due to very high casualties. 2 the North zviets after that essentially took over the wsr in the South.. This guare n teed to the znorth that if only the Americans could be made to leave the znorth would have no real problems with competition in thecSouth for country wide control..
I was there for 7 years, '62 to '70. When Westmoreland gave his farewell address to the troops he badly mispronounced the name of the prime minister, calling him Na-goo-en. I learned in my first week there that Nguyn was pronounced WIN. He had been there 4 and a half years and he couldn't pronounce the name of the man he was supposed to have been working with all that time.
Walter Guest -Thank you. I was there when the US Army collapsed in the field. 1970, 71, 72. I state this with no intent to disparage anyone, but organizations can collapse despite all effort of their human members. This was a vast human tragedy, the Second IndoChina War, the American War. With prayers for all.
Economy of force. The counter-insurgent regime must not overreact to guerrilla provocations, since this may indeed be what they seek to create a crisis in civilian morale. Indiscriminate use of firepower may only serve to alienate the key focus of counterinsurgency- the base of the people. Police level actions should guide the effort and take place in a clear framework of legality, even if under a State of Emergency.
My father used to tell me.. At first he supported the war. He said it was portrayed as the patriotic thing to do. As the war when on, he became convinced we had become the fascists.
@@kristyann9912 and look at communist countries how nicely they treat their people....concentration camps...."reeducation" like in North Korea and North Vietnam which is actually mass killing ...ethnic cleansing...It was right to fight an evil regime. If it's morally right to bomb Japan and Germany to ruins to protect freedom in the world than you have to fight communists in Korea and Vietnam as well...Asian people deserve to be free as much as Europeans...Chileans....Black South Africans etc.
While it is absolutely true that the US failed to understand their enemy, I would point to another factor in The Art of War as at least equally important in explaining the US loss, namely what Sun Tzu calls the "Moral Law": "Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise:- Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral law?" (Literally: "is in harmony with his subjects") Unlike in Germany, in South Korea, in Japan, the US did precious little to convince the locals that they weren't a hostile invading force. They kept backing a local strongman who was neither strong nor beloved by his people and they spent orders of magnitude more on blowing the country to smithereens than they did building it up. I'm convinced that had the US approach been closer to what they did in postwar Germany, they could have turned at least south Vietnam into an allied nation a la South Korea. I don't think it's a coincidence that Ho Chi Minh appealed to the US constitution upon declaring their right to independence. I think he would have much preferred being a US client state to being a sino-soviet proxy.
I can still remember the news reports on the Tonkin Gulf. I was amazed that the N. Viets supposedly attacked the US Navy with some coastal gun boats. I thought they were crazy. I thought they were going to pay a heavy price for that mistake. The military lesson of Vietnam is never have decision makers on strategy who are not extremely knowledgeable of military history.....and have an IQ of at least 99. .....better several - not just one.
That's it in a nutshell they always claimed the were the best and the brightest from Harvard and Yale. Yet metaphorically many could not tie their own shoelaces.
Not really , the US supported the French in Indochina because there was the worry about communism in France. Then after the French lost (despite the billions supplied by the US) , Eisenhower and Kennedy failed to realise that the government in the South had very little popular support and the corruption was endemic. The British success in Malaya and Borneo was in distinct contrast to the situation in South Vietnam. The US Army in particular wanted to fight those big battles as it did in WW2 and to some extent in Korea . Indochina was not that.
I was a Boy Scout in the sixties we were being trained for war. The older scouts promoted that war philosophy. It was a testosterone thing you were expected to man up period. Unfortunately for the US military we got into the wrong war in the wrong place against the wrong people. In WW2 we the OSS had supported Ho and his Viet Minh.Then we turned our backs on them to support the French reucupation.The smart move would have been to opt out but we couldn't bear to lose face.
Why....That guy is a Harzole....and I can assure you he didn't go to Vietnam despite the fact he was most certainly of age to do so... there is your answer...
I am trying to have a book published that refers to this lecture's opening observation: there was no attack in the Tonkin Gulf incident. My book accuses suppression of LBJ's Address to the Nation, delivered August 4, 1964, in which he stated, "There were no US losses." in that incident. The speech was televised live and published throughout the nation the next day. The New York Times published an additional report, the same day, above the fold, from the Pentagon of "no casualties, no damage". Thus, the lingering doubts mentioned in the lecture were, in fact, always very well known. Finding the Gulf of Tonkin
The conclusion he makes is to judge somewhat smugly that there is no lesson that can be taken from Vietnam while the failures in Iraq (now basically an Iranian puppet state after millions of lives lost) echo the same playbook. He says that the conservative takeaway is to "put in enough force to win." Have these military people ever learned anything in the entire course of human history? It is hilarious that these are the people who think the Vietnamese government is "fanatics." The most terrifying fanatics, the most brainwashed ideological people in the world are the people who don't believe they have an ideology and think they themselves are "rational." Most of what he says in this presentation is obviously true, but those takeaways are remarkable to me.
we failed because we wouldnt kill enough of them to make them quit. its up to each one of us at that point to decide if that was a virtue or failing. i personally am glad we didnt do it. the real shame is a lot of good people died in the meantime
Vietnamese people are very good kind and respectable people. Above that they are very patriots and they are willing to sucrifice everything for their freedom and land. Yes, they had uncle Ho as a God, and they listen to him, and had a lot of experience in warfare and battles vs Japanese in WW2 vs the French in the 50's and after they fought the U.S. and the S. Vietnam. They got united after they took the South and never bothered anyone again. Humble people. Like a Vietnamese veteran said one time.. " As much bombs as they are trying to throw on us they still can not level our cities and destroy our infarstructure, why? Because we never had any ! We lived out in the nature and ate rice. The U.S. troops had a lot to loose and we knew that they will give up and leave one day, it was just matter of time.... and we had plenty of it ! " Damn!
And USA is doing business in vietnam too . We moved on so should you. Now making money building the country is more important than holding grudges against each other. If the Viet hold grudges to all the enemies in the past then my god we would have no one left to be friends ?
The late Barbara Tuchman-her book "The March of Folly" has a section devoted to the Viet Nam War with quite a bit of history background as to how our involvement evolved believe used the phrase "America dishonored herself" I suspect that chapter in that book is one of the best sources to consult if you want to begin to understand the debacle that was American involvement in the "Viet Nam war"
Found my copy. The phrase is "America Betrays Herself in Vietnam" "eventually damaging to American society,reputation and disposable power in the world." quoted from Mrs. Tuchman I think that damage is still with us and being reinforced
When a lecture is called Why we failed in Vietnam and WE didn't fail AT ALL while we were there and South Vietnam stood proudly for over 2 years after we left, it's a pretty stupid lecture of some true irrelevancies and some bare-assed lies.
@@carlocappello67 As I've pointed out previously, SOUTH VIETNAM WAS WINNING up until Feb 1975 while we were funding them, but no longer involved with any US TROOPS. ONLY AFTER THE US STOPPED FUNDING SOUTH VIETNAM did the North Vietnamese, funded by BOTH THE USSR AND RED CHINA, win against South Vietnam, in a war we'd exited in January 1973 in terms of any troops.
@@carlocappello67 Do you know how bloody stupid you sound? The US had no soldiers in South East Asia, much less South Vietnam, AT ALL, but "we" lost? ROTFLMAO
I always wonder since World War I Led to World War II, that led to the cold war, Which led to the Korean war, Vietnam, The Russian Afghanistan war, which led to the war on terror, 500 years from now will they call this the 100 years war? Cause it seems like one long Conflict.
Definition of "Search and Destroy" missions: if GI's found stockpiles of rice that the VC were eating, they destroyed them. If "pacified" villagers were eating the rice, it was left alone. You understand the brilliance of this strategy? Me, neither!
Search and destroy meant stumble across the jungle, get ambushed to fix the enemy, and destroy them with artillery and bombs. However the Vietnamese initiated 90% of the combat and were not stupid enough to fight pitched battles in the open.
During the Vietnam war American press focused on what the Americans were doing and what the South Vietnamesse were failing to do. instead of talking in private to the Vietnamesse we criticized them publicly not understanding how important it was to there concept of honor not to loose face publicly.
When you realize that that wasn't a war to win, as in too many people made too much money off of it to end it. Look at the U.S. economy that was in a free fall in the early 60's, it was necessary to boost it and the easiest way was the production of war materials. The manufacturing of Aircraft, guns, ground vehicles and the like was a boon to the American economy. A good example of this crap is after a rocket attack at Da Nang, we found a piece of the rocket motor (a Communist 122 rocket) with an identification plate that read "Philco Ford, Detroit Michigan". It don't take long to realize that we were pawns in a money game. Lost my desire after that, ask me about the Viet Nam war and I'll just say "why"...shake my head no and walk away!!!!!
It is the terrain stupid, it is the terrain. We did not understand how effective the Vietnamese were in using the terrain to their advantage. I was an intelligence officer in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. I made a geologic map of the II Corps Zone and was impressed at how the Vietnamese utilized the geology and related terrain to their advantage. Yes we placed our artillery bases on the top of the hill but we ignored the area underground. The Vietnamese occupied both the area above and below the surface on the earth very effectively. Much of western Vietnam is a volcanic basalt plateau. The Vietnamese utilized the lave tubes to move around undetected. Where these did not exist then dug tunnels. I was so impressed with their use to the terrain that I argued with my CO that there was no way that we could win this war because we refused to use the terrain to advantage while the Vietnamese always used it to their advantage. I said that we may bomb every inch of the country until there were no visible people above ground because they all lived below. Because of this I became very disillusioned with the war that I had experienced first hand. There for I realized that two things greatly led to our eventual defeat. One was the enemy’s will to prevail and the other was their amazing use to their advantage the terrain of the country. It was their friend while it was our enemy!
George, Excellent. When Kinky Friedman served in the Peace Corps in Indonesia he wrote a memo for his boss, the halfwit Harris Wofford, and for the very bright Francis A.J. Ianni back in Washington, about his and his partner Sam's situation there. They shared the inane assignment of teaching accounting to Chinese small businessmen -- as though these people didn't have three thousand years' experience in keeping double or triple sets of books. They were supposed to commute around on 50 cc motorbikes which Honda had just started making. Here are your maps. Follow these roads. The "roads" were berms between the paddies, and they were berms carefully calculated to hold a 50 kilogram man carrying a 40 kilogram bag of rice (a notional half-year or so supply for one adult, and an economic unit of account). Such illusory roads could carry a Honda love-bike while they were dry. A platoon of large men in Vibram boots would very end up in the deep muddy very quickly, dry weather or wet. The memo was promptly classified in Washington at a time when there were still only a few advisors, genuine advisors, before the Bien Hoa raid, and the news apparently never got to the Pentagon. The company knew about it, but Ed Applewhite, MaNamara's briefing officer, was famously fired for his famous "Sir, may I make a personal remark?" "Grumph?" "Well, sir, I don't think those numbers mean what you seem to think they mean." Ed later served with great bravery as Station Chief in Lebanon. His post as briefing officer was later taken over by another friend of yer Granny's, John Ford, who had as little effect on Nixon as Applewhite had had on JFK. Granny wonders, did you know Col. James R. Corson? His time in I Corps might have overlapped with yours in II? prunefaced.grammarian AT gmail DOT com.
Its very simple... #1: The (North Vietnamese) were a 100 times more willing to die than Americans. #2: We took the invasion of North Vietnam off the table from day one and were reluctant to attack North Vietnam at all because we didn't want to risk expanding the conflict to directly involve China or the USSR. #3: The regime we supported in the South were more interested in CORRUPTION and RACKETEERING by the politicians than any cause or the survival of their country. #4: In the end we were only interested in finding a way out and saving face than winning -- which was what we got after Rolling Thunder and Paris Accords.
General advice: Don't get involved in other people's domestics. You will bring terrible problems for your own family. America should never have done what it did. It was a crime against humanity. A Universe Court might bring them to justice.
@Graham - This line of thinking is expected from the European, not the braved American. The US protected the liberty and humanitarian worldwide. That’s what leaders do, realizing the unpleasant price to pay for. That is also the reason millions of people worldwide wanted to live in America.
Graham -America is too big to be tried by any court. Only Americans can stop the immoral acts of the American government and their partners in the Miliarry Industrial complex. People Joan Baez and Daniel Ellbert.
@@muuhoang7592 There have been in most countries ... civil wars, religious wars, ethnic wars, dictatorships, economic dominance fighting, cultural wars, and numerous other causes. And such has been happening throughout the history of mankind and perhaps even more so in the modern era. Just look at the dozens of countries today in the world with serious "civil wars" on one kind or another. It just seems impossible that any one external country or even a collection of external countries can prevent such from happening.
@@roberteaston6413 A lot of Canadians can trace their origins back to the Loyalist who left after the signing of the Treaty of Paris. England was briefly a republic with Oliver Cromwell. They restored the King, dug up Cromwell's body hung him in effigy and ever since they've been trying to get just the right mixture of monarchy, the peerage and democracy. The can't celebrate the beheading of Charles the first a revolutionary victory for all England and Europe because it would insult the King.
I am old enough to remember the Watergate crisis in 1974. Everyone Monarchist in Canada was gloating over that. For a while they had the luxury of being smug and self-righteous towards the USA. But like everything else we had to move on to other things. @@kimobrien.
@@roberteaston6413 The Canadians had the problem of Quebec almost voting for independence. They Quebecois probably would have won if a certain leader didn't turn off the first nations with an announcement that Quebec was to be a white nation. The also enacted a charter of rights and freedoms around that time. Conservative Justice Anthony Scalia wished he had a reasonable limits in the US constitution like the Canadian Charter. They also recognize the 'Supremacy of God'. God is never mentioned in the US Constitution or Amendments.
Uh, there was a peace settlement that required US military power to back up the S. Vietnamese. The demrat party did not allow any funding for the military to enforce the peace settlement. The N. Vietnamese then just sent an army down Route 1 to defeat the the S. Vietnamese. The army would have been a sitting duck for an aircraft carrier off the coast but the army would not have attacked in the first place if they knew the US could help the S. Vietnamese. The South Vietnamese should have been told from the beginning that the US would help but not fight the war for them. Fighting a guerilla war on the other side of the world in jungles with nearby China and the USSR helping N. Vietnam is the worst sort of war against commies possible....Cuba was just 90 miles away and we allowed Castro to exist so why not Vietnam? Cuba would have been a piece of cake compared to Vietnam.
When American advisors were sent to Laos and South Vietnam in the fifties and early sixties, the major problem was not to create guerrilla units, but to fight existing Laotian and Vietnamese guerrilla forces. To them it seemed logical that soldiers trained to be guerrillas would have a deep understanding of how to fight guerrillas, We made the mistake of introducing conventional us forces. Of trying to win the war for the south vietnamese without also dealing with the political problem
The french gcma special forces Tried the same upto 1954 Without success All they managed was to rescue A few from dienbienphu after The ceasefire Many stayed behind because of Ties with locals and were slowly Exterminated Only one made it out of north Vietnam in 1958 just as the American advisers began to Arrive!
Had there been competent Army commanders, the losses the Army experienced at LZ X-Ray would not have happened. Similarly, the losses the Marines experience in Leatherneck Square would not have happened. Angel Fire Memorial.
Would you say the same abt N/S Korea ? About E/W Germany ? Do you recognize the mass murders & poverty that might have been prevented - but instead actually occurred in VN & Cambodia?
They were thinking the same thing we who believe in freedom are thinking today about the parasitic communist who threatens a takeover of our country today, "Let's send help to stop it."
We had no proper business being there other than to assist in implementation of the 1954 Geneva agreement. Eisenhower doesn’t get his share of the blame, in my opinion.
If we had "won" in Vietnam, we would have been defeating a democratic government. The French attacked the Vietnamese, a U.S. ally, in an effort to re-colonize the country after WWII. Ho Chi Minh begged President Truman to recognize Vietnam's independence. Truman chose to try to curry favor with the French. The French were soundly defeated at Dien Bien Phu, and the U.S. was then left there fighting to avoid losing a pointless military conflict. It goes back to the path that Truman put us on. Vietnam sought military assistance from Communist China only after Truman's refusal to recognize their independence.
We didn't lose in Viet nam and neither did the French. Read what Khrushchev said on pages 482 and 483 of his memior. We and the French both just said , "piss on it," and left. The reason I believe is that the Vietnamese on our side didn't like us. The communist rank and file did. I spent 4 yrs in Viet Nam. Two in the army and two as a civilian. I arrived in the Tuy Hoa area, Phu Yen province in Jan 68. My unit was a component of the 173 ABN. My 2nd day in my unit two paratroopers took several of us newbies into Phu Hiep to buy some toiletries the PX was out of. These two paratroopers had been in Viet Nam for over a year and a half. They told us newbies how to tell which Vietnamese were VC. We were told, "the VC are friendly, they like us and they don't try to screw over us." During my 4 yrs in Viet Nam I found this was very true. The opposite was also true. The Vietnamese on our side weren't friendly, didn't like us, and screwed over us every chance they got. The two experienced paratroopers had been based at Bien Hoa their 1st yr and took part in operations in lll Corp, thenthe hill batles in ll Corp during thr last half of 67. Yes, in combat the fighting was fierce, butonce off the time clock, there was a lot of fraternization going on. A lot. So you wake up one morning And you realize you're helping the wrong side and you say, "we're out of here!" I think that's why we didn't leave the South Vietnamese with equipment they needed to win. My 2nd yr in Viet Nam my unit was attached to the 7th ARVN Div. We were in a lot of heavy combat. The ARVN would fight hard.
I remember the day I became a liberal...it was when I found out that it was the US and not the Vietnamese who wouldn't permit free elections in Vietnam. That is why we lost the war. There was no moral imperative for victory.
"That is why we lost the war. There was no moral imperative for victory." But that didn't stop Washington from trying to invent one. One that wasn't rooted in reality.
Remember folks, we were not there to "win" a war. We were there to help South Vietnam push the VC/NVA back across the DMZ and keep them there.Kinda like the Korean situation I guess.
panzerken You cannot fight other people's civil wars for them. South Vietnam was geopolitical fiction anyway. It was a creation of The Geneva Accords and bore no basis in reality in Southeast Asia. Most Vietnamese didn't view it as a legitimate country. You can't drop enough bombs on a quagmire to create stability.
Your post is already 3 years old. I hope you've spent some time with studying the history of the American War in Vietnam. Because this post shows that you have a lack of information.
America was there to win. America’s main objective was to stop communism from spreading. Soon enough America pulled out and lost, thus communism spread throughout Southeast Asia.
Like trying to fight in a ring with your hands tied behind you and it’s a boxing match. They were very limited to the task of force. If you can’t fight full strength then don’t fight
Bigger questions is; How did Vietnam prove to be crucial to the United States victory in the Cold War? I highly doubt this fella would understand the question.
Despite all the crowing about 'winning the 'cold war''. The US lost the cold war. They were unable to defeat the Soviet Union and China militarily. In the old Soviet Union the revolution was eaten out from the inside starting with the 1938 Moscow trials. The US capitalists can't get support from sellouts in Moscow or Beijing posing as revolutionary governments. They find themselves in a period of increasing instability and endless war which is unsustainable.
A universal lesson one may learn (reinforced by the mess of IS): violence never solves any problems, only causes them. People dislike being bullied, whether Vietnamese, Arab or/American/European (think of the resistance during WW2) Military power is not durable, as also proven by the eastern block.
tl;dw: failure was the only possible outcome. Next question then is: would the cost of not engaging have been acceptable? Did the US intervention dissuade other Communists to the point that other countries did not follow Vietnam into Communism?
@GH1618 - If the US didn’t involve, the Chinese would claim the China Sea much sooner, and one third of the world economy is under the mercy of China, not to mention the rest of the region becoming communism. The US can’t stop China and Russia; so they made concession to give up VN and save the rest. The wrong side of the history is the people like Jane Fonda, birdsong McCain, swift boat Kerry, the protesting students, the hippies, and those who turned their backs on returning VN war heroes. The veterans did not create the war, did not volunteer, just responded to the call to duty. How ungrateful those cowardly traitors that stabbed the American soldiers in the back. The communists are bad, but at least they are patriotic, unlike the animals who put the interests of their party above the country minus patriotism. The Democrats will always be in the wrong side of history, present, and future.
@@muuhoang7592 The fear of 'Communism' was based on US propaganda. Nationalism was the strongest motivator in that region as in most regions of the world.
a corrupt upperclass playijng upperclass games with the lives of t he working classes. This is ignored by the righties because theyre delusional magical thinkers and willing serfs. It's ignored by the centrists (dems) because it doesnt fit their bullshit narrative...
Ernest Murphy What makes you think that there was anything that the U S could have done to achieve victory? The Vietnamese people would NEVER have given up! They were determined to be free!
@@robertroselle5073 i agree but holding our military hands behind there back was the mistake after tet we needed to fire westmoreland and the war to the north crippled the north with a ARVN spear head that we know would have been destroyed
@@robertroselle5073 They (communists) would have given up if we had marched north. I agree that as long as NV existed, it was determined to spread communism. Those determined to be free got on boats and helicopters.
America never intended to win that war. Our "leaders" in Washington and the Pentagon saw to that. It was about politics and the almighty buck pure and simple. We just just cannon fodder, expendible, and our "leaders" didn't give a damn about us or the vietnamese. We didn't lose, no white flags waving, no Batann, no Dunkirk, no Dien ben phu but supposedly we got our butts handed to us. I beg to differ.I'm still here, they're not. My butt wasn't kicked for all of you that love to bring that up. The media, as always, had a lot to do with public opinion here about the war and they managed to turn the people against us by reporting on American atrocities, never mind what the butchering north vietnamese did. Because of the incompetence of our "leadership"the public got frustrated because it was used to winning. So the public needed somebody to kick around and that was us, the veterans coming back. That's Americans for you. Rah, rah, rah, when things are going good but the whining and bellycahing starts when they're not. One hand was tied behind our backs. Wasn't our fault we weren't allowed to do what should have been done. It's time we got that straight George C. Herring.
In the counter-insurgency context, "boots on the ground" are even more important than technological prowess and massive firepower, although anti-guerrilla forces should take full advantage of modern air, artillery and electronic warfare assets. dont forget the Marine small wars manuel written about lessons learned in the 1920-30 central american wars. westmoreland wasted 4 years fighting a conventional war. America should never fight a war of attrition the last time that worked was Grant vs Lee
RIP George Herring. The question I have right now is how South Korea 'worked', since every other nation-building endeavor has been an absolute disaster for all the reasons Dr. Herring lays out.
@Generic Name Yes, that's a good take. But it only worked in SK. Japan was a long settled culture. It also 'worked' in Indonesia & Central/South America. Sort of, minus the mass murder / other atrocities.
WTF, again nobody mentions Henry Kissinger, he was more influential than any general or president at the time, Hollywood thought of him as just another movie star and the girls loved him, and he loved all the attention, he had the power to stop that war early but did not, because he was loving his status, and prolonged it as long as he wanted, after all he was the main negotiator between nations.
It should be noted: 1. Ngo Den Diem was a prominent anti-colonial official in Vietnam. He was also anti-communist. He refused to join Bao Dai's government in 1949 because it was a French puppet, and he refused Ho's request to join in the Communist government. He was, as Kennedy feared and events proved, irreplaceable. 2. Too many Americans involved in decision-making, and too many journalists involved in forming public opinion, seemed to think that the solution to the war was to turn South Vietnam into what America liked to think itself was. While voting for your government leaders is an easy sell, there is no evidence that any people who have never had any experience in such a system are willing to fight for it. Vietnamese government was riddled with corruption. It was riddled with it before the French came, it was riddled with it under the French, it was riddled with it under Diem and his successors -- and it was riddled with it under the DRVN. America was not (and is not) sufficiently without fault in that area that it can cast the first stone! Yet it was the complaints of journalists about the corruption, and about opposition to Diem among the intelligentsia (or communist-allied Buddhist leaders) in Saigon, which were reported in the major media, that led the generals to believe that they had to overthrow Diem or lose US support. And it was those decision-makers, primarily Lodge and Hilsman, whi disobeyed Kennedy's orders and gave the green light to the generals' coup. 3. Throughout the war, there were more South Vietnamese fighting AGAINST the Communists than there were fighting FOR them -- and it can't be said that they had no choice in the matter. Nor did the war end in 1975 -- Pike says there were c. 15,000 persons in anti-communist guerrilla bands in 1977, and some 25,000 in 1983.
EvilJFK escalated the Vietnam situation into a war the day he was inaugurated... had ships/troops/materiel pouring in 3 or 4 months later... had 16,000+ troops there by the time he and his buddy EvilDiem were both executed in Nov. 1963...
@@DudeInOhio85 - Catholic EvilJFK helping his buddy Catholic EvilDiem started the problem... both abusing Vietnam's Buddhists... at least we executed both those azzholes in Nov. 18\963... but too late to save 58,000+ good U.S. Troops... which almost included me... I survived that lunacy over there... EvilJFK was America's 'Hitler'...
@@DudeInOhio85 What do you mean he had nothing to do with the outcome? He was the one who escalated the war in the first place. It was under his presidency when the gulf of tonkin was staged as an excuse to send ground troops and when the amount of u.s. troops reached its peak.
I had to write an exam essay at a British university on 'Why the US failed in Vietnam and the British succeeded in Malaya.' ? I think this lecture is pretty good. But I would like to add or emphasise some points. The British were much more experienced in fighting such conflicts. General Templar in Malaya used special branch local police much more effectively. Separated the indigenous pop from the communist radicals in a much effective fashion. But I agree nationalism is a key. If the American loses ...he goes home. If the Vietcong loses...he has no home.
John Carlisle John, I remember in our training in Special Forces at the time...the ‘British Malaysian Model’, was brought up at times as a successful anti-communist model to follow....but as usual with us....politics got in the way.... Also I remember comments made by other veteran Special Forces soldiers with several combat tours saying in an offhanded way, that we were better suited and trained to fight on the ‘other side’... It was my observation on the ground that in most cases we would have preferred to be with the local village people with whom we lived with than whomever was in Saigon at the time.... All in all....many good comments and observations made on this most accurate and honest lecture. Great instructor my hats off to him ...like his soft spoken manner
@@frod043 ...I think the Brits had a few key geographical advantages. Malaya did not have China immediately adjacent to it. UK had extensive naval assets to block guerrilla infiltration from the sea. But I was given to understand that the Brits placed a great emphasis on keeping a lid on things. They didn't even describe it as a war...it was the Malayan Emergency. In Ireland...a civil war was called The Troubles. But I agree with you. I think the lecture was pretty good. Did you see the recent history on Netflix by Ken Burns.. Heartbreaking
John Carlisle yes the geography of any conflict is most important...I must add also that the “Strategic Hamlet” concept is also taken from the success that the British Special Forces had with it in Malaysia .....
I used to work for a major who served in Malaysia. He said he would go out with 5 to 7 soldiers and set up an ambush and stay at the site for up to six weeks. One soldier would always man a bren machine gun. You win a guerrilla war by out guerrilla them. Like anything else.
By the way, why DID Hitler stop Guderian at Dunkurk from slaughtering the last of the Tommies on the beach and then invading a defenseless UK? Why did Hitler tell the same guy to stop invading towards Moscow and join the southern column in the Caucacus for a while and only THEN go back to invading Moscow going into the winter? Probably because the Rothschilds paid him to do so. We're talking about a busexual gigolo.
Op Sealion was a non entity as the Home Fleet had vastly superior sea power. As the Allies found in ‘44 there are only certain months a large naval invasion can cross the channel opposed. Hitler had his Generals get ready for Sealion and they found they only had a few barges needing towed as their landing craft. So the RAF bombed them constantly. They needed canals to sail them across Europe so the RAF dropped mines to delay them. Why did they delay destroying the troops at Dunkirk? Put simply they had WW1 era generals in high command and the sheer pace of manoeuvre warfare scared them. The French still had a massive army in reserve that they thought could descend on their stretched forces. So they did the WW1 thing that they knew. Hold until they bring up the infantry then continue. They still had the whole of France to conquer not just the NE.
Really want to bottom line it? Money was to be made. A war was needed to line peoples pockets. An attempt to generate fear so military and weapons makers could gain control. A president whose ego was involved... All the flowery talk and trying to reinvent past motivations is ridiculous.
How was the North sold out by the Chines and Soviets in 1954? The newly elected French government handed them a gift to settle the fate of the country on elections that would be stacked in the North's favor. The government of what would be the Republic of the South Vietnam had no say in agreeing to the elections in the first place. Followed up by the Soviets and Chinese made sure that if these elections were held there would be no monitoring as well as the ballots would be public. It is not surprising the people of the South had little interest in the elections, which would be likely as rigged as those in Poland or Korea prior. At the very least you can understand their skepticism.. On top that Ho's great organization was the elimination of those that were in his way. He did not care if they were nationalist, the government of the South and its supporters were nationalist, no HO wanted rid of anyone that did not support his Marxist-Leninist view. Sure the government in the South was corrupt, but there were protest at times against the government this would never be allowed in the North.
The French should of left period. The only thing that they had to negotiate was the withdrawal of their administrators, troops, and collaborators. Just like in Korea the Chinese (Mao) and Russians (Stalin) had no right to negotiate what wasn't theirs in the first place. At the end of the Vietnam war Nixon and Kissinger went on a whirlwind tour of realpolitik meeting and toasting Mao and Brezhnev. Mao and Brezhnev should have politely told Nixon to go to hell while he was dropping bombs on Vietnam. That if he wanted to negotiate than he should do it in Paris with the representatives of Vietnam.
The representatives of the DRV had a habit of appearing that they wanted to negotiate only at the last bring new things to table or want to renegotiate items that had already been agreed on. This exactly what they did in the Fall of 1972. The North had no intention of ever settling and allowing the Republic of South Vietnam to exist. They wanted a united Vietnam but only under communist rule. When "Nixon" was dropping bombs on North Vietnam in 1972 it was a response to the North invasion of the South, their largest of the war at that time. As for Mao and Brezhnev they were not going to put Vietnam over their own country's interest any more than the US would.
@@andrewmcdonald1166 The US never had a right to make any decisions about Vietnam. It was nothing more than Imperailist arrogance for the US to tell the people of Vietnam what they should or shouldn't do. If Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and others were so interested in democracy why weren't the dropping bombs on Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama?
Mao and Brezhnev were both sellout followers of Stalin. A revolutionary Socialist government like the Cuban lead by a Fidel Castro in Beijing or Moscow would have told Nixon and Kissinger to go take a hike.
Well it is hard to have a discussion about democracy, even with the US's failing over time when the counter part is a Marxist regime. They believe in dictatorship of the proletariat, where by only the rule by those representing the proletariat is allowed to exist as essential condition for the class system to be eradicated. Hoping for one day when there is no state at all if and when communism is achieved. So no elections could ever exist that allowed for a party that had contradicting views under Marxist government. So even by their own theory they don't believe in democracy on the same terms. That is fine if that is your thing. However, someone can not claim to be totally committed to democracy if their total belief system does not allow for the concept that those with different ideas are allowed to be elected. This was a point of contention between what then were the Social Democrats and the Marxist in the first half of the 20th century. Lastly Ok you feel the US involvement in Vietnam was due to imperialist arrogance, so the same would essentially be true for the Chinese and Soviet involvement? After all you had two groups in Vietnam both feeling they legitimately represented the people with the dividing line of the civil war over ideology. The Chinese and Soviets backed one side, and the US backed the other.
One thing he does not mention is worth thinking about. If the war had been over in six months and hugely successful for America, would we still be talking about "the lessons of "Vietnam"? The answer is, of course not. It would be remembered as a glorious page in American history. My point is that losing a war not only calls into question why a country lost militarily, but questions its political goals as well - points that would never be questioned in victory.
What a self satisfied bore, both in voice and content. Nothing new OR concise in this pedantic waffle. Critiques Westy and LBJ of uncritical, self satisfied, self interest and waffling thought process and then gives an equal unfocused waffling explanation. But what would you expect from someone who quotes Hollywood and pop culture as a basis of the explanation. Define 'fail', define 'success' or define what was 'the nature of the war'. The key to war is not "know your enemy" but 'state and maintain the aim' - and test the aim. The Yanks either never had a clear aim or never concisely expressed their aim. Australia fought to "stop the spread of communism" (the domino theory). China and Russia fought to spread communism (and gain strategic advantage and positioning in their own geo political power-play). The spread of communism stopped in Viet Nam.
Tôi là người Việt Nam,ở đất nước của tôi mọi người không quan tâm chủ nghĩa cộng sản hay chủ nghĩa tư bản ở các nước khác như thế nào.Người Việt Nam chỉ đơn giản là nhìn thấy rõ ràng được bản chất của cả 2 chủ nghĩa đó ở Việt Nam,những gì 2 chủ nghĩa này mang lại cho người Việt Nam và chúng tôi đơn giản chỉ là làm việc phải làm.
That's full of shit. The Domino theory was the main motivation, but it was a shit motivation to begin with, you think if they would have "concisely expressed" it enough they'd magically win? They seemed to have made the aim pretty clear until it was clear to them that this theory was just not good enough for the public anymore. I don't know why you believe the Aussies were fighting "for the Domino theory" but the Americans were not. The only pussy-footing around this motivation was trying to eventually sell the war to the public, but the central goal was always the same. "To stabilize a long-lasting and competent US-friendly government in South Vietnam." That's pretty fucking concise already.
It is hard to comprehend that the fate of nations rests at times on chance confrontations with nature. It is now considered highly likely that the returns interpreted by the destroyer sonar men and the lights seen by observers on MADDOX and TURNER JOY on the night of 4 August 1964 were the result of a huge number of giant pyrosomes: clear marine organisms that bond together to form solid bioluminescent colonies which could have been interpreted by the destroyer crews as torpedoes and surface craft. See: www.extremetech.com/extreme/252235-glowing-invertebrate-may-helped-kick-off-vietnam-war
Respect to the soldiers who served, but the US should never have been there. For a country with a loud mythology of self-determination from the British, the US often didn’t allow the same self-determination for others, Vietnam a main case in point. The same treasure of lives and wealth could have built a positive relationship and Johnson’s Great Society. Sympathies to the young men who served their country in such a mistaken cause.
I was twice in Viet nahm. my radar and computer system was highly capable and almost never missed the target as we directed the bombers on target. I believe if properly used and allowed to we could have defeated North Viet Nahm In a month. We were not allowed to win. I was awarded a bronze star medal because of the highly accurate performance of my men and equipment.
Wow computers and radar directing bombs on rice farmers in their own country. What a brave warrior. Thanks for protecting my freedom from not 1 Vietcong who ever attacked my American borders.
@@larrywheeler9917 You are right. I was not a hero. I was doing what I was trained to do. Those bombers dropped tons of bombs and killed many people. That war was a farce and we should not have been there.
We were on the wrong side. We supported the Catholics who were around 20% of the population. Like us fighting Great Britain to win our independence. 80% of the Vietnamese wanted to be one country not under the control of Catholics who reminded them of the French overlords.
I was an eighteen year old kid when I went to Vietnam in 1966. I did two tours with the 1st Marine Division. I was a grunt. I have two purple hearts and I have refought this stupid fucking war a thousand times in my mind, trying to understand it. I still haven't changed the outcome and the only casualty of all this rehashing was me. I think Professor Herrring explains this whole thing about as well as it can be explained, but I have to say this. About early 1967 or even earlier we realized the war was a mistake. When we stayed anyway, with no prospects of success, it became a crime. My Lai really happened and many more. The mission was a lie, the body counts were lies, the lights at the end of the tunnel was a lie and practically every thing we were told was a lie. We lost the war because the objectives we wanted to achieve were not attainable and we were just to proud to admit it so we had to face failure and the way most of us deal with that is by telling ourselves more lies.
It is ice to see an honest comment from one who participated in the unjustified war against the Vietnamese people!
Thank you for your service. It was never your fault that said service would result in a cruel waste ov lives and, as you stated, later a crime claiming even more lives. That was so much above your paygrade. The curse that hangs over every soldier's life.
@alugwin
The benefit of hindsight suits you well. That’s the only positive thing to be said about self righteous spoiled brats.
I was drafted during the goddamn war. I always knew it was bullshit... nothing but a civil war like those going on all over the world during, before and since. But! Because one side of the war was communist, Washington made it our business. In all these decades did you wonder WHY we we were against communism? You, me & everyone else born just after WWII was raised from birth to kill commies for Christ. But why? It took most of my lifetime before I accepted it, but the reason was to preserve cheap labor. Every population that communism seized was no longer available to be exploited. The corporations were not going to stand for that, and with their money power over Washington they got the war they wanted.
The more I saw of them...the more I hated lies
Question: Why did the south lose the Civil War?
Answer: "I always thought that the north had something to do with it." General Pickett (CSA)
rimshot
Sounds like an obvious truism, yet many still don't fully get it ;)
@@bosnbruce5837 Why? Because the South never though the slaves would pick up guns and shoot bullets at white men. The Southerns underestimated the humanity of the slaves thinking they just needed to keep out northern forces. Once Lincoln announced the emancipation proclamation well history said that 190,000 black troops and sailors would defeat the South. Every slave who could escape was going to get a Springfield 1861 rifled musket. Would you stay home shuckin' and jivin' or go for a musket?
@@kimobrien. That is an amazingly distorted view of history. 2.75mill fought in the civil war, and most Southern forces were never slave owners. Your attribution of motives is anti-historical fabrication.
z@@stevealexander8010 www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html The percentage of slave holding families in the CSA ranged form 49 percent in Mississippi to 20 percent in Arkansas. Like most ruling classes it exempted itself from conscription. (Those who owned 8 or more slaves.) Jeff Davis himself owned a plantation in the Mississippi delta with about 75 slaves. Once the slaves heard that Yankee Troops including runaway slaves were coming to free them. Slavery and defeat for the slave owners was all but over.
Failed in the most simple way, there was no definition of winning.
The one who achieved his goal in the battle was the winner
We wanted to divide the country like Korea. If you call that winning.
Our progress was determined in body count not territory taken. One example was the battle of hill 937 or the soldiers that were there called it "Hamburger hill" after 10 days of heavy fighting and casualties we took the hill, but later just left it and the VC took it back a few days later without firing a shot. It was like blowing out a candle that would light up again and each time you blew it out, it would cost the US millions of dollars and thousands of lives.
I had a classmate in the Infantry Officer's Advanced Course in 1974 who was wounded on Hamburger Hill. I told the story of having an NVA major in the bed next to him for a short time.
The major told him, "You know we won the battle."
He replied, "But we destroyed your unit."
"That is true, but we won a great political victory."
And that, is the story of Vietnam. The US, from the top to the bottom, had no idea how to win.
The candle, great analogy.
I have a friend who rode the last helicopter off the Saigon Embassy.
Those folks on that roof were doing what they were told,
by people who seemed to fail to understand the motivation
of humans to defend their homes from becoming a Colony.
Until we can admit that Chase Manhattan had a branch
in Saigon for a reason, we fail to understand the war......
The Family that owned the Bank, also owned stock
in Dow Chemical, Anaconda and a few other business concerns,
that may have had interests in exploiting that Nations resources.
The most famous writing that was used to support our involvement
in Nam, was underwritten by that same illustrious family.....
The fact that Vietnam fought to defend their nation from
becoming a Colony of one more imperial power,
seems strangely similar to the spirit of Americans
who fought to free themselves
from King George.....
The folks at Chase Manhattan
now have 5 offices scattered across Vietnam......
You can bet the folks at Chase Manhattan represent the Vatican. The war was referred to as Spellman's war as in Cardinal Spellman of NY City.
Thank-you for your lecture Dr. Herring. Your closing is most exceptional.
Tracybeme Herring is a rotten sardine! A lying sardine!
War is a business. I remember sitting in front of my locker and looking to my left and right. Guys getting set to ship out and if they got clipped, no problem, there were a lot more guys to take their place. Would love it if the politicians and businessmen who create this shit could go in place of a bunch of guys who are fighting for each other and want to go home.
The United States has been in a state of perpetual war since 1940. Ike warned us about this.
I completed the Special Forces Officer's Course in 1975. The speaker for my graduation was Col. Aaron Bank, the father of US Special Forces. Seeing all the Combat Infantryman Badges in the audience (we were in a classroom), he said, "Guys, I hate to tell you this, but you deserve to know. I knew Ho Chi Minh personally and we could have worked with him. He was more nationalist than Communist. Vietnam didn't need to happen. I wrote to President Truman that the US should support Vietnamese independence instead of the return of French colonialism. He didn't listen."
The war in Viet Nam was a lost colonial conflict when the US lied itself into it. I saw recently an American veteran of that war currently living there saying he thanks God every night that the US lost, because ha it won, the place would have been unfit for humans.
"Thank God that US lost" -I have read this sentence more than once from American veterans
We lost when Kennedy let McNamara talk him into commiting to a war that they both knew we could never really win. End of story.
Kennedy may have had misgivings about that decision and may have been olanni g to reverse them. A move which may have led to his killing.
@@rudolphguarnacci197 disagree - - - JFK spent his 35 months in the White House stumbling from crisis to fiasco. He came into office and okayed the Bay of Pigs invasion. Then he went to a Vienna summit conference and got his clock cleaned by Khrushchev. That led to, among other things, the Cuban missile crisis and a whiff of nuclear apocalypse.
Looming over it all is the American descent into Vietnam. The assassination of Vietnam’s President Diem on Kennedy’s watch may have been one of the two biggest mistakes of the war there. (The other was the decision to wage a war of attrition on the unexamined assumption that Hanoi would buckle under the pain.) I don’t buy the theory promulgated by Robert McNamara and others that Kennedy would have kept U.S. troops out. McNamara launched a program called Project 100,000, which lowered mental standards. Men who had been unqualified for military duty the day before were now deemed qualified. By the end of the war, McNamara’s program had taken 354,000 substandard men into the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy. Among the troops, these men were often known as “McNamara’s Morons” or “the Moron Corps” or “McNamara’s Boys.”
Military leaders-from William Westmoreland, the commanding general in Vietnam, to lieutenants and sergeants at the platoon level-viewed McNamara’s program as a disaster. McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam." Because so many college students were avoiding military service during the Vietnam War, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered mental standards to induct 354,000 low-IQ men. Their death toll in combat was appalling.
The North Vietnamese would *never* stop in their fight for freedom and unification against a puppet government in the South. Also, a failure in military strategy in keeping real estate won, rather than fighting a war of attrition, was doomed from the start.
The North couldn't lose without causing the Chinese army to enter the war just like they did in 1950 when MacArthur's forward recon got within sight of the Yalu river.
But the real estate was worthless. VC bullets don't grow in rice fields. Keeping every tree you already fought for would just mean assigning men to guard a tree acting as bullet sponges to VC/NVA snipers just because some other a$5hole died for that tree months earlier.
No war is won standing still.
Even if might was right, the was was still immoral.
‘Not fully aware’ speaks for the entire conflict! Vietnam vet USN.
Our troops were just a commodity. Kennedy took us there and Johnson kept us there because he did not want to be the first President to lose a war. Westmorland did not know what he was doing and McNamara orchestrated the war from his desk, but he later recognized the futility of it. I am still angry and despise those responsible.
such a great lecture
Love it, especially the clip at the 7 min mark. USN '57-'66
Brilliant analysis and insight into Vietnam and the failings of American foreign policy .
History to make us wise forever. 😎👍🏽 🙏🏼
Where is the wisdom when in 2001 again attacked to occupy Afghanistan to run away in 2021 like in Vietnam
Why we lost? What did they expect would happen? Victory was never was an option, for fear of Russian and/or Chinese involvement.
With Victory off the table, the best we could hope for was a draw. Defeat was practically guaranteed from the start.
Nor can it be said we did not know what we were getting into, because Ho Chi Mihn had been our guy, and we helped him defeat both the Japanese and the French.
(Many thanks to Greg Jay, below for his comments, especially the following: "Fletcher Prouty put it best where he claims the Pentagon (aptly named) had gamed it out to last 10 years with 57k dead...")
So what happened? The war lasted, you guessed it, 10 years and cost us 57 k dead, at least. Our no-win strategy worked to perfection; the US military and treasury were bled dry, and the North Vietnamese were the eventual recipients of all the infrastructure and munitions paid for by the US taxpayer and left behind when we were ignominiously chased out.
Fast forward to 40 years, and what is the situation in Viet Nam today?
Business is booming, and why not?
Taxes in "Communist" Viet Nam, are a fraction of what they are in "Free" countries like the US.
Makes you wonder why we even bothered.
That's no excuse. No one threatened US in Afghanistan.
No fuck you did not helped us the Japanese and the French. What kind of Weed did you have. Not just that entire of your comment like delusional. Business is booming, and why not? We have to trade with China to 2000 just for your people set our sanction off(we are the winning here but USA is sore loser). Russia help us not the USA. And those Running to USA now they even pool if compare those in Viet Nam so no an entire comment is just you delusional.
Im a former Marine who was stationed in I Corp.
The TET offensive was a brilliant move by the North Vietnamese.
First it was sensationalized by the American press and spun into a defeat.
Actually it was not .
The zviet Cong came out of their sanctuaries and fought in the open. They werecessentially destroyed due to very high casualties.
2 the North zviets after that essentially took over the wsr in the South..
This guare n teed to the znorth that if only the Americans could be made to leave the znorth would have no real problems with competition in thecSouth for country wide control..
I was there for 7 years, '62 to '70. When Westmoreland gave his farewell address to the troops he badly mispronounced the name of the prime minister, calling him Na-goo-en. I learned in my first week there that Nguyn was pronounced WIN. He had been there 4 and a half years and he couldn't pronounce the name of the man he was supposed to have been working with all that time.
@ElPocho DelMundo General Waste More Land.
Walter Guest -Thank you. I was there when the US Army collapsed in the field. 1970, 71, 72. I state this with no intent to disparage anyone, but organizations can collapse despite all effort of their human members. This was a vast human tragedy, the Second IndoChina War, the American War. With prayers for all.
@@lyntwo General Waste More Land along with the Americally Division.
@@kimobrien. Great pun.
@@lyntwo Glad you survived.
Economy of force. The counter-insurgent regime must not overreact to guerrilla provocations, since this may indeed be what they seek to create a crisis in civilian morale. Indiscriminate use of firepower may only serve to alienate the key focus of counterinsurgency- the base of the people. Police level actions should guide the effort and take place in a clear framework of legality, even if under a State of Emergency.
That's so much gobbledygook nonsense.
@@chuckschillingvideosand yet the British in Malaya and Borneo managed to defeat the communist forces.
My father used to tell me..
At first he supported the war. He said it was portrayed as the patriotic thing to do.
As the war when on, he became convinced we had become the fascists.
Fascists compared to the Communists?! Read the research I did that was read into the Congressional Record Aug 8 1978 by Bob Dornan. Robert E Johnson.
@@robertjohnson5838
Bob Dornan, the Orange County Brownshirt? That "Bob" Dornan?
Fascists usually are imposing torment on their own people.
Jim H Your father is full of shit!
@@kristyann9912 and look at communist countries how nicely they treat their people....concentration camps...."reeducation" like in North Korea and North Vietnam which is actually mass killing ...ethnic cleansing...It was right to fight an evil regime. If it's morally right to bomb Japan and Germany to ruins to protect freedom in the world than you have to fight communists in Korea and Vietnam as well...Asian people deserve to be free as much as Europeans...Chileans....Black South Africans etc.
There is a difference in moral in fighting for your own homeland than fighting because you were drafted without a clear vision.
While it is absolutely true that the US failed to understand their enemy, I would point to another factor in The Art of War as at least equally important in explaining the US loss, namely what Sun Tzu calls the "Moral Law":
"Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise:-
Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral law?" (Literally: "is in harmony with his subjects")
Unlike in Germany, in South Korea, in Japan, the US did precious little to convince the locals that they weren't a hostile invading force. They kept backing a local strongman who was neither strong nor beloved by his people and they spent orders of magnitude more on blowing the country to smithereens than they did building it up. I'm convinced that had the US approach been closer to what they did in postwar Germany, they could have turned at least south Vietnam into an allied nation a la South Korea.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Ho Chi Minh appealed to the US constitution upon declaring their right to independence. I think he would have much preferred being a US client state to being a sino-soviet proxy.
I can still remember the news reports on the Tonkin Gulf. I was amazed that the N. Viets supposedly attacked the US Navy with some coastal gun boats. I thought they were crazy. I thought they were going to pay a heavy price for that mistake. The military lesson of Vietnam is never have decision makers on strategy who are not extremely knowledgeable of military history.....and have an IQ of at least 99. .....better several - not just one.
That's it in a nutshell they always claimed the were the best and the brightest from Harvard and Yale. Yet metaphorically many could not tie their own shoelaces.
"The Gulf of Tonkin Event" is just "WMD" for N.Vietnam
Brilliant and quite definitive on the matter.
Anyone who focuses on why we lost in Vietnam is missing the bigger point, which is how the CIA maneuvered us into it.
They took over the opium trade from the French. Everything else is a smoke screen. CIA = Catholic Intelligence Agency.
Not really , the US supported the French in Indochina because there was the worry about communism in France. Then after the French lost (despite the billions supplied by the US) , Eisenhower and Kennedy failed to realise that the government in the South had very little popular support and the corruption was endemic. The British success in Malaya and Borneo was in distinct contrast to the situation in South Vietnam. The US Army in particular wanted to fight those big battles as it did in WW2 and to some extent in Korea . Indochina was not that.
The Answer:
Past
Performance
Is
NOT
A
Predictor
Of
Future
PerformanceS!
I was a Boy Scout in the sixties we were being trained for war. The older scouts promoted that war philosophy. It was a testosterone thing you were expected to man up period. Unfortunately for the US military we got into the wrong war in the wrong place against the wrong people. In WW2 we the OSS had supported Ho and his Viet Minh.Then we turned our backs on them to support the French reucupation.The smart move would have been to opt out but we couldn't bear to lose face.
I think the only just war you were involved in war the War of Independence. All the other wars were fought for your benefit as the expense of others.
Boy Scouts is more or less a pseudo-military youth organization.
@@adangbe: Cryptomilitary
We were fighting for nothing
@@adangbe also a pedophile ring
I'm very curious as to what Victor Davis Hanson's take on this lecture would be.
Why....That guy is a Harzole....and I can assure you he didn't go to Vietnam despite the fact he was most certainly of age to do so... there is your answer...
In a nutshell: SUN TZU.......Know yourself, know your enemy. LBJ was too stupid to figure this out!
I am trying to have a book published that refers to this lecture's opening observation: there was no attack in the Tonkin Gulf incident. My book accuses suppression of LBJ's Address to the Nation, delivered August 4, 1964, in which he stated, "There were no US losses." in that incident. The speech was televised live and published throughout the nation the next day. The New York Times published an additional report, the same day, above the fold, from the Pentagon of "no casualties, no damage". Thus, the lingering doubts mentioned in the lecture were, in fact, always very well known.
Finding the Gulf of Tonkin
All important, thank you.
The conclusion he makes is to judge somewhat smugly that there is no lesson that can be taken from Vietnam while the failures in Iraq (now basically an Iranian puppet state after millions of lives lost) echo the same playbook. He says that the conservative takeaway is to "put in enough force to win." Have these military people ever learned anything in the entire course of human history? It is hilarious that these are the people who think the Vietnamese government is "fanatics." The most terrifying fanatics, the most brainwashed ideological people in the world are the people who don't believe they have an ideology and think they themselves are "rational." Most of what he says in this presentation is obviously true, but those takeaways are remarkable to me.
we failed because we wouldnt kill enough of them to make them quit. its up to each one of us at that point to decide if that was a virtue or failing. i personally am glad we didnt do it. the real shame is a lot of good people died in the meantime
After all this time, we are now training Vietnamese pilots again. 2019
And the US scumbags never apologised or compensated the people of Vietnam.
@@Carhuclough The Empire never apologies otherwise it have to look itself in the mirror with all its ugliness.
We could've had the same situation in 1964 as we have today. Without 1 casualty on both sides.
Vietnamese people are very good kind and respectable people.
Above that they are very patriots and they are willing to sucrifice everything for their freedom and land. Yes, they had uncle Ho as a God, and they listen to him, and had a lot of experience in warfare and battles vs Japanese in WW2 vs the French in the 50's and after they fought the U.S. and the S. Vietnam. They got united after they took the South and never bothered anyone again. Humble people.
Like a Vietnamese veteran said one time..
" As much bombs as they are trying to throw on us they still can not level our cities and destroy our infarstructure, why? Because we never had any ! We lived out in the nature and ate rice. The U.S. troops had a lot to loose and we knew that they will give up and leave one day, it was just matter of time.... and we had plenty of it ! " Damn!
And USA is doing business in vietnam too . We moved on so should you. Now making money building the country is more important than holding grudges against each other. If the Viet hold grudges to all the enemies in the past then my god we would have no one left to be friends ?
The late Barbara Tuchman-her book "The March of Folly" has a section devoted to the Viet Nam War with quite a bit of history background as to how our involvement evolved
believe used the phrase "America dishonored herself"
I suspect that chapter in that book is one of the best sources to consult if you want to begin to understand the debacle that was American involvement in the "Viet Nam war"
Found my copy. The phrase is "America Betrays Herself in Vietnam"
"eventually damaging to American society,reputation and disposable power in the world." quoted from Mrs. Tuchman
I think that damage is still with us and being reinforced
I thought he hit the nail on the head on pretty much every point in a very objective manner.
When a lecture is called Why we failed in Vietnam and WE didn't fail AT ALL while we were there and South Vietnam stood proudly for over 2 years after we left, it's a pretty stupid lecture of some true irrelevancies and some bare-assed lies.
@@robertjohnson5838who won the war?
@@carlocappello67 As I've pointed out previously, SOUTH VIETNAM WAS WINNING up until Feb 1975 while we were funding them, but no longer involved with any US TROOPS. ONLY AFTER THE US STOPPED FUNDING SOUTH VIETNAM did the North Vietnamese, funded by BOTH THE USSR AND RED CHINA, win against South Vietnam, in a war we'd exited in January 1973 in terms of any troops.
@@robertjohnson5838 so you lost.
You did not achieve your stated goal.
@@carlocappello67 Do you know how bloody stupid you sound? The US had no soldiers in South East Asia, much less South Vietnam, AT ALL, but "we" lost? ROTFLMAO
I always wonder since World War I Led to World War II, that led to the cold war, Which led to the Korean war, Vietnam, The Russian Afghanistan war, which led to the war on terror, 500 years from now will they call this the 100 years war?
Cause it seems like one long Conflict.
Where do we go to see all the 'images' and 'film' he keeps referring to that was shown 'yesterday?' Like at 37:02.
Thanks for sharing this great lecture!
Definition of "Search and Destroy" missions: if GI's found stockpiles of rice that the VC were eating, they destroyed them. If "pacified" villagers were eating the rice, it was left alone. You understand the brilliance of this strategy? Me, neither!
Search and destroy meant stumble across the jungle, get ambushed to fix the enemy, and destroy them with artillery and bombs. However the Vietnamese initiated 90% of the combat and were not stupid enough to fight pitched battles in the open.
Russ G The best strategy would have been to stay away from Vietnam and the let French imperialists sweat it out.
NAM /WAS A DAMN FOOL IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE/
Our soldiers being there? Agreed. Funding South Vietnam? Not so much.
Best answer YET!!!
Dam fool idea that is.
During the Vietnam war American press focused on what the Americans were doing and what the South Vietnamesse were failing to do. instead of talking in private to the Vietnamesse we criticized them publicly not understanding how important it was to there concept of honor not to loose face publicly.
We did not let John Paul Vann run the whole thing from the get go one reason
When you realize that that wasn't a war to win, as in too many people made too much money off of it to end it. Look at the U.S. economy that was in a free fall in the early 60's, it was necessary to boost it and the easiest way was the production of war materials. The manufacturing of Aircraft, guns, ground vehicles and the like was a boon to the American economy. A good example of this crap is after a rocket attack at Da Nang, we found a piece of the rocket motor (a Communist 122 rocket) with an identification plate that read "Philco Ford, Detroit Michigan". It don't take long to realize that we were pawns in a money game. Lost my desire after that, ask me about the Viet Nam war and I'll just say "why"...shake my head no and walk away!!!!!
It is the terrain stupid, it is the terrain. We did not understand how effective the Vietnamese were in using the terrain to their advantage. I was an intelligence officer in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. I made a geologic map of the II Corps Zone and was impressed at how the Vietnamese utilized the geology and related terrain to their advantage. Yes we placed our artillery bases on the top of the hill but we ignored the area underground. The Vietnamese occupied both the area above and below the surface on the earth very effectively. Much of western Vietnam is a volcanic basalt plateau. The Vietnamese utilized the lave tubes to move around undetected. Where these did not exist then dug tunnels. I was so impressed with their use to the terrain that I argued with my CO that there was no way that we could win this war because we refused to use the terrain to advantage while the Vietnamese always used it to their advantage. I said that we may bomb every inch of the country until there were no visible people above ground because they all lived below. Because of this I became very disillusioned with the war that I had experienced first hand. There for I realized that two things greatly led to our eventual defeat. One was the enemy’s will to prevail and the other was their amazing use to their advantage the terrain of the country. It was their friend while it was our enemy!
George,
Excellent. When Kinky Friedman served in the Peace Corps in Indonesia he wrote a memo for his boss, the halfwit Harris Wofford, and for the very bright Francis A.J. Ianni back in Washington, about his and his partner Sam's situation there.
They shared the inane assignment of teaching accounting to Chinese small businessmen -- as though these people didn't have three thousand years' experience in keeping double or triple sets of books. They were supposed to commute around on 50 cc motorbikes which Honda had just started making. Here are your maps. Follow these roads.
The "roads" were berms between the paddies, and they were berms carefully calculated to hold a 50 kilogram man carrying a 40 kilogram bag of rice (a notional half-year or so supply for one adult, and an economic unit of account). Such illusory roads could carry a Honda love-bike while they were dry. A platoon of large men in Vibram boots would very end up in the deep muddy very quickly, dry weather or wet.
The memo was promptly classified in Washington at a time when there were still only a few advisors, genuine advisors, before the Bien Hoa raid, and the news apparently never got to the Pentagon.
The company knew about it, but Ed Applewhite, MaNamara's briefing officer, was famously fired for his famous "Sir, may I make a personal remark?" "Grumph?" "Well, sir, I don't think those numbers mean what you seem to think they mean." Ed later served with great bravery as Station Chief in Lebanon. His post as briefing officer was later taken over by another friend of yer Granny's, John Ford, who had as little effect on Nixon as Applewhite had had on JFK.
Granny wonders, did you know Col. James R. Corson? His time in I Corps might have overlapped with yours in II?
prunefaced.grammarian AT gmail DOT com.
Its very simple...
#1: The (North Vietnamese) were a 100 times more willing to die than Americans.
#2: We took the invasion of North Vietnam off the table from day one and were reluctant to attack North Vietnam at all because we didn't want to risk expanding the conflict to directly involve China or the USSR.
#3: The regime we supported in the South were more interested in CORRUPTION and RACKETEERING by the politicians than any cause or the survival of their country.
#4: In the end we were only interested in finding a way out and saving face than winning -- which was what we got after Rolling Thunder and Paris Accords.
Everything repeats the same: North Vietnamese troops run to China, some stay as VCs
So where is the the first video he keeps talking about what he said yesterday?
General advice: Don't get involved in other people's domestics. You will bring terrible problems for your own family. America should never have done what it did. It was a crime against humanity. A Universe Court might bring them to justice.
@Graham - This line of thinking is expected from the European, not the braved American. The US protected the liberty and humanitarian worldwide. That’s what leaders do, realizing the unpleasant price to pay for. That is also the reason millions of people worldwide wanted to live in America.
Graham -America is too big to be tried by any court. Only Americans can stop the immoral acts of the American government and their partners in the Miliarry Industrial complex. People Joan Baez and Daniel Ellbert.
@@muuhoang7592 There have been in most countries ... civil wars, religious wars, ethnic wars, dictatorships, economic dominance fighting, cultural wars, and numerous other causes. And such has been happening throughout the history of mankind and perhaps even more so in the modern era. Just look at the dozens of countries today in the world with serious "civil wars" on one kind or another. It just seems impossible that any one external country or even a collection of external countries can prevent such from happening.
FANTASTIC LECTURE MATT FROM CANADA
It's hard for Canadians to understand much about a revolution since you think you get all of the advantages of being a Republic without being one.
Northrup Frye, in 1953, said that a Canadian is an American who does not believe in revolution. @@kimobrien.
@@roberteaston6413 A lot of Canadians can trace their origins back to the Loyalist who left after the signing of the Treaty of Paris. England was briefly a republic with Oliver Cromwell. They restored the King, dug up Cromwell's body hung him in effigy and ever since they've been trying to get just the right mixture of monarchy, the peerage and democracy. The can't celebrate the beheading of Charles the first a revolutionary victory for all England and Europe because it would insult the King.
I am old enough to remember the Watergate crisis in 1974. Everyone Monarchist in Canada was gloating over that. For a while they had the luxury of being smug and self-righteous towards the USA. But like everything else we had to move on to other things. @@kimobrien.
@@roberteaston6413 The Canadians had the problem of Quebec almost voting for independence. They Quebecois probably would have won if a certain leader didn't turn off the first nations with an announcement that Quebec was to be a white nation. The also enacted a charter of rights and freedoms around that time. Conservative Justice Anthony Scalia wished he had a reasonable limits in the US constitution like the Canadian Charter. They also recognize the 'Supremacy of God'. God is never mentioned in the US Constitution or Amendments.
Uh, there was a peace settlement that required US military power to back up the S. Vietnamese. The demrat party did not allow any funding for the military to enforce the peace settlement. The N. Vietnamese then just sent an army down Route 1 to defeat the the S. Vietnamese. The army would have been a sitting duck for an aircraft carrier off the coast but the army would not have attacked in the first place if they knew the US could help the S. Vietnamese. The South Vietnamese should have been told from the beginning that the US would help but not fight the war for them. Fighting a guerilla war on the other side of the world in jungles with nearby China and the USSR helping N. Vietnam is the worst sort of war against commies possible....Cuba was just 90 miles away and we allowed Castro to exist so why not Vietnam? Cuba would have been a piece of cake compared to Vietnam.
When American advisors were sent to Laos and South Vietnam in the fifties and early sixties, the major problem was not to create guerrilla units, but to fight existing Laotian and Vietnamese guerrilla forces. To them it seemed logical that soldiers trained to be guerrillas would have a deep understanding of how to fight guerrillas, We made the mistake of introducing conventional us forces. Of trying to win the war for the south vietnamese without also dealing with the political problem
The french gcma special forces
Tried the same upto 1954
Without success
All they managed was to rescue
A few from dienbienphu after
The ceasefire
Many stayed behind because of
Ties with locals and were slowly
Exterminated
Only one made it out of north
Vietnam in 1958 just as the
American advisers began to
Arrive!
They lost the war because vietnsmise could not stand colonialism period.
THANK YOU
Had there been competent Army commanders, the losses the Army experienced at LZ X-Ray would not have happened. Similarly, the losses the Marines experience in Leatherneck Square would not have happened. Angel Fire Memorial.
It was an ideological war that was lost with the censure of Joe Mccarthy and the success of Cuban revolution.
Why they failed?
They should never have been there in the first place - what were they thinking?
Would you say the same abt N/S Korea ? About E/W Germany ? Do you recognize the mass murders & poverty that might have been prevented - but instead actually occurred in VN & Cambodia?
They were thinking the same thing we who believe in freedom are thinking today about the parasitic communist who threatens a takeover of our country today, "Let's send help to stop it."
Viet Nam was just one of the nations the Soviets wanted.
@@stevealexander8010 - WWII a totally different situation from Vietnam...
@@BuzzLOLOL you missed my point. I wasn't saying they were identical, I was saying that because of losses and stalemates a lot of people suffered.
We had no proper business being there other than to assist in implementation of the 1954 Geneva agreement. Eisenhower doesn’t get his share of the blame, in my opinion.
A point rarely brought up in discussions of Vietnam.
It was Johnson who escalated the war.
If we had "won" in Vietnam, we would have been defeating a democratic government. The French attacked the Vietnamese, a U.S. ally, in an effort to re-colonize the country after WWII. Ho Chi Minh begged President Truman to recognize Vietnam's independence. Truman chose to try to curry favor with the French. The French were soundly defeated at Dien Bien Phu, and the U.S. was then left there fighting to avoid losing a pointless military conflict. It goes back to the path that Truman put us on. Vietnam sought military assistance from Communist China only after Truman's refusal to recognize their independence.
We didn't lose in Viet nam and neither did the French. Read what Khrushchev said on pages 482 and 483 of his memior. We and the French both just said , "piss on it," and left. The reason I believe is that the Vietnamese on our side didn't like us. The communist rank and file did. I spent 4 yrs in Viet Nam. Two in the army and two as a civilian. I arrived in the Tuy Hoa area, Phu Yen province in Jan 68. My unit was a component of the 173 ABN. My 2nd day in my unit two paratroopers took several of us newbies into Phu Hiep to buy some toiletries the PX was out of. These two paratroopers had been in Viet Nam for over a year and a half. They told us newbies how to tell which Vietnamese were VC. We were told, "the VC are friendly, they like us and they don't try to screw over us." During my 4 yrs in Viet Nam I found this was very true. The opposite was also true. The Vietnamese on our side weren't friendly, didn't like us, and screwed over us every chance they got. The two experienced paratroopers had been based at Bien Hoa their 1st yr and took part in operations in lll Corp, thenthe hill batles in ll Corp during thr last half of 67. Yes, in combat the fighting was fierce, butonce off the time clock, there was a lot of fraternization going on. A lot. So you wake up one morning
And you realize you're helping the wrong side and you say, "we're out of here!" I think that's why we didn't leave the South Vietnamese with equipment they needed to win. My 2nd yr in Viet Nam my unit was attached to the 7th ARVN Div. We were in a lot of heavy combat. The ARVN would fight hard.
I remember the day I became a liberal...it was when I found out that it was the US and not the Vietnamese who wouldn't permit free elections in Vietnam. That is why we lost the war. There was no moral imperative for victory.
You wouldn't want the communism of Ho Chi Minh.
"That is why we lost the war. There was no moral imperative for victory."
But that didn't stop Washington from trying to invent one. One that wasn't rooted in reality.
Great professor
Worth watching, but I didn’t appreciate the occasional audience laughter.
Those were the colledge people that do not bear the ugly side of the chess game.
Fascinating talk. Thanks!
Remember folks, we were not there to "win" a war. We were there to help South Vietnam push the VC/NVA back across the DMZ and keep them there.Kinda like the Korean situation I guess.
+panzerken Yay ! Going to a independent country , split it in half , that is so honorable
panzerken You cannot fight other people's civil wars for them. South Vietnam was geopolitical fiction anyway. It was a creation of The Geneva Accords and bore no basis in reality in Southeast Asia. Most Vietnamese didn't view it as a legitimate country. You can't drop enough bombs on a quagmire to create stability.
Your post is already 3 years old. I hope you've spent some time with studying the history of the American War in Vietnam. Because this post shows that you have a lack of information.
panzerken, where did you get your history education from. Hopefully not from you uncle bubba. Hope you grew up gracefully by now :)
America was there to win. America’s main objective was to stop communism from spreading. Soon enough America pulled out and lost, thus communism spread throughout Southeast Asia.
Like trying to fight in a ring with your hands tied behind you and it’s a boxing match. They were very limited to the task of force. If you can’t fight full strength then don’t fight
Bigger questions is; How did Vietnam prove to be crucial to the United States victory in the Cold War? I highly doubt this fella would understand the question.
Despite all the crowing about 'winning the 'cold war''. The US lost the cold war. They were unable to defeat the Soviet Union and China militarily. In the old Soviet Union the revolution was eaten out from the inside starting with the 1938 Moscow trials. The US capitalists can't get support from sellouts in Moscow or Beijing posing as revolutionary governments. They find themselves in a period of increasing instability and endless war which is unsustainable.
A universal lesson one may learn (reinforced by the mess of IS): violence never solves any problems, only causes them. People dislike being bullied, whether Vietnamese, Arab or/American/European (think of the resistance during WW2)
Military power is not durable, as also proven by the eastern block.
Ludwig,
So those nasty English should not have declared war on Germany in 1939? Oooh, the violence!
tl;dw: failure was the only possible outcome.
Next question then is: would the cost of not engaging have been acceptable? Did the US intervention dissuade other Communists to the point that other countries did not follow Vietnam into Communism?
The U. S. A. was on the wrong side of history. We should have left when the French left.
@GH1618 - If the US didn’t involve, the Chinese would claim the China Sea much sooner, and one third of the world economy is under the mercy of China, not to mention the rest of the region becoming communism. The US can’t stop China and Russia; so they made concession to give up VN and save the rest. The wrong side of the history is the people like Jane Fonda, birdsong McCain, swift boat Kerry, the protesting students, the hippies, and those who turned their backs on returning VN war heroes. The veterans did not create the war, did not volunteer, just responded to the call to duty. How ungrateful those cowardly traitors that stabbed the American soldiers in the back. The communists are bad, but at least they are patriotic, unlike the animals who put the interests of their party above the country minus patriotism. The Democrats will always be in the wrong side of history, present, and future.
The US should not have brought back the French and should have recognised Vietnam.
@@muuhoang7592 The fear of 'Communism' was based on US propaganda. Nationalism was the strongest motivator in that region as in most regions of the world.
MAY be a Pardon?!?!?!??! I would want that pardon in writing before I left!
We didn't fail in Vietnam McNamara and Johnson and, Westmoreland failed in Vietnam if you are one of those people you are part of we!
a corrupt upperclass playijng upperclass games with the lives of t he working classes. This is ignored by the righties because theyre delusional magical thinkers and willing serfs. It's ignored by the centrists (dems) because it doesnt fit their bullshit narrative...
YOUR SO RIGHT BROTHER , GOD BLESS
Ernest Murphy What makes you think that there was anything that the U S could have done to achieve victory? The Vietnamese people would NEVER have given up! They were determined to be free!
@@robertroselle5073 i agree but holding our military hands behind there back was the mistake after tet we needed to fire westmoreland and the war to the north crippled the north with a ARVN spear head that we know would have been destroyed
@@robertroselle5073 They (communists) would have given up if we had marched north. I agree that as long as NV existed, it was determined to spread communism. Those determined to be free got on boats and helicopters.
America never intended to win that war. Our "leaders" in Washington and the Pentagon saw to that. It was about politics and the almighty buck pure and simple. We just just cannon fodder, expendible, and our "leaders" didn't give a damn about us or the vietnamese. We didn't lose, no white flags waving, no Batann, no Dunkirk, no Dien ben phu but supposedly we got our butts handed to us. I beg to differ.I'm still here, they're not. My butt wasn't kicked for all of you that love to bring that up. The media, as always, had a lot to do with public opinion here about the war and they managed to turn the people against us by reporting on American atrocities, never mind what the butchering north vietnamese did. Because of the incompetence of our "leadership"the public got frustrated because it was used to winning. So the public needed somebody to kick around and that was us, the veterans coming back. That's Americans for you. Rah, rah, rah, when things are going good but the whining and bellycahing starts when they're not. One hand was tied behind our backs. Wasn't our fault we weren't allowed to do what should have been done. It's time we got that straight George C. Herring.
In the counter-insurgency context, "boots on the ground" are even more important than technological prowess and massive firepower, although anti-guerrilla forces should take full advantage of modern air, artillery and electronic warfare assets. dont forget the Marine small wars manuel written about lessons learned in the 1920-30 central american wars. westmoreland wasted 4 years fighting a conventional war. America should never fight a war of attrition the last time that worked was Grant vs Lee
RIP George Herring. The question I have right now is how South Korea 'worked', since every other nation-building endeavor has been an absolute disaster for all the reasons Dr. Herring lays out.
@Generic Name Yes, that's a good take. But it only worked in SK. Japan was a long settled culture. It also 'worked' in Indonesia & Central/South America. Sort of, minus the mass murder / other atrocities.
WTF, again nobody mentions Henry Kissinger, he was more influential than any general or president at the time, Hollywood thought of him as just another movie star and the girls loved him, and he loved all the attention, he had the power to stop that war early but did not, because he was loving his status, and prolonged it as long as he wanted, after all he was the main negotiator between nations.
It should be noted:
1. Ngo Den Diem was a prominent anti-colonial official in Vietnam. He was also anti-communist. He refused to join Bao Dai's government in 1949 because it was a French puppet, and he refused Ho's request to join in the Communist government. He was, as Kennedy feared and events proved, irreplaceable.
2. Too many Americans involved in decision-making, and too many journalists involved in forming public opinion, seemed to think that the solution to the war was to turn South Vietnam into what America liked to think itself was. While voting for your government leaders is an easy sell, there is no evidence that any people who have never had any experience in such a system are willing to fight for it. Vietnamese government was riddled with corruption. It was riddled with it before the French came, it was riddled with it under the French, it was riddled with it under Diem and his successors -- and it was riddled with it under the DRVN. America was not (and is not) sufficiently without fault in that area that it can cast the first stone! Yet it was the complaints of journalists about the corruption, and about opposition to Diem among the intelligentsia (or communist-allied Buddhist leaders) in Saigon, which were reported in the major media, that led the generals to believe that they had to overthrow Diem or lose US support. And it was those decision-makers, primarily Lodge and Hilsman, whi disobeyed Kennedy's orders and gave the green light to the generals' coup.
3. Throughout the war, there were more South Vietnamese fighting AGAINST the Communists than there were fighting FOR them -- and it can't be said that they had no choice in the matter. Nor did the war end in 1975 -- Pike says there were c. 15,000 persons in anti-communist guerrilla bands in 1977, and some 25,000 in 1983.
You need not destroy an enemy if the enemy knows that you can and will do that. At least not every time. Just occasionally.
"how do you lose china? " that implies we owned it at one time, really?
john panos - It is meant metaphorically.
I am astounded that no one assassinated General Westmoreland. Astounded. Or murdered Lyndon.
Rambo : can we win this time?
Vietnamese : 😂😂😂😂😂
The Vietnamese eren't the enemy; the Americans had travelled all the way from a remote continent to kill them, so those were the enemy (sorry, dudes)
That sounds like you got all your information about the Vietnam War from a Bruce Springsteen song.
Watch out for that word may
Lyndon Johnson was a terrible President, the Conduct of the Vietnam war is just an example, there are many other’s.
EvilJFK escalated the Vietnam situation into a war the day he was inaugurated... had ships/troops/materiel pouring in 3 or 4 months later... had 16,000+ troops there by the time he and his buddy EvilDiem were both executed in Nov. 1963...
Johnson has nothing to do with how the Vietnam war turned out. Subpar generals trying to make low IQ idiots into warriors was the problem.
@@DudeInOhio85 - Catholic EvilJFK helping his buddy Catholic EvilDiem started the problem... both abusing Vietnam's Buddhists... at least we executed both those azzholes in Nov. 18\963... but too late to save 58,000+ good U.S. Troops... which almost included me... I survived that lunacy over there... EvilJFK was America's 'Hitler'...
@@DudeInOhio85 What do you mean he had nothing to do with the outcome? He was the one who escalated the war in the first place. It was under his presidency when the gulf of tonkin was staged as an excuse to send ground troops and when the amount of u.s. troops reached its peak.
Interested to know what other examples you might have
I had to write an exam essay at a British university on 'Why the US failed in Vietnam and the British succeeded in Malaya.' ?
I think this lecture is pretty good. But I would like to add or emphasise some points. The British were much more experienced in fighting such conflicts. General Templar in Malaya used special branch local police much more effectively. Separated the indigenous pop from the communist radicals in a much effective fashion.
But I agree nationalism is a key. If the American loses ...he goes home. If the Vietcong loses...he has no home.
John Carlisle John, I remember in our training in Special Forces at the time...the ‘British Malaysian Model’, was brought up at times as a successful anti-communist model to follow....but as usual with us....politics got in the way.... Also I remember comments made by other veteran Special Forces soldiers with several combat tours saying in an offhanded way, that we were better suited and trained to fight on the ‘other side’... It was my observation on the ground that in most cases we would have preferred to be with the local village people with whom we lived with than whomever was in Saigon at the time....
All in all....many good comments and observations made on this most accurate and honest lecture. Great instructor my hats off to him ...like his soft spoken manner
@@frod043 ...I think the Brits had a few key geographical advantages. Malaya did not have China immediately adjacent to it. UK had extensive naval assets to block guerrilla infiltration from the sea. But I was given to understand that the Brits placed a great emphasis on keeping a lid on things. They didn't even describe it as a war...it was the Malayan Emergency. In Ireland...a civil war was called The Troubles.
But I agree with you. I think the lecture was pretty good. Did you see the recent history on Netflix by Ken Burns.. Heartbreaking
John Carlisle yes the geography of any conflict is most important...I must add also that the “Strategic Hamlet” concept is also taken from the success that the British Special Forces had with it in Malaysia .....
I used to work for a major who served in Malaysia. He said he would go out with 5 to 7 soldiers and set up an ambush and stay at the site for up to six weeks. One soldier would always man a bren machine gun. You win a guerrilla war by out guerrilla them. Like anything else.
You just need to write one sentence then you'll get your B.A: American fought an immoral war against human.
The battle of Britain was not lost by Britain because Germany sent all their air power to the eastern front. Germany just changed its mind.
By the way, why DID Hitler stop Guderian at Dunkurk from slaughtering the last of the Tommies on the beach and then invading a defenseless UK? Why did Hitler tell the same guy to stop invading towards Moscow and join the southern column in the Caucacus for a while and only THEN go back to invading Moscow going into the winter? Probably because the Rothschilds paid him to do so. We're talking about a busexual gigolo.
ingebrecht Luftwaffe losses over Britain were unsustainable - that’s why they “changed their minds.”
Op Sealion was a non entity as the Home Fleet had vastly superior sea power. As the Allies found in ‘44 there are only certain months a large naval invasion can cross the channel opposed. Hitler had his Generals get ready for Sealion and they found they only had a few barges needing towed as their landing craft. So the RAF bombed them constantly. They needed canals to sail them across Europe so the RAF dropped mines to delay them.
Why did they delay destroying the troops at Dunkirk? Put simply they had WW1 era generals in high command and the sheer pace of manoeuvre warfare scared them. The French still had a massive army in reserve that they thought could descend on their stretched forces. So they did the WW1 thing that they knew. Hold until they bring up the infantry then continue. They still had the whole of France to conquer not just the NE.
Only one thing in this whole presentation made the slightest sense and it was said at the beginning by Rodney Dangerfield.
I don't agree but I love this statement anyway.
Did not want to Win?
Lost because of occupying moral LOW ground.
This needs more upvotes
Yep... EvilJFK/EvilDiem were moral low ground...
BuzzLOLOL”” LBJ!””
Really want to bottom line it? Money was to be made. A war was needed to line peoples pockets. An attempt to generate fear so military and weapons makers could gain control. A president whose ego was involved... All the flowery talk and trying to reinvent past motivations is ridiculous.
Ho died in 1969 not 1949.
How was the North sold out by the Chines and Soviets in 1954? The newly elected French government handed them a gift to settle the fate of the country on elections that would be stacked in the North's favor. The government of what would be the Republic of the South Vietnam had no say in agreeing to the elections in the first place. Followed up by the Soviets and Chinese made sure that if these elections were held there would be no monitoring as well as the ballots would be public. It is not surprising the people of the South had little interest in the elections, which would be likely as rigged as those in Poland or Korea prior. At the very least you can understand their skepticism..
On top that Ho's great organization was the elimination of those that were in his way. He did not care if they were nationalist, the government of the South and its supporters were nationalist, no HO wanted rid of anyone that did not support his Marxist-Leninist view. Sure the government in the South was corrupt, but there were protest at times against the government this would never be allowed in the North.
The French should of left period. The only thing that they had to negotiate was the withdrawal of their administrators, troops, and collaborators. Just like in Korea the Chinese (Mao) and Russians (Stalin) had no right to negotiate what wasn't theirs in the first place. At the end of the Vietnam war Nixon and Kissinger went on a whirlwind tour of realpolitik meeting and toasting Mao and Brezhnev. Mao and Brezhnev should have politely told Nixon to go to hell while he was dropping bombs on Vietnam. That if he wanted to negotiate than he should do it in Paris with the representatives of Vietnam.
The representatives of the DRV had a habit of appearing that they wanted to negotiate only at the last bring new things to table or want to renegotiate items that had already been agreed on. This exactly what they did in the Fall of 1972. The North had no intention of ever settling and allowing the Republic of South Vietnam to exist. They wanted a united Vietnam but only under communist rule.
When "Nixon" was dropping bombs on North Vietnam in 1972 it was a response to the North invasion of the South, their largest of the war at that time. As for Mao and Brezhnev they were not going to put Vietnam over their own country's interest any more than the US would.
@@andrewmcdonald1166 The US never had a right to make any decisions about Vietnam. It was nothing more than Imperailist arrogance for the US to tell the people of Vietnam what they should or shouldn't do. If Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and others were so interested in democracy why weren't the dropping bombs on Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama?
Mao and Brezhnev were both sellout followers of Stalin. A revolutionary Socialist government like the Cuban lead by a Fidel Castro in Beijing or Moscow would have told Nixon and Kissinger to go take a hike.
Well it is hard to have a discussion about democracy, even with the US's failing over time when the counter part is a Marxist regime. They believe in dictatorship of the proletariat, where by only the rule by those representing the proletariat is allowed to exist as essential condition for the class system to be eradicated. Hoping for one day when there is no state at all if and when communism is achieved. So no elections could ever exist that allowed for a party that had contradicting views under Marxist government.
So even by their own theory they don't believe in democracy on the same terms. That is fine if that is your thing. However, someone can not claim to be totally committed to democracy if their total belief system does not allow for the concept that those with different ideas are allowed to be elected. This was a point of contention between what then were the Social Democrats and the Marxist in the first half of the 20th century. Lastly Ok you feel the US involvement in Vietnam was due to imperialist arrogance, so the same would essentially be true for the Chinese and Soviet involvement? After all you had two groups in Vietnam both feeling they legitimately represented the people with the dividing line of the civil war over ideology. The Chinese and Soviets backed one side, and the US backed the other.
Easy money was a great movie
Maybe we should have sent this guy to Vietnam and the north would have surrounded just to stop hearing his voice and falling asleep!
One thing he does not mention is worth thinking about. If the war had been over in six months and hugely successful for America, would we still be talking about "the lessons of "Vietnam"? The answer is, of course not. It would be remembered as a glorious page in American history. My point is that losing a war not only calls into question why a country lost militarily, but questions its political goals as well - points that would never be questioned in victory.
What a self satisfied bore, both in voice and content. Nothing new OR concise in this pedantic waffle.
Critiques Westy and LBJ of uncritical, self satisfied, self interest and waffling thought process and then gives an equal unfocused waffling explanation. But what would you expect from someone who quotes Hollywood and pop culture as a basis of the explanation.
Define 'fail', define 'success' or define what was 'the nature of the war'.
The key to war is not "know your enemy" but 'state and maintain the aim' - and test the aim. The Yanks either never had a clear aim or never concisely expressed their aim.
Australia fought to "stop the spread of communism" (the domino theory). China and Russia fought to spread communism (and gain strategic advantage and positioning in their own geo political power-play).
The spread of communism stopped in Viet Nam.
Tôi là người Việt Nam,ở đất nước của tôi mọi người không quan tâm chủ nghĩa cộng sản hay chủ nghĩa tư bản ở các nước khác như thế nào.Người Việt Nam chỉ đơn giản là nhìn thấy rõ ràng được bản chất của cả 2 chủ nghĩa đó ở Việt Nam,những gì 2 chủ nghĩa này mang lại cho người Việt Nam và chúng tôi đơn giản chỉ là làm việc phải làm.
Graeme SYDNEY o
That's full of shit. The Domino theory was the main motivation, but it was a shit motivation to begin with, you think if they would have "concisely expressed" it enough they'd magically win? They seemed to have made the aim pretty clear until it was clear to them that this theory was just not good enough for the public anymore. I don't know why you believe the Aussies were fighting "for the Domino theory" but the Americans were not. The only pussy-footing around this motivation was trying to eventually sell the war to the public, but the central goal was always the same. "To stabilize a long-lasting and competent US-friendly government in South Vietnam." That's pretty fucking concise already.
@@fuzzydunlop7928 it was an ideological war already lost with the defeat of Joe McCarty.
It is hard to comprehend that the fate of nations rests at times on chance confrontations with nature.
It is now considered highly likely that the returns interpreted by the destroyer sonar men and the lights seen by observers on MADDOX and TURNER JOY on the night of 4 August 1964 were the result of a huge number of giant pyrosomes: clear marine organisms that bond together to form solid bioluminescent colonies which could have been interpreted by the destroyer crews as torpedoes and surface craft. See:
www.extremetech.com/extreme/252235-glowing-invertebrate-may-helped-kick-off-vietnam-war
Respect to the soldiers who served, but the US should never have been there. For a country with a loud mythology of self-determination from the British, the US often didn’t allow the same self-determination for others, Vietnam a main case in point. The same treasure of lives and wealth could have built a positive relationship and Johnson’s Great Society. Sympathies to the young men who served their country in such a mistaken cause.
I was twice in Viet nahm. my radar and computer system was highly capable and almost never missed the target as we directed the bombers on target. I believe if properly used and allowed to we could have defeated North Viet Nahm In a month. We were not allowed to win. I was awarded a bronze star medal because of the highly accurate performance of my men and equipment.
Wow computers and radar directing bombs on rice farmers in their own country. What a brave warrior. Thanks for protecting my freedom from not 1 Vietcong who ever attacked my American borders.
@@larrywheeler9917 You are right. I was not a hero. I was doing what I was trained to do. Those bombers dropped tons of bombs and killed many people. That war was a farce and we should not have been there.
What took so long to arrive at the realisation that the USA failed in Viet Nam?
The main reason we lost in Vietnam is that we never should have been there in the first place.
What would be considered victory ?
We were on the wrong side. We supported the Catholics who were around 20% of the population. Like us fighting Great Britain to win our independence. 80% of the Vietnamese wanted to be one country not under the control of Catholics who reminded them of the French overlords.
Someone needs to tell that guy with the glasses 🤓 that Johnson always invented fears.