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I don't think it was winnable. Based off of experience in Korea, US didn't want China to enter the war. To avoid this, the US couldn't commit to full-scale of
by bradford 9y ago
I don't think it was winnable.
Based off of experience in Korea, US didn't want China to enter the war. To avoid this, the US couldn't commit to full-scale of invasion of North Vietnam, which I believe would have been necessary for victory. Without a full scale invasion, they thought that they could 'tickle' the enemy into submission by aerial bombing of the North combined with ground-army defense of the south. I believe they were over optimistic.
It's easy to say "yeah, if the US had more manpower and/or crossed into North Vietnam and/or used different tactics we could have won!" and maybe that's true, but proponents of this view often fail to consider the entry of China as a possible outcome.
- supreme_sublime 9y agoThat's certainly true. It was definitely a proxy war and iirc the North definitely received, at a minimum, support from China. I'm not incredibly well versed on the subject, especially the geopolitics at the time. Perhaps with all of that considered, the US was hamstrung a bit.