"Nope. The US merely needed to consolidate the Tet gains, which wiped out the VC. The NVA wasn't ready at the time." That seems over-optimistic to me. Yes, the

"Nope. The US merely needed to consolidate the Tet gains, which wiped out the VC. The NVA wasn't ready at the time." That seems over-optimistic to me. Yes, the VC took a beating during the Tet Offensive, but Khe Sahn was close to ending up like Dien Bien Phu. There was combat inside the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The U.S. soldiers were demoralized and did not want to fight in Vietnam because they saw no point in doing so. The flow of NVA soldiers and supplies along the Ho Chi Mihn trail was never stopped though it was bombed to hell. Sure, the U.S. military could have consolidated the Tet gains, but at what political cost?! Instead of fighting at a tactical level and failing, the U.S. military could have fought at a strategic level. One great idea would be to destroy the enemy's logistics. Though they bombed the railroad in the North, the U.S. only mined the Haiphong harbour in 1972, when the war was already lost. They should have focused on mining harbors in 1965 so that the Soviet SAM missiles, AK-47s, RPGs and land mines could never get to the VC and NVA forces. Instead, the U.S. decided to fight at a tactical level. Burning villages and villagers. Spreading agent orange all over to kill vegetation, and condemning generations to come to cancer and other illnesses. Last but not least, there's no comparison between WW2 and Vietnam. The U.S. fought the Nazis and the Japs to liberate occupied countries. In Vietnam there was no occupation by an external country. The U.S. messed up with a sovereign country's internal problems, and it lost the war it could have won. Sure, the Soviets were playing a role behind the curtains, but the U.S. did the same during 1954-1965.