Vietnamese refugees, 1981. Sorry, distance was too great for my flash, and I wasn't allowed in the well deck.
Posted on 05/01/2005 10:34:32 AM PDT by aculeus
THE Vietnam War is universally regarded as a disaster for what it did to the American and Vietnamese people. However, 30 years after the war's end, the reasons for its outcome remain a matter of dispute.
The most popular explanation among historians and journalists is that the defeat was a result of American policy makers' cold-war-driven misunderstanding of North Vietnam's leaders as dangerous Communists. In truth, they argue, we were fighting a nationalist movement with great popular support. In this view, "our side," South Vietnam, was a creation of foreigners and led by a corrupt urban elite with no popular roots. Hence it could never prevail, not even with a half-million American troops, making the war "unwinnable."
This simple explanation is repudiated by powerful historical evidence, both old and new. Its proponents mistakenly base their conclusions on the situation in Vietnam during the 1950's and early 1960's and ignore the changing course of the war (notably, the increasing success of President Richard Nixon's Vietnamization strategy) and the evolution of South Vietnamese society (in particular the introduction of agrarian reforms).
For all the claims of popular support for the Vietcong insurgency, far more South Vietnamese peasants fought on the side of Saigon than on the side of Hanoi. The Vietcong were basically defeated by the beginning of 1972, which is why the North Vietnamese launched a huge conventional offensive at the end of March that year. During the Easter Offensive of 1972 - at the time the biggest campaign of the war - the South Vietnamese Army was able to hold onto every one of the 44 provincial capitals except Quang Tri, which it regained a few months later. The South Vietnamese relied on American air support during that offensive.
If the United States had provided that level of support in 1975, when South Vietnam collapsed in the face of another North Vietnamese offensive, the outcome might have been at least the same as in 1972. But intense lobbying of Congress by the antiwar movement, especially in the context of the Watergate scandal, helped to drive cutbacks of American aid in 1974. Combined with the impact of the world oil crisis and inflation of 1973-74, the results were devastating for the south. As the triumphant North Vietnamese commander, Gen. Van Tien Dung, wrote later, President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam was forced to fight "a poor man's war."
Even Hanoi's main patron, the Soviet Union, was convinced that a North Vietnamese military victory was highly unlikely. Evidence from Soviet Communist Party archives suggests that, until 1974, Soviet military intelligence analysts and diplomats never believed that the North Vietnamese would be victorious on the battlefield. Only political and diplomatic efforts could succeed. Moscow thought that the South Vietnamese government was strong enough to defend itself with a continuation of American logistical support. The former Soviet chargé d'affaires in Hanoi during the 1970's told me in Moscow in late 1993 that if one looked at the balance of forces, one could not predict that the South would be defeated. Until 1975, Moscow was not only impressed by American military power and political will, it also clearly had no desire to go to war with the United States over Vietnam. But after 1975, Soviet fear of the United States dissipated.
During the war the Soviets despised their North Vietnamese "friends" (the term of confidential bureaucratic reference, rather than "comrades"). Indeed, Henry A. Kissinger's accounts of his dealings, as Nixon's national security adviser, with President Thieu are models of respect when compared with the bitter Soviet accounts of their difficulties with their counterparts.
In secret internal reports, Hanoi-based Soviet diplomats regularly complained about the deceitfulness of the North Vietnamese, who concealed strategic planning from their more powerful patron. In a 1972 report to Moscow, the Soviet ambassador even complained that although Marshal Pavel Batitsky, commander of the Soviet Air Defense Forces, had visited Hanoi earlier that year and completed a major military aid agreement, North Vietnamese leaders did not inform him of the imminent launch date of their Easter Offensive.
What is also clear from Soviet archival sources is that those who believed that North Vietnam had more than national unification on its mind were right: Its leaders were imbued with a sense of their ideological mission - not only to unify Vietnam under Communist Party rule, but also to support the victory of Communists in other nations. They saw themselves as the outpost of world revolution in Southeast Asia and desired to help Communists in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and elsewhere.
Soviet archives show that after the war ended in 1975, with American power in retreat, Hanoi used part of its captured American arsenal to support Communist revolutions around the world. In 1980 some of these weapons were shipped via Cuba to El Salvador. This dimension of Vietnamese behavior derived from a deep commitment to the messianic internationalism of Marxist-Leninist ideology.
Vietnam today is not the North Vietnam of 1955, 1965 or 1975. Like post-Mao China it has retreated from totalitarianism to authoritarianism. It has reformed its economy and its foreign policy to become more integrated into the world. But those changes were not inevitable and would not necessarily have occurred had Mikhail Gorbachev not ascended to power in Moscow, and had the Soviet Union and its empire not collapsed. Nor would these changes necessarily have occurred had China not provided a new cultural model for Vietnam to follow, as it has for centuries.
Precisely because Vietnam has changed for the better, we need to recognize what a profoundly ideological and aggressive totalitarian regime we faced three, four and five decades ago. And out of respect for the evidence of history, we need to recognize what happened in the 1970's and why.
In 1974-75, the United States snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Hundreds of thousands of our Vietnamese allies were incarcerated, and more than a million driven into exile. The awesome image of the United States was diminished, and its enemies were thereby emboldened, drawing the United States into new conflicts by proxy in Afghanistan, Africa and Latin America. And the bitterness of so many American war veterans, who saw their sacrifices so casually demeaned and unnecessarily squandered, haunts American society and political life to this day.
Stephen J. Morris, a fellow at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, is writing a book on the Vietnam War in the Nixon years.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Regards,
TS
Vietnam is the Dems best effort at fighting a war. That is why they don't make war time candidates... dems don't have the cojones to make necessary sacrifices. they cut tail and run singing "we are the world " holding hands together.
The quote I've heard is 1.8 million.
read later
Vietnamese refugees, 1981. Sorry, distance was too great for my flash, and I wasn't allowed in the well deck.
"And the one responsible for maligning our nation's Vietnam War Vets was nominated by his party last year to be its presidential nominee. That's what keeps haunting American society and political life to this day."
Not only that, over 48% of the people of this country voted for that SOB! THAT'S what haunts American society to this day.
BTTT!!!!!!!
The SOB's started the war and cut off aid under a Republican President.This was a Kennedy/Johnson war started to make money for an elite few and to weed out the US population just like Korea. The Democrat Party is the most dangerous organization on the face of the earth. A bunch of self centered egotistical elite thinking scum that exploits the minorities in America.!
You mean like they are doing with this war ???
For all these, and other reasons, I actually hope the Democrats run Hillary for President. That would probably mean four or eight more years of wandering in the wilderness for their party. No Democrat worth his or her salt would believe this, which is why I don't mind posting it. The problem Democrats have is they don't have many options, and Hillary rules their roost. Democrats can hate America and say they're patriotic, they hate religion and claim they are religious, they want to kill babies and say they are pro-choice, they hate business and say they are pro-business, and they hate conservatives in general. It takes a very dedicated leftist Democrat to vote for Hillary, and most of American won't do that as long as we provide a good alternative.
Yes, you are right,
The gun control madness began immediately.
Who back then gave a second thought to ordering guns by mail? But because Oswald got a gun by mail order, well no American would ever be permitted to do that again! Works every time something bad happens, it seems.
BJ, et al. tried to connect talk radio to the OKC bombing and other bad things. They're still trying to stop conservative opinion with lies.
And you more than most realize that targets were carefully controlled by LBJ and McNamara. Those two buzzards tied our hands and prevented professional military men from prosecuting the war as it should have been.
You bet we did. And, I hate them or their memories for what happened to thousands of American soldiers. They wouldn't let us win. May they burn in Hell!
"Until 1975, Moscow was not only impressed by American military power and political will, it also clearly had no desire to go to war with the United States over Vietnam. But after 1975, Soviet fear of the United States dissipated."
UNTIL 1975?? I can't imagine why the Soviets were impressed by American military power between Jan. 1973 (when the US pulled out of Vietnam) and April 1975 (when the South was finally overrun). In 1973 the draft had been ended by Nixon, the active duty Army was down to 16 divisions, and its ranks were sullen and demoralized. The US Navy was undergoing a huge drawdown; large numbers of warships built during WW2 were becoming decrepit (and there were not enough sailors to man all of them anyways) and were decommissioned en masse. New vessels were not being built in anything like the numbers to replace them, since so much money had been thrown down the "money pit" that was Vietnam. As for the USAF; world-beating aircraft such as the F-15, F-16 and (the Navy F-14, F/A-18) were years away from reaching active inventories--US tactical air power was composed of aging types like F-4 phantoms, F-105 thunderchiefs etc. Even on the strategic nuclear level, we were at best at parity at the USSR at that time, and even that was evaporating. IIRC the main battle tank inventory for the US Army was barely 10,000 (maybe less) and much of that were old M-48s. The Soviets--after 1970--were undergoing a huge build up. Again IIRC the Soviets had 190 active divisions to our 19 (if you count the 3 USMC divisions), maybe 4 times as many tanks. True this situation improved, but not until the late 1970s (when new equipment reached active inventories) and of course the 1980s with the support of Reagan. All I am saying is that the Sovs had no reason to be impressed by American military power in the years 1973-1974; unless their intelligence was really bad. As for ARVN forces ultimately defeating the NVA, the thrust of Moore's article is that it was possible-WITH AMERICAN AIR SUPPORT. Reading between the lines, it is obvious that withouth US air support (and US advisors commanding them as at An Loc), ARVN was screwed. Funny that the NVA did not need Russian air support. Wonder if that is ultimately the reason the US "cut and ran" from South Vietnam, but still supports Israel; unlike the former South Vietnamese, the Israelis never needed US air support and certainly did not need US "advisors"; with the proper tools, Israel has proven itself capable of defending itself, by itself. South Vietnam was never able to take off the training wheels.
I remember the Gun Control Act of 1968 well. It was actually a very draconian law although some of it's restrictions have been loosened since. The most disgusting thing about it is many of the gun manufacturers supported it because it banned the importation of so many military surplus guns. I also recall some gun writers who were lukewarm on it too.
bump
James "Scotty" Reston revealed this story in a column in 1966, I believe. Reston had the power to worry Washington's most powerful that he would walk out on them if he sensed that they were trying to BS him.
The hapless Kennedy was savaged by Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961, especially over being chicken at the Bay of Pigs. So badly did JFK represent his Country that he asked for one more chance, a personal meeting with Khrushchev with only the two of them and two interpreters. JFK agreed to meet with Reston first after the meeting. This account is from, "Scotty," by John F. Stacks.
"How was it?" Reston asked casually.
"Worst thing in my life. He savaged me," Kennedy responded. The president seemed to Reston to be almost in shock, repeating himself and speaking with astonishing candor to the journalist. "Not the usual bullshit," Reston wrote in his notepad. "There is a look a man has when he has to tell the truth." Kennedy went on to say that to counter the battering by Khrushchev, which he attributed to the Soviet leader's underestimation of Kennedy's resolve, the United States would have to stand more firmly against the Soviets' demands in Berlin and against the mounting Communist insurgency in South Vietnam. Reston wrote later that he was "speechless" when Kennedy mentioned Vietnam, since that troubled country was at that point nowhere near the heart of the Cold War conflict and, in Reston's estimation, did not carry much weight in the superpower tug-of-war. Ever afterward, Kennedy's remark to Reston was seen by historians and by Reston himself as the moment marking the beginning of America's long slide into the tragedy of Vietnam. [End excerpt]
Yes sir, the JFK people took tens of thousands of Americans into war with the same "resolve" as they had at the Bay of Pigs.
Then LBJ took over caring more about his "Great Society" plans than any thing else including war -- fight the war but it must not in any way hinder getting his "Great Society." Lie, lie, lie whatever it takes. (see McMaster's. "Dereliction of Duty")
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