If the US wins the Vietnam War...

[Sidewinder]

This thread asks two questions:

1) With what policies, strategies, and tactics may the US win the Vietnam War? A victory is defined as a South Vietnam that remains independent of North Vietnam; non-intervention is not an option, although indirect intervention, e.g., by mercenaries or proxies like Taiwanese military units, may substitute for the deployment of US military units.

2) How will a US victory and the presence of an independent South Vietnam change the course of history?

With regards to #1, one of the many "The US military is becoming obsolete! Quick, replace all those MBTs with light-armored vehicles that are easily transported!" books that were published in the 90s, offered these tips:

a) Deploy US Army and Marine Corps units as a border patrol to cut off supplies and reinforcements to VC and NVA units in South Vietnam.

b) Have ARVN units take care of the Commies on their territory.

c) Prepare to invade North Vietnam, but don't actually invade; the idea is not to overthrow the Commie government, but to threaten them with the loss of everything they have if they don't stop trying to take over the South.

Anyone have a better idea?

[The Grim Squeaker]

Well, the best case from my very, very limited would be to cut off the supply lines from Laos and the surrounding nations that were supplying the North Vietnamese with a constant flow of supplies. (They even took over Laos for this). (Although the political reasons not to intervene are obvious, even if it did doom the war).

In addition, my understanding is that after the Tet offensive the North vietnamese forces were utterly devastated (going by Kissinger "Diplomacy" at least), staying (if there had been the popular political in the states, which there wasn't) might have helped push the North back..?

[K. A. Pital]

After pouring bombs like rain and using defoliants en masse, US ensured the hatred among Vietnam's population will grow and not end in years and years, and that South Asia will end in a poverty-driven bloodbath of which Vietnam would be a minor episode compared to the spread of Maoism to SA, which resulted in Polpotism.

How will a US victory and the presence of an independent South Vietnam change the course of history?

Not much, really. South Asia will remain a mess, Pol Pot will have to be stopped by someone else (not the real-life Socialist Vietnam), if at all. The USSR will cry endlessly in the United Nations about it's client nation's plight after devastaing US bombings. Other than that... um, nothing?

[Samuel]

We don't get Vietnamese migrants fleeing from the communists.

[Guardsman Bass]

I imagine it depends on what you end up doing to the North Vietnamese to end the war. If I recall correctly, there were a couple of things that the US could have done with intensive bombing in the early-to-mid 1960s that would have seriously hurt the Vietnamese (and caused a humanitarian crisis in the process), like bombing a certain set of dams.

Presumably you couple that with a sane counter-insurgency program (minimal "search and destroy", "exfoliate the forest" type of thing) taking into account the nature of the South Vietnamese (who did not broadly support having the North Vietnamese take over, although they didn't like the South Vietnamese government), and work on both investing in South Vietnam while building up support in the region with other pro-US nations like Thailand.

This is reaching a bit, but could you do an earlier reconciliation and diplomatic recognition with Maoist China? The Chinese and North Vietnamese had a falling out at some point.

Assuming you build up a relatively legitimate government (note that this isn't necessarily a "democratic" government), then you might get Vietnam as one of the East Asian economies that grew in the period, like South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and so forth.

[Sidewinder]

Pol Pot will have to be stopped by someone else (not the real-life Socialist Vietnam), if at all.

If the US successfully prevented South Vietnam from falling to the Communists, the American public would be more likely to support efforts to prevent Cambodia from falling as well; that means the US government and its proxies (e.g., an independent South Vietnam) wouldn't let Pol Pot come to power.

This is reaching a bit, but could you do an earlier reconciliation and diplomatic recognition with Maoist China?

Maybe. According to the Wikipedia article (I know, I know), the Sino-Soviet split began in the late 1950s and reached a peak in 1969. It's possible if a US government leader was smart enough to take advantage of the split, influential enough to get people to listen to him, and powerful enough to affect US foreign policy and open diplomatic relations with Communist China. This leader must also be tough enough to weather accusations of "selling China (Taiwan, as the US didn't recognize the Communist government back then) down the river," and have the smarts and charisma to start a public relations campaign supporting the normalization of relations between the US and Communist China.

Unfortunately, those are some gigantic ifs.

[Guardsman Bass]

Maybe. According to the Wikipedia article (I know, I know), the Sino-Soviet split began in the late 1950s and reached a peak in 1969. It's possible if a US government leader was smart enough to take advantage of the split, influential enough to get people to listen to him, and powerful enough to affect US foreign policy and open diplomatic relations with Communist China. This leader must also be tough enough to weather accusations of "selling China (Taiwan, as the US didn't recognize the Communist government back then) down the river," and have the smarts and charisma to start a public relations campaign supporting the normalization of relations between the US and Communist China.

Unfortunately, those are some gigantic ifs.

Wouldn't that basically be Richard Nixon? He was the one who started unthawing things with China in his Presidency, and presumably he'd be able to stand up to the "selling China down the river" campaign, seeing as he was a staunch anti-communist.

Not exactly the most likeable figure, but it could happen (it almost did; the 1960 election was very close).

[PainRack]

Highly difficult.............. the easiest way for the US to have won the war was if it had intervened in the late 50s, before Diem regime had solidified hatred of its rule amongst the ruling peoples.

Still, better alternatives might had been had if the Combined Action Platoons had been more widely implemented instead of ignored by Westmoreland, the Strategic Hamlet programme better implemented from the start, which would involve taking it away from the Vietnamese....... basically, what Abrahms did post Tet in the first few years of the war.
Combined with the fact that unlike Abrahms, Westmoreland never really faced a conventional enemy invasion, although he did view the deployment of US forces along those lines, insituting S&D to compensate for the strategic inability for the US to combat a NVA invasion and secure ground against the Viet Cong.

Strategic bombing itself was essentially a mistake in the early years of the war. The Viet Cong never severely relied on supplies and manpower from North Vietnam directly in the early years, North Vietnam could and did endure severe disruption and destruction of her economy and the bombers couldn't directly target the Soviet, Chinese ships/trains. To make matters worse, Vietnam ports were off limits since Allied ships were trading with North Vietnam and a hit would had been disastrous(Chinese embassy in the Balkans anyone?)

Last but not least, training a better ARVN force and leading it would had been beneficial, providing the vital manpower required in later years of the insurgency as the US looks to scale back its military investment or pending a NVA threat.

[Sea Skimmer]

Strategic bombing itself was essentially a mistake in the early years of the war. The Viet Cong never severely relied on supplies and manpower from North Vietnam directly in the early years, North Vietnam could and did endure severe disruption and destruction of her economy and the bombers couldn't directly target the Soviet, Chinese ships/trains. To make matters worse, Vietnam ports were off limits since Allied ships were trading with North Vietnam and a hit would had been disastrous(Chinese embassy in the Balkans anyone?)

The VC always depended a good deal on the north for support once they moved past the home made gun phase in the very early 1960s, and historically by 1968 they had become utterly depending on it as they attempted to employ more conventional tactics and standardized on Soviet weaponry. More intensive bombing of the north would have prohibited large scale conventional fighting, making the counter insurgency task much easier since US and ARVN forces no longer must maintain such large masses to avoid being overrun.

The only reason northern ports were off limits was because US political leadership was completely insane and fought the war in the most insane manner man could come up with. If we are assuming the US wins, you can be damn sure it involved mining all the north’s ports closed. No need to even damage a ship to do it; not a single ship struck a mine in 1972 but the ports where 100% shutdown. Even more mines shutdown all the inland water ways as well.

That only leaves two railway lines from China for logistics, and both could have been bombed into oblivion had the US been willing to employ the proper tactics on a consistent basis. US never gave a damn about destroying Chinese trains, any moving train was a free target except in the very first year of the air campaign. The fact is the Soviets and Chinese fully expected the personal they sent into North Vietnam might be killed, and indeed Soviet troops were killed numerous times despite insane US precautions. The same thing happened when Soviet troops deployed to Egypt in the war of attrition, the Israelis haply and indeed even deliberately targeted them and this did not trigger some dire full scale Soviet intervention.

No ships, no trains and the only thing left is very small coastal junks, which can be destroyed by aggressive patrolling by the US navy (we sure knew how to shoot up barges in the Solomon’s) and truck traffic, which cannot move nearly as high a tonnage nor with anything like as high an efficiency. Some supplies would get through, but nothing like the massive quantity the north got historically. Huge surpluses of supplies and trucks allowed the north to throw five times as much tonnage down the Ho Chi minh trail (which the US easily could have cut by invading southern Laos itself) as its forces actually needed, making losses to US air raids on the trail unimportant.

Seriously US conduct was just hopeless. It was always a pretty hopeless war, but the manner in which the US approached it was just tailor made to induce defeat at every level. The Johnston administration was so inept at war fighting as to be almost beyond words.

[MKSheppard]

Highly difficult..............

Not really.

Demote Curtis LeMay from Chief of Staff, and put him in charge of the B-52s on Guam. Tell him "this is your chance to win this war, if you don't I'll hold you responsible."

I've read both of his 1960s books, Mission with LeMay and America is In Danger. Both talk heavily about the need to use the same kind of bombing strategy which you know, was FINALLY used in 1972 in Linebacker I and II; closing North VIetnam's ports with mining, blowing up all power stations, dropping rail bridges, etc, and keeping it all up until the North capitulates.

Regardless of how we have backed into this war we must now recognize, unequivocally, that we are in it and our only exit with honor and world respect is to win it. How can we do this?

The first step is to reverse our objective. Instead of the negotiating table we must aspire to decisive victory. We must make the war so costly to North Vietnam that it will sue for peace. The Communists started this war. Let them wish they never had. Let the Communists end it.

Second, we must fight the war from our position of strength, not theirs. We must fight it at the lowest cost to ourselves and at the greatest cost to the enemy. We must change the currency in this contest, from men to materials.

America's greatest strength in this military situation is air and naval power. We must use it strategically. We must use it decisively. And we must use it now.

It is important that we tell the world about this change in objective so that the world can correctly interpret our motives and evaluate our results. And we also must tell the Communists.

We must tell them that we are going to bomb increasingly costly targets in North Vietnam. They can decide how much they want to pay for the privilege of invading their neighbor. First, we must destroy the ability of the North Vietnamese to wage war and then, if necessary, their entire productive capacity.

We can pinpoint the targets we will hit and warn the civilians in advance to evacuate. In modern warfare, with modern warning devices, there is little surprise in bombing raids. Hanoi, for example, is ringed with far more and far better anti-aircraft devices than were ever in Berlin during World War II.

You will recall that North Vietnam is a rather recent arrival to twentieth-century technology and industry. Her resources, by our standards, are meager and hard earned. They are more valuable to her, in many respects, than human life. And North Vietnam must be made to pay for this war with her dearest coins.

To do this we must return to the strategic bombing doctrine which was tried and proved in World War II. We must attack the sources of supply and the sources of power. We must not waste our bombs, our multi-million dollar aircraft, and our precious fighter pilots on bridges, trucks, barracks, and oil drums when major factories, supply dumps, power plants, port facilities, and merchant ships go unscathed.

We hear dissenters say today that the bombing of North Vietnam is ineffective and, in relation to the great effort we are expending, they are right. Probably the weirdest aspect of this Alice-in-Wonderland war is that we have dropped more explosives on Vietnam than we did on Germany in World War II. Our strikes against Germany devastated one of the world's most powerful and industrially advanced nations, yet an even greater destructive force seems to have hardly dented the military capacity of a backward, third-rate power. How can this be? It is not air power which is wanting. It is the wrong employment of air power.

Secretary of State Dean Rusk has assured us that Ho "is hurting very badly" and that we do not intend to suspend the bombing. Then why in Heaven's name do we not hurt him more when we so easily can? For we must hurt him enough to make him meet our terms if we are ever to terminate this war.

"It's a daffy war in lots of ways," said a pilot who had been bombing the North. "Many times as we come in over Haiphong we'll see a Russian tanker steaming in or tied up at a pier. Its crew will wave to us and we'll wave back. But then for the next six weeks we chase individual oil trucks down camouflaged roads with maybe $30 million worth of airplanes. We lose some of those planes. And we lose men, too."

The sanctuary we have granted to the port of Haiphong is one of the strangest anomalies in the history of warfare. During the past two years 827 ships have brought munitions and supplies to North Vietnam. Of these ships, 267 were Russian, 258 were Red Chinese, 94 were from Eastern European countries, and 210 were ships of our alleged allies and foreign aid recipients. Could this trade have something to do with our granting a King's X to the port? It is a nasty thought, but I have a very hard time rationalizing a strategy that encourages the flow of supplies to enemies who are shooting our servicemen.

There are so many ways we could close that port! We could blockade it. We could bomb it to rubble. We could mine it. We could sink a ship in the entrance channel. The port of Haiphong is the Achilles heel of North Vietnam. Seventy per cent of her war supplies enter here. A steady stream of freighters, at least one each day, is needed to keep the ammunition pipeline full. And if anyone thinks that such a volume of sophisticated materials can be carried from China by individuals with A-frame packs, he has no idea of the size and weight of an SA-2 missile. The defense of North Vietnam is highly technical and Ho could not continue it by reverting to foot transportation. Nor could he adequately support the Viet Cong in the south.

Our token bombing has merely given our enemies a chance to develop massive defenses around the most critical targets and at the same time shoot down our $2 million fighters as they attack targets which are sometimes not even worth the bombs themselves.

The bogey of escalation and the pathological fear of antagonizing Red China was found to be unwarranted when we lifted certain bombing restrictions in the past. It was argued in 1964 and 1965 that if we bombed petroleum targets it would pose an intolerable provocation to Red China. It did not. But we waited so long and debated the move so thoroughly in the press that Hanoi had time to disperse much of its oil storage in drums.

I sometimes wonder whether we or the enemy suffers most under our flexible response strategy. We have lost over seven hundred aircraft over North Vietnam at a cost of well over a billion dollars. Our fighter-bomber production is just barely keeping ahead of our losses according to the Pentagon. And the heartache of having three hundred or more of our fine young pilots suffering indignities if not torture at the hands of the Red Vietnamese is a high price to pay for so few military results.

Another anomaly of this war is that our strategic bombers, the B-52s, are being used tactically to carpet-bomb enemy troop concentrations while our tactical fighters undertake the strategic role. Reasons given for this are that the high-flying jet bombers would be easy marks for the SA-2 missiles. This may be the right decision as long as we are so sensitive about bombing accuracy in the North and have so few worthwhile targets in any event. But when the time comes to bomb out the port of Haiphong the B-52s could and should be risked. They would make short work of that Achilles heel.

General Westmoreland has applauded the work of the B-52s in the South. "We know," he said, "from talking with many prisoners and defectors, that the enemy troops fear B-52s, tactical air, artillery, and armor, in that order." At least the big sword is being kept sharp.

As restricted and relatively ineffective as our bombing is, North Vietnam is truly hurting. Over a half million men are mobilized to repair the damages to roads, bridges, etc., caused by our bombs. And the flow of supplies to the south is definitely constricted. So to call a bombing halt as has been proposed by many as a signal for talks would be an expression of weakness and indecision. We may get talks, but not on our terms. So why talk?

The thirty-seven day truce of 1965-66 was used by North Vietnam to rush supplies south rather than to ponder peace talks. Why should we expect anything more today?

Both Russia and Red China can be very happy the way the war is now going. It costs them very little compared to the drain on our economy; we are getting all the bad publicity, not they; and they are making no commitments in lives as we are. China has long coveted Vietnam and if the Ho government falls Red China would be in a very favorable position to assume control. The charge might well be made that Red China is fighting the war against the United States in Southeast Asia to the last Vietnamese. It is no secret that Red China exerts pressure on North Vietnam to continue the war as long as possible.

With the Soviets and the Communist Chinese fighting "wars of national liberation" by proxy, and with the Americans fighting them directly with their own blood and treasure, we invite the Communists to pursue this favorable strategy in other parts of the world. However, if we punish Ho sufficiently, other nationalist leaders will be more reluctant to be pushed into American guns by their Communist "allies." We would also indicate to Russia and China that our fear of escalation will not permit us to be bullied into interminable limited wars.

The way to fight the war in North Vietnam is to fight it. Pussyfooting with bombing pauses and exempting the vital targets is the way to lose it. I offer this simple plan of campaign:

The harbor at Haiphong and the entire capacity to receive outside supplies must be eliminated. Our selected bombing of nearby targets has increased ship turnaround time but this is not enough. We must close the port absolutely. Gen. Earle G. Wheeler said that Haiphong is the chief source of war goods used in the South.

So must be eliminated the power system that fuels every war-making facility.

So must be eliminated the transportation system—rails, rolling stock, bridges, and yards.

Every factory and every industrial installation, beginning with the biggest and best must be bombed and destroyed.

And if necessary the irrigation system on which food production largely depends should come under our bombsights. We can burst the dikes that make rice farming possible in the Red River Delta. This is one of the most heavilv populated areas in the world. Without the dikes severe flooding would occur during the monsoons. I know of no war of this size when such an effort has been made to preserve the agricultural base of the enemy.

We must be willing to continue our bombing until we have destroyed every work of man in North Vietnam if this is what it takes to win the war.

We can and should avoid the civilian population. It can be effectively warned. But we must destroy the capacity of that population to slaughter innocent people for political gain. Let us not ever forget that our own deaths in this war exceed seventeen thousand.

We should destroy every supply dump, even those placed in populated areas. Of course we should warn the people to leave these areas.

I do not think it will be necessary to use nuclear weapons to accomplish this task. Nevertheless, I would not rule out any strength that we have, if the situation demands it.

Soviet Russia has indicated more than once that she does not want to project herself into a showdown with the United States. Not now, anyway. I again call your attention to Berlin, Lebanon, the Taiwan Straits, and the Cuban crisis. And Red China today seems entirely preoccupied with her own internal turmoil.

Mr. McNamara believes that the enemy cannot "be bombed to the negotiating table." I can see no other sensible way of getting him there.

I believe that the course I suggest will end the war much sooner than will the policies we now pursue, with less loss of life on both sides. I am sure that it will cost fewer American lives. And those lives are my primary concern.

The policy I suggest will not result in a compromise at the peace table. And it will not reward the Communists for aggression. It will, instead, encourage our allies in all parts of the world. And it will decisively check communist expansion in Southeast Asia.

[PainRack]

I've read both of his 1960s books, Mission with LeMay and America is In Danger. Both talk heavily about the need to use the same kind of bombing strategy which you know, was FINALLY used in 1972 in Linebacker I and II; closing North VIetnam's ports with mining, blowing up all power stations, dropping rail bridges, etc, and keeping it all up until the North capitulates.［／quote]
Except that in the 1950s and early 1960s, the "enemy" was NOT North Vietnam, but rather, the goal of sustaining and maintaining an independent South Vietnam free from communist influence. To say North Vietnam was the sole fault and cause of US woes is to make the same mistake France made in Algeria, its all Egypt fault!

Strategic bombing did exactly zilch to improve the economic, political and social condition of South Vietnam. It could only buy more time for South Vietnam to get its act together by limiting the Viet Cong ability to launch raids and attacks.

The first step is to reverse our objective. Instead of the negotiating table we must aspire to decisive victory. We must make the war so costly to North Vietnam that it will sue for peace. The Communists started this war. Let them wish they never had. Let the Communists end it.

The NLF/Viet Cong started the war. And it wasn't a full blown communist insurgency, but rather, a nationalist movement against the ruling regime, with religious, economic and cultural motivation.

We must tell them that we are going to bomb increasingly costly targets in North Vietnam. They can decide how much they want to pay for the privilege of invading their neighbor. First, we must destroy the ability of the North Vietnamese to wage war and then, if necessary, their entire productive capacity.

All 300 targets in the list the General requested? All had been bombed by 1972. For all the success Linebacker II had, it did exactly nothing to fulfill the US no 1 objective. Maintain a viable, non communist South Vietnam.
Why? Because it could do nothing to support the US backed regime in South Vietnam, and alone, it could not hold back war weariness in the states.

[PainRack]

[quote="Sea Skimmer
The VC always depended a good deal on the north for support once they moved past the home made gun phase in the very early 1960s, and historically by 1968 they had become utterly depending on it as they attempted to employ more conventional tactics and standardized on Soviet weaponry. More intensive bombing of the north would have prohibited large scale conventional fighting, making the counter insurgency task much easier since US and ARVN forces no longer must maintain such large masses to avoid being overrun. [/quote]
And by 1968, we ARE talking about the later part of the insurgency. The Viet Cong and NLF has been in existence since the late 50s.

No ships, no trains and the only thing left is very small coastal junks, which can be destroyed by aggressive patrolling by the US navy (we sure knew how to shoot up barges in the Solomon’s) and truck traffic, which cannot move nearly as high a tonnage nor with anything like as high an efficiency. Some supplies would get through, but nothing like the massive quantity the north got historically. Huge surpluses of supplies and trucks allowed the north to throw five times as much tonnage down the Ho Chi minh trail (which the US easily could have cut by invading southern Laos itself) as its forces actually needed, making losses to US air raids on the trail unimportant.

To make matters clear, in order to win the war, the US would had to perform some form of strategic and tactical interdiction to shut down supplies, both to the North Vietnamese and to the South Vietnamese.

I was merely briefly highlighting some of the constraints US policy faced in terms of targeting logistics. However, I don't see how the US could sustain such levels of interdiction for long period of time without arousing similar levels of international sympathy and domestic discord..
Afterall, the embargo against Saddam showed how difficult it was to sustain an interdiction effort against determined opponents without arousing domestic/international discord.

[Sea Skimmer]

And by 1968, we ARE talking about the later part of the insurgency. The Viet Cong and NLF has been in existence since the late 50s.

The US didn’t start fighting in Vietnam in 1968 you know, I have no idea why you would bring up that date. In 1964, the Viet Cong was quite lightly armed and had no organized units larger then regiments. It had only just begun to transit towards conventional fighting, overrunning a number of weak ARVN outposts. It was this transition that largely triggered US involvement, and that convinced US leadership they could win in Vietnam in six months fighting a conventional campaign.

The VC were smashed in several conventional battles in 1965-66 and quickly dispersed back to guerilla tactics and small units. Meanwhile because of utterly insane US policies, the North was able to surge resources south, and exploit base areas in Laos and Cambodia to build up a new conventional forces over several years that were thrown into Tet… in which is was promptly destroyed but not before inflicting a major political defeat on ever more retarded US leadership. 200,000 fully equipped NAV troops also moved south and supported these operations. None of that had to happen. It was all because the US insanely tried to fight a limited war with all sorts of unnecessary political and geographic restrictions even if one accepted the idea of ‘limited war’ in the first place when it was clearly unworkable.

To make matters clear, in order to win the war, the US would had to perform some form of strategic and tactical interdiction to shut down supplies, both to the North Vietnamese and to the South Vietnamese.

Yeah, I know, why else do you think I just laid out all the avenue of enemy logistics which must be cut off?

I was merely briefly highlighting some of the constraints US policy faced in terms of targeting logistics.

No you were pointing out insane and completely artificial political restrictions as if they were hard law of nature. This is completely illogical in a thread about what the US had to do to win! Johnston was a fucking idiot, yeah we know that. This does not mean his policies had to exist or make even the slightest bit of sense. He was perhaps the dumbest man in American history, and makes Bush the second look downright brilliant.

. However, I don't see how the US could sustain such levels of interdiction for long period of time without arousing similar levels of international sympathy and domestic discord..

Who fucking cares? You think the world wasn’t already pissed at what the US was doing? We bombed the North for years already; the USAF alone flew over 200,000 combat sorties over North Vietnam, but we wasted the effort on largely worthless targets, while we let the North stockpile supplies literally in the streets of Hanoi. I’m not even going to bother explaining just how fucked up the target approval system was.

Meanwhile in Linebacker II, North Vietnam was shutdown economically and its military logistics system was crippled in just 18 days. They ran out of MiGs, and they nearly ran out of AAA ammunition and SAMs, leaving them wide open to followup attacks. The US could have done the same thing in 1965, and then maintained that with LESS bombing effort then it historically expended because the North would never be able to form such heavy air defenses in the first place. When the US made its first bombing raids on the north, the north had just 1,500 AA guns none heavier then 57mm, no SAMs, and no MiGs. By 1968 they had over 50 SAM sites, 6,000 AA guns up to 100mm and seventy five MiGs, because the US made no true effort to prevent them from importing more weapons. That entire buildup would just never happen under a proper air campaign making the US job vastly easier.

Afterall, the embargo against Saddam showed how difficult it was to sustain an interdiction effort against determined opponents without arousing domestic/international discord.

What? That’s not the same thing at all. The embargo was an… embargo… a political restriction, and it was in fact none the less very highly successful in preventing Saddam from importing new weapons. In fact its not clear Saddam got any new weapons at all between 1991-2003, though he did import some duel use communcations gear that was used for air defenses.

Did you see the US bombing Iraqi ports or railroads or roads or anything to ‘enforce’ that embargo? Was Saddam unloading a dozen freighters loaded with munitions at once? Did he have thirty trains per day crossing his boarder loaded with the same? Was the US publicly proclaiming it would not bomb within 30 miles of Bagdad? No? In fact all the US did in terms of actual enforcement is maintain a blockade in the Persian Gulf, but Iraq had land boarders with six nations in which enforcement was up to local political leadership.

[PainRack]

The US didn’t start fighting in Vietnam in 1968 you know, I have no idea why you would bring up that date. In 1964, the Viet Cong was quite lightly armed and had no organized units larger then regiments. It had only just begun to transit towards conventional fighting, overrunning a number of weak ARVN outposts. It was this transition that largely triggered US involvement, and that convinced US leadership they could win in Vietnam in six months fighting a conventional campaign.

To be honest, I do consider the historical intervention of US Marines in Vietnam as being the later part of the insurgency.
The intervention of foreign combat troops and the resulting entanglement of NVA forces at Ia Drang was an evolution of an insurgency against the ruling government of South Vietnam and involvement of international forces and Cold War Policy.

Yeah, I know, why else do you think I just laid out all the avenue of enemy logistics which must be cut off?

I'm just clarifying my stance.

No you were pointing out insane and completely artificial political restrictions as if they were hard law of nature. This is completely illogical in a thread about what the US had to do to win! Johnston was a fucking idiot, yeah we know that. This does not mean his policies had to exist or make even the slightest bit of sense. He was perhaps the dumbest man in American history, and makes Bush the second look downright brilliant.

Speaking from hindsight. Given the volatile nature of Chinese politics and the historical intervention in Korea, there is good reason why the US was unwilling to expand the war and thus tacked on unrealistic policy restrictions.

Who fucking cares? You think the world wasn’t already pissed at what the US was doing? We bombed the North for years already; the USAF alone flew over 200,000 combat sorties over North Vietnam, but we wasted the effort on largely worthless targets, while we let the North stockpile supplies literally in the streets of Hanoi. I’m not even going to bother explaining just how fucked up the target approval system was.

And? Remember, by definition, the US DID win the war in Vietnam. North Vietnam was dragged to the negotiation table, they got exactly everything they wanted on paper. The local Viet Cong insurgency was crushed and ineffectual, the NVA halted offensive operations.

Too bad it did exactly nothing to actually support US policy when the NVA simply steamrolled into Vietnam later, as US domestic and international support prevented the Vietnamese from even getting fertilisers as aid supplies.

That entire buildup would just never happen under a proper air campaign making the US job vastly easier.

Which misses the point I was trying to highlight. All of this could be easily done, but how on earth does it maintain and keep a stable, non communist South Vietnamese government in power? Much less unification. By 1970, any South Vietnam regime had lost any form of recognition for being the holder of Vietnamese nationalism by the local populace.

What? That’s not the same thing at all. The embargo was an… embargo… a political restriction, and it was in fact none the less very highly successful in preventing Saddam from importing new weapons. In fact its not clear Saddam got any new weapons at all between 1991-2003, though he did import some duel use communcations gear that was used for air defenses.

And? The point was not about how effective it WAS. It was to highlight the difficulty of sustaining domestic and international support for such an effort over a long period of time.

Or have you utterly missed out on the fact that I'm discussing the political sustainability of the US war effort and the viability of a South Vietnamese government, and NOT the military effectiveness of the US war campaign? I'm not disagreeing that the US strategic bombing of Vietnam could had become much more effective and useful in shutting down the conventional aspects of the war. However, that's only half of the equation.

[MKSheppard]

Too bad it did exactly nothing to actually support US policy when the NVA simply steamrolled into Vietnam later, as US domestic and international support prevented the Vietnamese from even getting fertilisers as aid supplies.

With an armored thrust consisting of several hundred T-55s. Yeah, those things grow on trees in North Vietnam in giant tank farms....

I'm not disagreeing that the US strategic bombing of Vietnam could had become much more effective and useful in shutting down the conventional aspects of the war. However, that's only half of the equation.

Hey moron, you seem to think that T-55s, large caliber AA ammo, artillery rounds, and SA-2s grow on giant plantations in North Vietnam. Without that steady flow of military equipment, all North Vietnam can field is the lightly armed and equipped Viet Cong in the south; which can be countered with cheap ARVN conscripts holding M-16s.

[thejester]

Hey moron, you seem to think that T-55s, large caliber AA ammo, artillery rounds, and SA-2s grow on giant plantations in North Vietnam. Without that steady flow of military equipment, all North Vietnam can field is the lightly armed and equipped Viet Cong in the south; which can be countered with cheap ARVN conscripts holding M-16s.

It couldn't actually. That's kind of why the US had to intervene in 1965 in the first place.

[Sidewinder]

Hey moron, you seem to think that T-55s, large caliber AA ammo, artillery rounds, and SA-2s grow on giant plantations in North Vietnam. Without that steady flow of military equipment, all North Vietnam can field is the lightly armed and equipped Viet Cong in the south; which can be countered with cheap ARVN conscripts holding M-16s.

It couldn't actually. That's kind of why the US had to intervene in 1965 in the first place.

I doubt it helped the US or South Vietnam when the CIA kept supporting coup after coup, hoping the next President of the Republic of Vietnam will be a better anti-Communist than his late predecessor.

[Sea Skimmer]

It couldn't actually. That's kind of why the US had to intervene in 1965 in the first place.

In 1965 the ARVN didn’t have the M16 or any other modern weapons, they had some WW2 leftovers and predominantly used M1 Garand’s which were literally too physically big for the average Vietnamese solider to use. The fact was in 1965 the ARVN had simply not had time to become a real military, the French didn’t started training any local officers until just before they pulled out, while the communists had been training people since the 1940s. Latter in the war the ARVN proved relatively able to fight protracted conventional battles, the VC main force having already been destroyed in 1968, but by 1972 the North was at the level of fucking mechanized warfare, and threw 600 tanks backed by hundreds of pieces of artillery into the Easter Offensive. This was all because the insanity of US policy allowed them to build up that kind of strength they could have never even thought about under a real blockade. Of course even the 1972 offensive was repelled, and indeed captured many fewer locations then Tet, and this was with only about 45,000 US ground troops in the entire country. The ARVN improved dramatically, only to have the rug pulled out from under them in 1975, leaving them with no ammo, no fuel and no spare parts to fight against a communist invasion scaled up to have over 1,000 tanks. Indeed the need for the North to commit such large mechanized forces, totally contrary to any of the ‘peoples war’ or similar doctrine. shows just how strong the ARVN become.

The real problem for South Vietnam was that it lacked much of an economic base, mainly because it was stuck in a civil war that kept blowing shit up, while the US failed to inflict similar devastation on the North with its insane bombing policies. Given a victory against the communists no reason exist why it should have become any worse off economically then the North or modern Vietnam. That is to say not real great, but a functional country.

[thejester]

In 1965 the ARVN didn’t have the M16 or any other modern weapons, they had some WW2 leftovers and predominantly used M1 Garand’s which were literally too physically big for the average Vietnamese solider to use. The fact was in 1965 the ARVN had simply not had time to become a real military, the French didn’t started training any local officers until just before they pulled out, while the communists had been training people since the 1940s.

Please, ten years is a fucking eternity to get a military up and running - or at the very least show signs of competency. The ARVN's problem wasn't a lack of time, it was that the chronic corruption and nepotism of the government infected the officer corp as well. Giving them M16s would have just meant a bigger ammunition bill, not any real improvement in fighting quality.

EDIT: Perhaps more accurately, portraying the insurgency problem as a relatively simple one for the ARVN to be able to solve is clearly untrue. When the Australians arrived in Phuoc Ty in 1966 the place was virtually controlled by the Viet Cong. That wasn't purely a matter of terror, either; many settlements actively supported them. The Viet Cong were winning in 1965 by simply controlling the countryside.

Latter in the war the ARVN proved relatively able to fight protracted conventional battles, the VC main force having already been destroyed in 1968, but by 1972 the North was at the level of fucking mechanized warfare, and threw 600 tanks backed by hundreds of pieces of artillery into the Easter Offensive. This was all because the insanity of US policy allowed them to build up that kind of strength they could have never even thought about under a real blockade. Of course even the 1972 offensive was repelled, and indeed captured many fewer locations then Tet, and this was with only about 45,000 US ground troops in the entire country. The ARVN improved dramatically, only to have the rug pulled out from under them in 1975, leaving them with no ammo, no fuel and no spare parts to fight against a communist invasion scaled up to have over 1,000 tanks. Indeed the need for the North to commit such large mechanized forces, totally contrary to any of the ‘peoples war’ or similar doctrine. shows just how strong the ARVN become.

At best the ARVN in the later stages of the war was a mixed bag. They scored some impressive victories, but they also had some classic ARVN fuck ups.

[Zixinus]

Presumably you couple that with a sane counter-insurgency program (minimal "search and destroy", "exfoliate the forest" type of thing)

What was the problem with those?

I have a book on military tactics, and it insists that the main objective of jungle warfare is the annihilation of the enemy with overwhelming and concentrated firepower.

What would be better?

[Guardsman Bass]

Presumably you couple that with a sane counter-insurgency program (minimal "search and destroy", "exfoliate the forest" type of thing)

What was the problem with those?

I have a book on military tactics, and it insists that the main objective of jungle warfare is the annihilation of the enemy with overwhelming and concentrated firepower.

What would be better?

That makes sense when you are fighting a conventional enemy in a jungle environment, where the key objective is to destroy said enemy's forces. It doesn't work so well when you are doing counter-insurgency, and your first priority is to protect the population. That means you can't shortchange the people used to guard the various populated areas to go hunting in the jungle.

[PainRack]

With an armored thrust consisting of several hundred T-55s. Yeah, those things grow on trees in North Vietnam in giant tank farms....

Oh right, and exactly WHY was US airpower unavailable to assist the ARVN as they were in 1972?
Oh wait, the reasons I mentioned. The inability of the US to sustain combat operations as domestic and international support dwindled.

Hey moron, you seem to think that T-55s, large caliber AA ammo, artillery rounds, and SA-2s grow on giant plantations in North Vietnam. Without that steady flow of military equipment, all North Vietnam can field is the lightly armed and equipped Viet Cong in the south; which can be countered with cheap ARVN conscripts holding M-16s.

Funny how I didn't say the US would lose by bombing North vietnam. I pointed out that strategic bombing in the early years were essentially a huge mistake. You sir, missed out my clarification that when I said it was a mistake, I didn't mean that some form of aerial interdiction wasn't neccesary. I meant exactly what I said in the following sentences,

The Viet Cong never severely relied on supplies and manpower from North Vietnam directly in the early years, North Vietnam could and did endure severe disruption and destruction of her economy and the bombers couldn't directly target the Soviet, Chinese ships/trains. To make matters worse, Vietnam ports were off limits since Allied ships were trading with North Vietnam and a hit would had been disastrous(Chinese embassy in the Balkans anyone?)

The bombers couldn't directly target the Soviet, Chinese ships/trains that were supplying the war effort, thus, its clear that the entire campaign WAS a fucking mistake since they ignored the true gravitas of the war logistic network.

[Sea Skimmer]

Oh right, and exactly WHY was US airpower unavailable to assist the ARVN as they were in 1972?
Oh wait, the reasons I mentioned. The inability of the US to sustain combat operations as domestic and international support dwindled.

Yeah because the US took way heavier losses then it ever should have owing to insane tactics, and a total failure to pursue and destroy the enemy in his base areas except for one single raid into Cambodia in 1969 which wasn’t even given enough time to properly search the ground covered. By our own choice of tactics we’d ensured we had to fight a growing conventional threat and an irregular threat, and that wasn’t going to work. Fighting an irregular threat alone was a far easier proposition, it means ARVN and US forces can disperse to cover a lot more space out of hand ect.. bombing the north in a rational manner, AND accepting that war in Vietnam means war in Laos and Cambodia, no insane beating around the bush on that, can eliminate the conventional threat.

The bombers couldn't directly target the Soviet, Chinese ships/trains that were supplying the war effort, thus, its clear that the entire campaign WAS a fucking mistake since they ignored the true gravitas of the war logistic network.

Again with this? We can mine ports closed without sinking Soviet ships, and no one gave a fuck about bombing trains. In fact a moving train in North Vietnam was a legit target from 1966 onward, the problem was the rail yards, repair shops and bridges were largely kept off the target lists because most of the key ones were in the Hanoi and Haiphong restricted zone, and B-52s were not permitted to simply plow up the track every day. Indeed dispite the trains moving bein approved targets.. little effort was made to acutally assign patrols to monitor the tracks. This was in part because the North built up such massive air defences using shiploads of Soviet weapons we could have easily stopped.

In fact thanks to the Sino-Soviet split Soviet aid to Vietnam was not allowed to travel by rail through China after 1960, so mining the ports alone COMPLETELY removes Soviet aid. You just keep insisting that somehow US ROE are set in stone… and that this means the US cant win,. Will fucking duh what we did didn’t fucking work and wasn’t going to work, this is not a thread about what we did do, its about what we could do. CLosing off the Norths logestics pipeline and keeping it closed with a quarter million bombing sorties to spend is just easy. You know we dropped more tonnage of bombs on Veitnam in general then we did in Germany in WW2 right? A huge amount of it was just plain wasted because we had no proper allowed targets to even try to aim at... so you have B-52s pounding random peices of jungle trying to kill the NVA one by one, instead of just flattening the barracks and training camps in the North.

Any hurt the North suffered in the 1960s just utterly paled in comparison to the damage that could have been done. The US would at worst destroy a target once, then happily wait 2 years for it to be rebuilt before even thinking about hitting it again, instead of just sending over occasional sorties to mess up the repair work. You can’t call a nation fucking crippled economically when it still has enough electrical power to run an entire steel mill besides lighting its cities.

[FOG3]

The bombers couldn't directly target the Soviet, Chinese ships/trains that were supplying the war effort, thus, its clear that the entire campaign WAS a fucking mistake since they ignored the true gravitas of the war logistic network.

Haiphong Harbor mean anything to you?

We shut the sea route down cold. The air dropped mines kept the big ships far away, and helicopters shot up their attempts to get around that problem with little boats and water tight packaging. That didn't exactly involve a complicated or difficult operation for Department of the Navy assets once they were allowed to do it.

Read Holloway's book Aircraft Carriers at War and get it more or less from the man who was in charge himself if you don't think we can, could, and did do it when allowed to.

If we did things the way we do now and did before their logistic lines should have been sliced and kept sliced as much as is possible, and their industry crippled. At that point the only way the ARVN should be able to lose is lack of will and dedication to win on their part. When you can move large cargo ships full of gear to your side and the other can't deliver barely anything you kind of set things up for one side to have massive overmatch in a way that makes the whole Japan couldn't win thing look minor in comparison.

If what other brought up is as I understand it, if we had done things right from the beginning we might have never even needed to move significant numbers of our forces in to assist at which point public opinion is almost a non-issue.

[PainRack]

Yeah because the US took way heavier losses then it ever should have owing to insane tactics, and a total failure to pursue and destroy the enemy in his base areas except for one single raid into Cambodia in 1969 which wasn’t even given enough time to properly search the ground covered. By our own choice of tactics we’d ensured we had to fight a growing conventional threat and an irregular threat, and that wasn’t going to work. Fighting an irregular threat alone was a far easier proposition, it means ARVN and US forces can disperse to cover a lot more space out of hand ect.. bombing the north in a rational manner, AND accepting that war in Vietnam means war in Laos and Cambodia, no insane beating around the bush on that, can eliminate the conventional threat.

And the Iraqi sanctions show exactly how difficult it is to sustain a blockade politically over a decade EVEN when it was highly effective with literally no losses whatsoever.

As for expanding the war into Laos and Cambodia, the refusal of the US to involve itself in a general invasion of North Vietnam or the conflict into Laos and Cambodia was the fact that the US absolutely could not afford to sink up too many of its assets into SEA. South Vietnam alone was too big that the US Army could not hope to secure the area alone. Unless you utterly reorient US strategical focus away from Europe and invest it in Asia.......

Again with this?

NO YOU FUCKING IDIOT. I DID NOT CLAIM THE US COULD NOT CONDUCT A SUCCESSFUL INTERDICTION CAMPAIGN!

I POINTED OUT EXACTLY WHY THE US BOMBING CAMPAIGN WAS A MISTAKE, SUCH AS THE CAMPAIGN LIMITS ON ATTACKING VIETNAM PORTS AND CHINESE TRAINS DUE TO VARIOUS POSITIONS, SUCH AS THE FACT THAT ALLIED SHIPS WERE STILL TRADING WITH NORTH VIETNAM AND THE RESULTING POLITICAL FALLOUT THAT WOULD HAD RESULTED. SO STOP FUCKING REDHERRING MY POSITION, ESPECIALLY WHEN I HAD CLARIFIED MY POSITION !
Or to put it simply, the US generals and politicians fucked up the bombing campaign. Would that rewritten statement serve nicely?

The only contention was that your argument that the US could had easily decleared all those targets on the board immediately is an argument from hindsight. We know now that the Chinese/Soviets wouldn't had responded, however, the fears that this would escalate was a valid one in the 60s when the bombing campaign was first started.

To repeat:
The US bombing campaign was a mistake because of they didn't target Soviet ships/trains and other targets early on because of political constraints that were placed on it. Similarly, expanding the bombing campaign earlier than its historical date would had been relatively pointless because at that point in the war, the NLF didn't rely heavily on NVA supplies or manpower. Lastly, on its own, the bombing campaign couldn't end the war by taking North Vietnam out of the equation as it historically endured a long and destructive campaign.

2. With regards to sustaining a bombing campaign against the North Vietnamese, I point out that the US would find it difficult to sustain a high level of interdiction strikes without arousing the same levels of international sympathy and domestic discord this caused, with its resultant effects on the war effort.