Questions about Vietnam?

Question

I know the jist of things about Vietnam but i still have a couple questions.
1) Why did US end up with ground troops fighting in Vietnam?
2) How did american political leaders affect the way in which US fought the war?
3) Was a victory of sorts achieved in 1973? why did US ultimately lose?

Also a controversial question, I read that some historians argue that Vietnam War was worth fighting.
Why would they think that and what support would they have for that reasoning?

Answer 1

1. We started with good intentions with our adviser teams. President Kennedy was planning on removing all U.S. troops by the end of 1964, but the plan was scratched after his assassination in favor of sending U.S. Troops in support of the South Vietnamese government. President Johnson's wife "Lady Bird" owned the majority stock in Bell Helicopter and as historians know Vietnam was a helicopter war. The Stock in Bell during the war had never been better. So the best answer would be political greed.



2. Political leaders then as now, did not allow the Generals to lead and fight the war as they had been trained. Political leaders again were looking more at the war contractors making money than they were at actually winning the war. 58,272 Americans gave their lives to a political experiment in greed and power.



3. Victory was achieved by the American youth protesting the illegality of the war and putting pressure on the politicians to end the war. Victory is how you look at the war - victory over not sending anymore military personnel to their deaths for a corrupt government. The U.S. did not ultimately lose, we came in second place and since estimates say the North Vietnamese lost as much as 50 times the number of combatants as we did I would say second place is better than none. If you must say we lost then the blame should be placed on Richard Nixon. Yes he pulled the troops back, but had he just bombed Hanoi into the stone-age (and they aren't far from that now) and let our fighting forces fight then we could be buying cars from them too as we are Japan and Germany.



A controversial question indeed - I would say the historian that agrees the war was worth fighting has more work to do. Any war worth fighting is worth winning so I do not know where they get their information to support their reasoning. Winning the hearts and minds of the people would have to mean the people were willing to fight for their democracy, they were perfectly happy letting us do it for them, but gave little support and showed very little will to achieve victory on their own.

Answer 2

"Lana _san" -- (1) is completely inaccurate as the USMC were sent in in April 1965 because the NLF were beating the ARVN on the ground. (2) is also inaccurate. The US were bombing areas in Laos as early as 1961 and were bombing Cambodia (unofficially from 1965) from 1969 onwards (the Breakfast Bombings). (3) The ARVN broke the ceasefire in 1973 and yes, the PAVN and NLF attacked in February 1975 and overrun the rest of southern Vietnam.

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1) The US had violated the "1954 Geneva Agreements on Indochina" in 1954 as the agreements were being signed and the "Republic of Vietnam" was an illegally created nation. US military advisers were insufficient in training the ARVN troops, and the ARVN troops were being beaten on the battlefield fighting against the "National Liberation Front of Southern Vietnam" (NLF) which had been created in December 1959 at a conference just outside of Saigon.

USMC troops were sent as the "first combat fighting force" in April 1965 and it was three months later that the first "Peoples Army of Vietnam" (PAVN) troops were sent south of the DMZ in combat units to assist the NLF. Prior to that "Southerners" who were members of the PAVN had been sent south to train the NLF.

2) It would depend upon what year you are talking about. In the early days of the war, the political leaders of both parties were very supportive of the war. As the war progressed and the number of "body bags" started to arrive home along with the combat footage one saw on TV, the people started complaining and then the politicians, especially Democrats, started to slowly change to apposing the war.

In 1973 Congress passed several laws that restricted arms supplies to the ARVN in Vietnam, the Lon Nol forces in Cambodia and the Right-wing troops in Laos. They also stopped the US bombing in Cambodia from 15 August 1973. (I covered the bombing halt for UPI/UPITN). These laws were passed because the US embassies and militarty had lied to Congressmen during a "fact finding trips in April 1973).

3) No, neither side really won in 1973. The ceasefire could have led to a peace agreement and a more peaceful end to the war if the ARVN had not violated the ceasefire within hours of it supposedly taking affect.

The US lost face to some degree in 1973 but when the ARVN were completely defeated in 1975 the US really had lost face and therefore broke all their previous agreements on Vietnam negotiated in 1972-73.



4) Many historians, especially US historians, still have/had an "anti-communist" attitude, and therefore felt that the war was worth fighting.

Other historians, mostly non-Americans, considered the war wrong and illegal as the US violated the "1954 Geneva Agreements on Indochina" and also violated international law. The "Republic of South Vietnam" was an illegally created nation (in violation of international law and the Geneva agreements).

Answer 3

1. It's hard to fight a ground war without ground troops.

2. They were to worried about being reelected to let the military brass do their job.

3. A pullout is neither a victory or a defeat. Contrary to liberal teachings we did not lose.



I can't say with certainty either way that the whole war was worth fighting but individual efforts to assist villagers and farmers to make a better life for themselves was in my opinion worth doing.

Answer 4

1. The VC attacked Bien Hoa Air base In May 1965. Troops from the 173rd airborne were sent as security as a response.



2. The air power & sea power was limited for political reasons. Ships with enemy equipment could not be sunk Because they were Russian. Air bases could not be bombed for fear of killing Russian advisors. Hanoi was off limits. It took until 1970 to hit hideouts in Laos & Cambodia.



3. The US cut a Peace deal then broke promises to support the South for budget reasons & the distraction in DC over Watergate. THe North waited and broke the Ceasefire & invaded the South in mass. The ARVN fell apart And America had no will to help. Thus Saigon fell.

Answer 5

1. From about 1957 to 1964 the North Vietnamese sponsored "insurgency" in South Vietnam steadily escalated. When enough local South Vietnamese could not be recruited to defeat the ARVN as stream of former Viet Minh fighters who had retreated to North Vietnam in 1954 were infiltrated back into South Vietnam and formed the core of the Main Force VC which were conventional light infantry. The US also escalated its commitment to South Vietnam, finally deploying air-power (both helicopters and tactical ground attack aircraft for close air support). While the MF-VC were giving the ARVN a lot more trouble than the Local VC had, they still were not winning the war. So, by 1962/63 regular NVA troops were being deployed to prop up the MF-VC, and whole units of the North Vietnamese Army started showing up and confronting the ARVN in large battles in the rural areas. By 1964 the ARVN was in trouble, and LBJ decided the only way to counter these MF-VC and NVA units was to deploy American ground troops. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident (which is a whole 'nother question) was used as an excuse to start deploying large numbers of US ground troops in late 1964.



2. LBJ and Robert McNamara thought they knew more about military operations than the military officers who had graduated from West Point and Annapolis. They spent the years 1964-1968 meddling in military operations, tied the military's hands behind their backs, and botched the war.



3. The American people got fed up with the "moderate" Democrats who had botched the war, and elected Richard Nixon who promised "...peace with honor..." if elected. By 1973 Nixon FORCED North Vietnam to sign a cease-fire, fulfilling his 1968 campaign promise. The antiwar movement was ferrous. They did not want "peace," with "honor" or any other way. They wanted a Communist victory, preferably with high US casualties so they could say we were defeated military. The American people, on the other hand, were quite happy with Nixon's victory. He was reelected in 1972 against an "antiwar, peace at any price (surrender to the Communists) candidate by the largest margin in American history up to that point. This completely repudiated the liberal media and antiwar movements claim that they were speaking for the American people. The American people spoke for themselves loud and clear in 1972, and the message was not the one the antiwar movement claimed.



In the aftermath of the cease-fire the antiwar movement, biased media, and born-again radical Democrats (who had all been "moderate" Democrats when they voted to deploy US troops back in 1964) worked to overturn the "peace with honor" the cease-fire represented. They hounded Richard Nixon from office, overturning the overwhelming will of the American people by throwing a huge temper-tantrum, cut off almost all aid to South Vietnam, than would not let Gerald Ford come to the aid of South Vietnam when North Vietnam (with the full backing of the USSR) broke the cease-fire and invaded South Vietnam again. The ARVN shot off the last of their ammunition than scattered. YOU CANNOT FIGHT TANKS WITH BAYONETS...!!!!



So, Nixon's victory of 1973 was overturned by the antiwar establishment in the USA by 1975 AGAINST the will of the American people.

Answer 6

1. because the us opposed the communist and belived in the domino theory

2.chemical warfare and tactics

3.no, they were humiliated, lost support of people and many lives were lost for nothing



not to sure on last one!



hope it helped