Didn't work for the French did it.

You beat me to it. The key is that it was not a war of Nth Vietnam vs Sth Vietnam, it was also NOT a war of communist vs capitalist countries. It was a war of independence for the Vietnamese. They wanted self determination and they were very determined to get it no matter how long it took.

With China providing supply and all the time in the world, the US and Australian forces were faces with an unending war that even if we'd "won" on a territorial basis, the occupation of that territory was untenable in the long term without a far more significant commitment than either country would have been prepared to make rules of engagement or no.

You forget though that in Iraq in 2003 that the Iraqi military was fairly weak and had never fully recovered from the damage it suffered back in 1991.That war very effectively destroyed the capacity of Iraq to be a threat as a conventional military force.

Seems to me that the US government has learned nothing about fighting a counter-insurgency and even if our military had good strategy the population and government do not have the will to commit to the length of time such a war can take which could be decades.

There is not a war that can be won without the will of the people (the majority of the people).

Doing Hearts and Minds is much harder than saying it.

Or to put it another way if I may.
If it was a totalitarian regime able to conduct its operations with no restrictions whatsoever to their fullest logical end, in total and absolute isolation from both its own population and the all rest of the world it may possibly have been different.
But such conditions are simply not achievable, and certainly not desirable.

Hearts and minds is a catchphrase to make people (lower class) die for it, so when we are attending funerals, we family members are honored and not angry. The folded up flag thing was cute....How is that Iraq and afghani thing doing for us?

Hearts and minds is something Josef Goebbels woulda came up with if extermination was off the table.

Government doublespeak, who really won the wars, any war?

Not the ones who fought it, but the ones who perpetuated it.

"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations."
-John Adams, letter to H. Niles, February 13, 1818

So in other words, an outside force trying to force the will of the people is an invader, and not a saviour, as so happily painted by the aggressors government.

There is always a theory that a foreign war, or terr'ists, or any kind of domestic scare, or bi partisan politics is a great way to distract the "rubes" (general public) from the tyranny your own government is enacting on you.

(Yeah I said it NSA, go screw, get a real job)

Especially when you don't have the heart to begin with and sure don't have the mind. Gen Giap said it best: Americans are good troops, but they didn't like to fight 'close to the belt' and that was the edge he had. I read his book some 20 years ago...just to get the winner's perspective.Loved being # 17 on the draft list too!:nope::dead::stare:

Just read 'the Shadow Factory'. They got your post at NSA but don't worry, there aren't enough analysts to review it all... very scary book though.:up:

I was basically referring to "hearts and minds" not being a new phrase, but now that you've said that? Yeah, it kind of fits.

Giap was one of the great generals of the 20th century. R.I.P.

On Vietnam, the U.S. could have won, but victory would probably look like South Korea with U.S. troops still on the border.

Its doubtful that an invasion of North Vietnam would have succeeded. Too risky that China would intervene has they had in 1950 and in 1965, China had nuclear weapons. Even if China had decided not to intervene, the war would probably look like the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan with NVA guerillas harassing U.S. troops from secure bases in South China.

The war may have started as a war of independence against the japanese/French, but the Communists rapidly got rid of all possible opponents after 1954. There were large scale "trials" and massive executions/imprisonments in the late 50s. Some people look at North Vietnam with rose colored glasses, but North Vietnam back then was not very different from North Korea.

The war in the South was started by local communists. Diem, who was handpicked by the CIA, was incredibly inept and corrupt and managed to alienate most groups in South Vietnam. Still massive U.S. support managed to prop up the regime and after the Tet offensive, the Vietcong were too weak to continue the insurgency. The only way the North won the war was by an invasion by conventional forces backed up by tanks in 1972, 74 and 75.

If U.S. forces had stayed, they could have kept South Vietnam "free" like South Korea. They managed to defeat the 72 invasion with Air Power alone. However, you would still need mass U.S. forces at the border.

True.Part of the reason Nixon went to China in was to develop a good relationships with China so that they would more or less allow the US to use its air power to full effect in North Vietnam.I doubt still though that they would have allowed an invasion of NV ever.

Kissinger went first in 71 of course and Nixon in 72.Those meetings did result a rift between Vietnam and China.Still as I said I highly doubt China would have been pleased with any invasion north.

Later in 72 was when you had the Ester Invasion which was beaten back largely thanks to US air power though many ARVN units performed well they would have been over run with air power. .Freedom Train,Line Backer and Line Backer II made the NVA realize that until US air power was gone a successful invasion of the south would fail they simply had no air superiority to speak of.Line Backer II pretty much single handily insured the release of US POWs in North Vietnam it also resulted in one of the few organized mutinies to have occurred in USAF history (1947-current).

Of course an important factor to consider is that during the Ester Invasion in 1972 the NVA was in very large open formations and thus fairly easy to observe,attack and destroy.


I think that the NVA to some extent may have been emboldened by the failed ARVN operation Lam Song 719 in Feb/Mar of 1971 which was an invasion of NVA sanctuaries Laos.US air power was less effective than planned during this operation except and US Army helicopters suffered a very attrition rate.

An example of just how much US air power influenced the battle field is the fall of Cambodia which only took a matter of years from late 69 to 75 of course you did have secret bombings there but not near the scale of Vietnam and Laos and only in the border regions and therefore "killing" NVA troops and not Khmer Rouge forces who where located in parts of Cambodia not bombed until 1973-74.

One serious error in Vietnam was despite the fact that the NVA/VC had sanctuaries in southern Laos and in eastern Cambodia nothing effectual was done to deal with them until 1970.To allow an enemy a sanctuary yet do nothing about it for years is utter foolishness.Seeing as an invasion of North Vietnam was not on the table they should have done something to deal with these sanctuaries.Even more shocking is that the US government allowed Cambodia to play both sides for several years until a coup(thanks CIA) changed things.For several years right up to 1969 the Vietnamese simply shipped supplies right to Kampong Som and then from the ships onto trucks and then into the sanctuaries.