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.