The Real Reason the US Lost in Vietnam - US Troops Were in Open Revolt

[Neostratos]

I thought this article so interesting I wanted to share it with NWF. The title explains it.

The Real Reason the US Lost in Vietnam - US Troops Were in Open Revolt, Killing Over 300 Officers in 1971

"THE MOST neglected aspect of the Vietnam War is the soldiers' revolt–the mass upheaval from below that unraveled the American army."

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[Ura-Ki]

Holy crap, history you don't ever hear!

Growing up a child of this, I heard rumors, but nothing substantial, nothing of fact!

 

[Ruger Rich]

I thought this article so interesting I wanted to share it with NWF. The title explains it.

The Real Reason the US Lost in Vietnam - US Troops Were in Open Revolt, Killing Over 300 Officers in 1971

"THE MOST neglected aspect of the Vietnam War is the soldiers' revolt–the mass upheaval from below that unraveled the American army."

Don't get me started. I've avoided this since 1968.

 

[Provincial]

Quote from above article:

The only organizing tools were the underground GI newspapers. A newspaper, as any revolutionary can tell you, is an organizer, the scaffolding for the building of organization. But newspapers became a substitute for organization. There was scaffolding, but no building.

This describes the current status of Social Media. Since SM is not responsible for content, it is an ideal way to spread insurrection.

 

[RedCardinalSeven]

I thought this article so interesting I wanted to share it with NWF. The title explains it.

The Real Reason the US Lost in Vietnam - US Troops Were in Open Revolt, Killing Over 300 Officers in 1971

"THE MOST neglected aspect of the Vietnam War is the soldiers' revolt–the mass upheaval from below that unraveled the American army."

Usually anyone who purports to tell you the "real reason" for the outcome of a complex history of events spanning multiple years is selling you a bill of goods. The US lost in Vietnam for multiple reasons. However, the "open revolt" Geier writes about was relatively marginal given the US force size in the country and while it may have hastened the end of the war it was primarily a symptom, not a cause, of defeat.

First and foremost is that US troops were fighting on the home turf of a people who had a centuries-long and storied history of fiercely opposing foreign invaders. A determined people fighting foreign invaders always enjoys tactical and strategic advantages that are extremely difficult to overcome. For example, not long after US troops left Vietnam, the Vietnamese successfully rolled back a major Chinese invasion in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War.

Second, the war was fundamentally a nationalist struggle against a power that had betrayed its own values by trying to help the French re-colonize Indochina in the immediate aftermath of WW II. That gave the Vietnamese a psychological advantage. Many US officials, military personnel, and civilians also came to properly understand, intuitively or otherwise, the war as an unworthy cause which undermined American determination and commitment. (Arguably, Hồ Chí Minh was initially a pro-Western nationalist—the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence begins with a direct quote from the American Declaration of Independence—who turned to the Communist bloc only after his country was repeatedly rebuffed or betrayed by its WW II ally, the US.)

Third, the US aligned itself with corrupt and inept regimes in the south headed by members of the country's Roman Catholic minority provoking a "crisis" in a country with a Buddhist majority. The regime of Ngô Đình Diệm, for example, was so bad that JFK essentially green-lighted a coup against it.

Fourth, as Joel Geier points out in his article, military careerism undermined the American officer corps and their ability and willingness to effectively lead US troops. As Geier says, "A Pentagon official writes, '[the] stench of corruption rose to unprecedented levels during William C. Westmoreland's command of the American effort in Vietnam.' " American presidential leadership was likewise generally inept and/or corrupt.

Fifth, as the successful ARVN-US performance at the 1972 Battle of Kontum demonstrates the war was also lost due to a corrupt, politicized American media. Publishers, editors, and journalists decided the battle would mostly be ignored because it didn't fit the narrative of the war as a misguided quagmire. The war was indeed a misguided quagmire by 1972 but Kontum showed the real, if remote, possibility of turning that around.

Ultimately, the United States lost the war in Vietnam because American troops were betrayed by US political leaders; by the military-industrial complex that Madison, Eisenhower, and others warned about; and by the US media. US troops generally conducted themselves honorably in Vietnam but the war itself was an ignoble affair doomed to failure and not in keeping with America's best and truest values. The noble conduct and sacrifice of many American troops in Vietnam were squandered in a dishonorable cause not of their own design and foisted upon them by a corrupt American elite.

To be clear, I think communism presented a real threat to freedom that warranted an appropriate military response. I simply don't think the Vietnam War was primarily about fighting communism given the history of Vietnam. Also, I don't subscribe to the theory that the US lost the war because the troops weren't allowed to win. Short of the Pyrrhic victory of nuking the country, the US was never going to win in Vietnam and should never have gone to war there in the first place. That takes nothing away from honor of the people who answered the call to go there.

 

[Provincial]

The article was written from a pro-communist point of view. You have to be careful to separate the truth from the exaggerations, since it is so full of cant. That said, there is much that rings true, especially for those who experienced it either first hand, or interacted with those who did during or near the time period. There is plenty of blame to go around, from the highest levels on down.

The US became the global superpower after WWII. It failed to reexamine the existing diplomatic status quo, and continued to act as if the collapsing Colonial Era was viable. The Colonial Era had screwed up the world, and it couldn't survive the effects of the two World Wars. The US tried to keep the Colonial structure going by supporting successor governments that would keep the same connections. This was not a viable policy.

The collapse of the Colonial Era played into the hands of the Communists. They were eager to support decolonization by spreading the Communist Revolution, and they were very successful in melding their political aspirations with those of the locals. They had a very good run while it lasted, but their political/economic system was unable to meet the needs of the newly independent countries. Once the leaders of the original revolution died out, the countries drifted away from Communism to meet the expectations of their populace.

Anyway, I am trying to paint the big picture to show how the US went wrong leading up to the Vietnam War. It was a whole series of failures, all of them avoidable.

 

[RedCardinalSeven]

The US became the global superpower after WWII. It failed to reexamine the existing diplomatic status quo, and continued to act as if the collapsing Colonial Era was viable.

US leaders knew full well the issues of colonialism. The US became a global military power after it won the Spanish-American War in 1898 and seized Spain's far-flung colonies. It would be more accurate to say that the US government paid lip service to decolonization or, to be generous, pursued it inconsistently.

In the WW I era, Woodrow Wilson fostered hopes of American support for decolonization via his "Fourteen Points" and the failed League of Nations, which he championed. On his way out of office in 1921, Wilson would express support for the independence of the US' largest colony, the Philippines (where a US war against rebellious locals would lead to the creation of the M1911).

In the WW II era, Roosevelt committed the US to decolonization under the Atlantic Charter and the nascent United Nations, which was also an American project. The contradictions of US foreign policy are, arguably, most extreme right after WW II. In 1945, US ships transported French troops to Indochina/Vietnam so that France could regain control putting the US on a fateful path to a senseless and destructive war. On the other hand, on July 4, 1946, the US finally agreed to grant independence to the Republic of the Philippines, under the Treaty of Manila.

 

[spambo]

I thought this article so interesting I wanted to share it with NWF. The title explains it.

The Real Reason the US Lost in Vietnam - US Troops Were in Open Revolt, Killing Over 300 Officers in 1971

"THE MOST neglected aspect of the Vietnam War is the soldiers' revolt–the mass upheaval from below that unraveled the American army."

I am not even going to read this garbage. The Whitehouse and Pentagon were fighting a WWII
style war of attrition on a limited scale inside a specific area. But, in WWII, the US would have
invaded North Viet Nam, destroyed Hanoi, Cambodia, Laos..... and stared WWIII with the USSR
and the Chinese commies. Then there was the Domino Theory where if Viet Nam goes down,
so does Thailand, Indonesia, Malaya .....

The world is not a good place. It's evolves and not always in the right direction.

On the other hand, the Vietnamese want to be free like the USA now. So go figure.

My $0.02 worth.

Spambo

 

[Provincial]

RedCardinalSeven, I believe that you and I are much closer in our view of US foreign policy history than it appears on the surface. My comments were a quick overview of a confused and inconsistent pattern of action during the last 75 years.

I believe that our foreign policy in those years was based on a combination of wishful thinking, diplomatic inertia, and response to the threat of communism exported from the USSR. It is complicated, but one theme carries through: the US wanted open markets throughout the world. The old European powers had disrupted the world with colonialism and arbitrary boundaries after wars. Trying to maintain that "stability" was doomed.

There is still much pent-up instability in the world. It will be disruptive. Fasten your seat belt.

 

[RedCardinalSeven]

... The Whitehouse and Pentagon were fighting a WWII style war of attrition on a limited scale inside a specific area.

It's true that early on the US waged war in Vietnam on a limited scale but that changed quickly after the US put troops on the ground in 1961. Within three years the US began a massive bombing campaign. Between 1964 and and 1973 the US dropped more than 7.66 million tons of ordnance on North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and neighboring countries. That is far more than the combined 2.25 million tons of ordnance dropped by the US (Army) Air Force in the European and Pacific theaters during WW II.

And by 1969, there were "over 543,000" US troops "in country" in an area a little larger than Washington state. The war was also never really "a WWII style war of attrition" it was a counterinsurgency fought primarily against guerilla forces until late in the war.

 

[RedCardinalSeven]

RedCardinalSeven, I believe that you and I are much closer in our view of US foreign policy history than it appears on the surface. My comments were a quick overview of a confused and inconsistent pattern of action during the last 75 years.

I believe that our foreign policy in those years was based on a combination of wishful thinking, diplomatic inertia, and response to the threat of communism exported from the USSR. It is complicated, but one theme carries through: the US wanted open markets throughout the world. The old European powers had disrupted the world with colonialism and arbitrary boundaries after wars. Trying to maintain that "stability" was doomed.

There is still much pent-up instability in the world. It will be disruptive. Fasten your seat belt.

You may be right that our views aren't that far apart. You said: "the US wanted open markets throughout the world". I think that's the real driver of the contradictions of US foreign policy in the post-WW II era but the US elites have a funny idea of "open markets". It goes back to something Thomas Jefferson wrote about in a 1788 letter to George Washington:

... I am decidedly of [the] opinion we should take no part in European quarrels, but cultivate peace and commerce with all, yet who can avoid seeing the source of war in the tyranny of those nations who deprive of us our natural right of trading with our neighbors? The produce of the U.S. will soon exceed the European demand. What is to be done with the surplus, when there is one? It will be employed, without question, to open by force a market for itself ...

The "open by force" part is the operative phrase here. You can't really respect the sovereignty of other people or support decolonization if you think it's okay to force open their markets, especially on terms favorable to the economic elites of your own country. Colonialism was all about cheap access to the resources and labor of other people. When resistance to colonialism became too expensive the empires abandoned it for other forms of neo-colonialism. That's at least part of the reason why the US climbed in bed with a corrupt and unpopular minority regime in Vietnam.

Others have put things more bluntly than Jefferson. Maj Gen. Smedley Butler had a long career in the Marines with multiple overseas deployments and he was awarded the Medal of Honor twice. He concluded:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

I think Butler's view was a bit simplistic but far from completely wrong.

More recently, Thomas L. Friedman, a big fan of globalization, wrote in The Lexus and the Olive Tree:

... globalization requires a stable power structure, and no country is more essential for this than the United States ... The fact that no two countries have gone to war since they both got McDonald's is partly due to economic integration, but it is also due to the presence of American power and America's willingness to use that power against those who would threaten the system of globalization—from Iraq to North Korea. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designers of the US Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. And these fighting forces and institutions are paid for by American taxpayer dollars.

 

[spambo]

It's true that early on the US waged war in Vietnam on a limited scale but that changed quickly after the US put troops on the ground in 1961. Within three years the US began a massive bombing campaign. Between 1964 and and 1973 the US dropped more than 7.66 million tons of ordnance on North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and neighboring countries. That is far more than the combined 2.25 million tons of ordnance dropped by the US (Army) Air Force in the European and Pacific theaters during WW II.

And by 1969, there were "over 543,000" US troops "in country" in an area a little larger than Washington state. The war was also never really "a WWII style war of attrition" it was a counterinsurgency fought primarily against guerilla forces until late in the war.

I don't disagree with you. What I meant to say, was the US PTB were
obsessed with killing VC and NWA. The enemy KIA count was given
every week on the news and the counts were greatly inflated. The thought
was, with our superior fire power and technologic advantage, the commies
will loose too many troops and loose their stomach for a fight. There was
no quit in the NVA and VC.

Sanctuaries in Loas and Cambodia were untouched for the most
part and when Cambodia was invaded the anti-war protesters went
nuts and the operation, which would have crippled the commies
was called off. Johnson and McNamara were jacking the military
around, trying to score political points. Supply routes down the
Ho Chi Min trail were never disrupted even though tons and tons of
bombs were dropped.

The Generals sent the US troops into the jungle to find and locate
the VC. They learned not to stand and fight after the Air Cav
action in battle of I Trang, dramatized in "We Were Solidiers".
For the most part, it appeared to me that the US was just chasing
the VC & NVA around in countryside and a stalemate resulted.

That all changed in the Tet Offensive where the VC tried to take
down South Vietnam in one decisive battle. They failed miserably
and the press should have proclaimed an American victory. But
the press portrayed the battle as an American defeat which was
completely wrong. The press and politicians wanted out of VN
after that.

One of the vets told me the initial bombing campaign was working
but was scaled back to appease the US Anti-War protestors and
not provoke the Roosins and ChiComs. This delicate balance
blew up lots of stuff but didn't serve any strategic value.

That all changed when Tricky Dick took office and got tired of being
jacked around by commies at the peace table. Operation Linebacker
flattened large areas in Hanoi and Hiphong Harbor. The NVN leaders
started negotiating after that and a deal of sorts was reached.

It's a complicated issue with many twists and turns but really
just a campaign in the Cold War with the commies.

Spambo