OK, it's my 5th wedding anniversary, I've had 3/4 of a bottle of Italian red, and am about to take my wife out to dinner on the Rhine. But before I go I've noted that thehistory forum is a bit boring.

What do you guys think of the way the US handled the VC and NVA? How could the war have been handled better? Specifically in light of French failures on the same territory and British successes in Malaya, Borneo and Oman in the same period. The UK fought well within the SF envelope, and the US arguably badly. What say?

I know Vietnam is a sore topic for many Americans, but what the heck.

So the question is could the US have won if the SF war was handled differently? If this is too specific, broaden out in what the US could have done to win the Vietnam War.

I would refer you to the thread on causes of the Viet Nam War. Best bet would have 1. supported their bid for nationalization and freedom from French Colonial Rule....in other words never gotten involved

Now Being very well aquainted with 100's of Viet Nam vets, most of them are of the attitude that if they had been "let loose" things wuld have been different. Speifically for the aviators, no bombing restrictions. Hitting Hanoi, Hai Phong Harbor, nailing the AA batteries and missles, not having to fly certain patterns so as to not allow the AA crews to limit their coverage. For the ground pounding troops, no Cambodia, Laos, or North Viet Nam DMZ.. How about our favorite complaint....the US / World Press. Maybe if it had been a bit more controlled like it was done during Desert Storm. Personally, being a student of history, I don't think victory would ever have been achieved. I refer you back to my response in the Causes of of Viet Nam thread. It had been going on for nearly 1000 years in the region, what made us think we could stop it?

You could do no worse than to read 'A Bright Shining Lie' (or catch the movie - JoeBob says check it out...)

From a review in Publisher's Weekly -
"Killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1972, controversial Lt. Col. John Paul Vann was perhaps the most outspoken army field adviser to criticize the way the war was being waged. Appalled by the South Vietnamese troops' unwillingness to fight and their random slaughter of civilians, he flouted his supervisors and leaked his sharply pessimistic (and, as it turned out, accurate) assessments to the U.S. press corps in Saigon. Among them was Sheehan, a reporter for UPI and later the New York Times (for whom he obtained the Pentagon Papers). Sixteen years in the making, writing and re search, this compelling 768-page biography is an extraordinary feat of reportage: an eloquent, disturbing portrait of a man who in many ways personified the U.S. war effort. Blunt, idealistic, patronizing to the Vietnamese, Vann firmly believed the U.S. could win; as Sheehan limns him, he was ultimately caught up in his own illusions..."

Vann travelled to South Vietnam in the early years of the war and submitted a report to the Pentagon on the way he thought it should be conducted.
No-one listened, the report was suppressed.
Hundreds of thousands died, millions of lives ruined.

$0.02

acav out

Steve, the thread on the causes of the war didn't really discuss what could have been done during the war. And sure, maybe the US shouldn't have been involved, but since they were, I'm looking for opinions on how it could have been won. And I, too, think it could have been.

Acav, yeah, I saw the movie.

In Malaya, we had the advantage that the Malayan Races Liberation Army (formerly the Malayan Races Anti-Japanese Liberation Army) was predominantly Chinese and not representative of the people they were allegedly liberating.

The Viet Minh and its successors had the advantage of a land border with their major ally China, and also exploited the lack of government control in Cambodia (post the French departure) to route supplies.

French failures were inevitably, given they were the unpopular colonial power and that the war was fought on a shoestring (immediately after they were liberated from German Occupation) and with a minimum of Metropolitan French troops.

The ethnic and religious diversity of Vietnam made the creation of any national army very difficult, and most Vietnamese soldiers were understandably more concerned about the security of their family than the overall picture. So, one possible way to for the Vietnam War to have been fought more successfully would have been to continue fighting small (as in Malaya), but to realise that it would take a much larger commitment of American manpower on the ground and that it would last far longer. Neither of these would be likely to be politically popular of course.

So less airmobile, less strategic bombing and more jungle bashing.

It depends on how you see Vietnam!
Is it just one battle out of many with in the "cold war"?

You are free to look at it in any way you feel is relevant. It is within context to place it as part of the Cold War (like the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan), but my question is solely addressed to the war in Vietnam (and the peripheral countries like Laos and Cambodia).

As to the strategic and tactical prosecution of the war, the U.S. military leadership attempted to conduct a WW2 type campaign - overwhelming force - to rock the enemy onto his heels and drain his will to fight. When that didn't work, they turned to a war of attrition. When that didn't work, well, they were out of ideas.

The ARVN, though occassionally competent, couldn't really be thought of as having any significant impact, mostly because they were trained in U.S. large unit tactics.

All the while there were a few officers from field grade down to platoon level who realized that small unit tactics were proving to be the most effective in disrupting enemy movement and eliminating VC leadership. The Navy SEALS, LRRP's, Rangers, Marine Recon, SF, and Phoenix units all had varying levels of success in the field using these tactics. The VC and even NVA to some extent were wary of these units. The VC cadre commanders, especially, were targeted by SEALS, who would patrol up canals and snatch or kill those people right from their beds.

The military establishment distrusted these units and tried to subvert their development whenever possible. So, it was pretty much the same ol' same ol'. If the establishment had embraced this unconventional warfighting, things MAY have been different, but the best the U.S. could've hoped for would have been a continuation of a divided Vietnam, for how long this stalemate might have continued, who knows.

Just one man's opinion...
Barry

The cold war played a large part in the conduct of the Vietnam war. LBJ and McNamara while wanting to stop communist expansion were terrified of provoking China and the USSR. The Micromanagement of military operations by Washington especially the air war severely limited US effectiveness. Air-power could have been used as decisively as the Linebacker campaigns in 1965-66. The advantage that Nixon had was the soviet grain shortage. This gave him more political leverage.

On the anti insurgent/gorilla conflict my opinion, is that the US concentrated too much on body-counts and not destroying the support base. The key to a counterinsurgency conflict is isolating the insurgent from the people. If political concessions needed to be made to achieve this, then so be it. The US forces did have successes. The Riverine forces were particular successful. Its worth noting that this force was largely made up of volunteers commanded by NCOs.

If you want to read an analysis and critique of the air war in Vietnam I highly recommend reading On Yankee Station by John B. Nichols and Barrett Tillman.

David

IMO, it seemed the powers-at-be then at Washington waged the war for the wrong reasons.

The counter-insurgency tactics conducted by field units were successful considering it was low-intensity conflict. The SEAL's can attest to that success as far as military operations are concerned. Army Special Forces were sometimes used in roles they were not suited such as manning firebases and remote outposts exposed to enemy attack.

But military operations are only part and parcel of a counter-insurgency operation. The other part entails winning hearts and minds, something that was not followed up consistently.

This was a classic SF role, and one initiated by the Special Forces themselves, in which outposts would be set up astride enemy lines of communication from which reconaissance and interdiction ops could be carried out. A bit like the Chindits in Burma.

In fact, special forces were used very effectively in Vietnam. The problem was their successes were not recognized by the rest of the military, and their skills were not used as effectively as they could have been at a strategic level. For example, an overwhelming percentage of useful intelligence was gathered by recce units, yet the high command continued to pump cash and resources into sigint, aerial recce, and armour -- something the NVA and VC managed without.

My initial question was a bit loaded. Did the US not concentrate enough on the SF-type ops in favour of bomb&burn type ops?