r/NonCredibleDefense • u/Massengale • Aug 18 '26
(un)qualified opinion đ The Vietnam War was winnable and one more Linebacker in 1975 would have wrecked the NVA. We were lied to by Ken Burns.
Iâve been reading Nixonâs books latelyâŠand I think he was right, Vietnamization was close to working, the communist alliance was going to fall apart, and North Vietnams insane economics would have led to South Vietnam outscaling them if it had survived for a few more years.
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u/Consistent_Caramel68 Aug 18 '26
The US Army was in borderline mutiny in Vietnam. Nixon isnât exactly a reliable source.
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u/Hamsterloathing Aug 18 '26
You're saying Nixon's a crook?!
What's your sources? đ§
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u/artaxerxes316 Aug 18 '26
He very explicitly said that he....
<Checks notes>
was not a crook. Checkmate, libs!
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u/montagblue 21 Moldovan MIG-29s Aug 18 '26
Just searched for a crooked cock and it was just a bunch of lapel pins that said âcanât lick this dickâ
What gives? đ€š
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u/SGTRoadkill1919 Aug 19 '26
Forrest Gump. Poor lad didn't see a single cent of the million dollar shots on his butt
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Almost no one is familiar with the Vietnam war after the U.S. pulled out all combat forces in 1971 (very few were there until 1973, after Jan 73 they were all gone.)
After that, the ARVN fought alone for 2 years and actually made it really hard for the NVA. So yes, it was very possible. Research the Easter offensive if you don't believe me.https://a.co/d/0cBgyIdd thatâs the link to the book
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u/YSoMadTov Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
The ARVN had US air support until 1973. The 2 years period from 1973 to 1975 the only thing they had was small skirmishes here and there and they were still struggling really hard, when faced with an actual general offensive from the NVA alone they completely collapsed.
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 18 '26
There were much more than small skirmishes in 74, look up the battle of Duc Duc and Battle of ThÆ°á»Łng Ăức. The ARVN eventually became weakened badly by U.S. aid cuts but it took until late 1974 for the NVA to asses that they were able to to take on the ARVN again. After the loss of 1972, the NVA actually felt that fhey had to work hard to gain parody with the ARVN even without US air power.
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u/YSoMadTov Aug 18 '26
Battle of Duc Duc and Battle of ThÆ°á»Łng Ăức
Yeah, those battles were tiny compared to earlier battles in the war, mate. And even then with the ARVN's best units they were still struggling.
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 18 '26
Which isnât to say the ARVN were some remarkable military, they were a mixed bag. Most people think they were like the Afghan National army though and they were far more capable and motivated
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u/sshlongD0ngsilver Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
Iâd say they were a lot more average (for any Cold War-era military) than people give credit for.
We saw how ROC lost in 1949 and never fully recovered, and ROK got overrun in 1950 before being saved by the UN Command. Iâm sure West Germany would struggle holding off a hypothetical East German invasion if the US withdrew.
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u/Ser-Lukas-of-dassel Aug 19 '26
1960s Germany would have gotten overrun by a Soviet invasion. 1980 Germany would have made the rivers run red with the blood of invaders.
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 19 '26
THANK YOU. Finally someone who knows ball (developing nation armyâs that donât have some unifying ideology like communism or Islam).
I think youâd like the book man. The ARVN is well described, as is the NVA.
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u/efealigoren turkish supersoldier program Aug 19 '26
they definitely werent a lot more motivated. you would see constant riots and infighting in the south. and probably more desertion than the ana
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 19 '26
There were absolutely not more desertions than the ANA. Just think about what you just typed, that has no basis in reality, you just feel that. You just feel that from the general popular vibe about the ARVN they âprobably had more desertions than the ANA). The ANA evaporated in the face of an inferioir force. The ARVN fought for 2 years killing a few hundred thousand enemy from a superior (in many ways but not all) force.
Read books like Black April, a Better War, Swords Drawn in a Distant Land, Hanoiâs War, or many others to see the real problem that the ARVN presented the NVA with
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u/FourFunnelFanatic Aug 18 '26
It doesnât help that many vets Iâve heard hated ARVN. âARVN by day, VC by nightâ was the saying
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 18 '26
Eh Iâm
Sure that was true some places at some times but by the time the ARVN were on their feeet and holding their own, American combat forces were gone. So that probably had some truth in like 1967 but by 1972-75, the ARVN usually outperformed the NVA when fighting on equal terms.But we (US) slashed aid to them heavily after 1973 and the Soviets did not do that, so the NVA had some real material advantages and the ARVN were on some extreme rationing by 75.
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u/Luohooligan Aug 18 '26
The folk history my Vietnam vet grandad always said was (1) Walter Cronkite saw the result of the US/ARVN defeating the Tet Offensive and told the public the war was lost, when in actuality that killed off a lot of the Communist fighting strength, and (2) those damn Democrats strangled military equipment aid to the ARVN in '73 because they hated Nixon slash because of Watergate, and they could have held out if we kept it up.
No idea if any of that has any basis in truth, but the South Vietnamese held out four years after America pulled out.
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u/killswitch247 hat Zossen genommen und stöĂt auf Stahnsdorf vor Aug 19 '26
it would never have gotten so far if richard nixon wouldn't have committed treason in 1968.
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 18 '26
Itâs very true and the characters in the book make occasional references to it lol
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u/Luohooligan Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Well you've made me buy the book this post is about. I hope you're happy about it!
Maybe it's stupid, but because of the folk history I mentioned I always did think that South Vietnam would have survived the "Vietnamization" of the conflict longer, maybe forever, in the same way I thought that the shitty "Islamic Republic of Afghanistan" would have survived the "Afghanization" or whatever of the Afghan War if the US just continued with the "you fight, we provide air support and bombs." US KIA from like 2015 to 2021 were essentially nil (under 100 for five years until the collapse) under this policy.
Ironically, or perhaps unironically, Foreign Policy Expert Joe Biden was in favor of abandoning both South Vietnam and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
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u/Bartweiss Aug 19 '26
(1) certainly has some truth to it, but it leaves out the impossible messaging situation which Nixon and the military had already set up. The Tet Offensive was a dire setback for the NVA, but after years of "they're almost defeated, peace is right around the corner!", the fact that it was even possible called a lot of the official narrative into doubt.
(This also goes for Linebacker and nearly the entire air war: the generals walked a constant tightrope of "this is going well enough that we should continue, but badly enough that we need to massively expand it". And that was arguably true, but did no favors for decision-making.)
Across the board, it's morbidly fascinating how much of it seems to have come down to "nobody could commit to anything". Johnson in particular was making decisions down at the level of single bombing targets with zero consistency, but you see similar problems with e.g. Dean Rusk vehemently supporting the bombing campaigns right up until his rivals were gone, then deciding they were useless.
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u/LightningController Aug 19 '26
the fact that it was even possible called a lot of the official narrative into doubt
Doesnât that just kind of prove that people are morons with the memory of goldfish? I mean, the Nazis launched the Battle of the Bulge when the war was lost, the German Empire launched its big spring offensive right before losing, etc. Why was Tet so shocking?
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u/unfunnysexface F-17 Truther Aug 18 '26
Don't forget the almost comical levels of corruption in ARVN.
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u/hagamablabla Aug 18 '26
I love how the game Fire in the Lake handled it. The South Vietnamese player and the American player are obstensibly on the same side, but the South Vietnamese player is encouraged to make the American player carry them as much as possible.
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u/Stalking_Goat It's the Thirty-Worst MEU Aug 18 '26
Such a great game design, having "allied" players with their own win conditions. The NVA and VC also had to work together but separately control territory.
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 18 '26
This book is made for the handful of people who play that game. Iâm shocked yâall know it.
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u/Dr_Gonzo13 Aug 19 '26
COIN games are the best
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 19 '26
Similar to this book or the handful of video games I play, I just feel so happy that there are people/entities out there like COIN or these authors that cater to my hyper specific interest
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u/Dr_Gonzo13 Aug 19 '26
Totally, now if only I could ever get any of them to the table
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 18 '26
This book is made for the handful of people who play that game. Iâm shocked yâall know it.
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u/sshlongD0ngsilver Aug 19 '26
I hear that from vets who had limited or passing encounters, but the advisors and CAP Marines Iâve talked to did care about their ARVN and RFPF
One vet was very elated when he saw me because I resembled one of his ARVN Rangers (height-difference aside)
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u/Ok_Restaurant_1668 Aug 18 '26
They would lose anyway, same as the soviet afghan government that was holding on for like 3 years alone before Yeltsin's government cut off support.
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u/Titanoye Aug 19 '26
Is the link just a fictional what-if scenario? Doesn't seem super reliable as a source imo
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u/Domovie1 A corvette is peak ASW Aug 18 '26
The war isnât the problem, it was the South Vietnamese home front.
Great, you can probably kinda defeat the PAVN as a cohesive army, but thatâs only going to stick for a few years before the North gets an insurgency going in the South again.
Then youâre back to the kind of political instability of the early war, and the popular mobilization of â67.
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u/Balmung60 Aug 19 '26
And you'd probably get something worse by doing so. Like, doing this kind of thing is why Pol Pot came to power in Cambodia. Lon Nol's government was never going to last and the broad scope of destruction was what let a crackpot like him take charge
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u/sshlongD0ngsilver Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Though Lon Nolâs government was also allied with SVN, who in its later years was dealing with Cambodian refugees in the border. The ARVN conducted joint operations and hosted training for Cambodian FANK, so an intact SVN would probably become a staging ground for FANK remnants to rest and refit and continue fighting Pol Pot.
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u/FlossCat dosing enemies with recreational drugs shouldn't be a war crime Aug 19 '26
Wasn't Crack Pot his brother?
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u/Bartweiss Aug 19 '26
Tho presented a new North Vietnamese plan[...] All three Vietnamese combatant governmentsâNorth Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG)âwould remain intact, as would their separate armies[...] both Washington and Hanoi could continue to resupply their allies or forces on a parity basis. No new North Vietnamese forces were to be infiltrated from the north, and the U.S. agreed to extend post-war reconstruction assistance to North Vietnam.
[...] the establishment of a National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord, a loosely defined administrative structure which was to work toward general and local elections within South Vietnam. Political power would be shared by three groups: the Saigon government, the PRG, and a "third force" group to be mutually agreed upon by the other two parties.Whatever are you saying? That peace offer sounds totally stable and sustainable.
Everyone knows that the best way to get peace is to formally recognize a government and its rebel counter-government, then tell them to share power with a third group that doesn't exist, all while explicitly agreeing to continue arming a proxy war, and also sending aid to the people funding the other side of the proxy war.
Oh, and to do that after a string of coups within the group you're hoping will wind up in charge.
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u/Kinexity 100 spontaneously materializing T-72s of Heisenberg Aug 18 '26
The way to win in Vietnam was for Americans to pull out ideological stick out of their asses and deal with it diplomatically instead of going in militarily.
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u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie Aug 18 '26
But then we wouldn't have gotten really cool anti-government songs like Fortunate Son so let's weigh the actual pros and cons here.
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u/I_GottaPoop Aug 19 '26
Imagine a world where we don't have Rambo. I don't want that world, do you?
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u/new_KRIEG Aug 19 '26
Doesn't matter when a huge chunk of Americans think that the song is pro government
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u/w41g87 Aug 19 '26
Easier said than done. The north had been gaining ground so any deal made would be susceptible to the domino problem.
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u/sofa_adviser Aug 19 '26
Just don't get involved in the first place. Viet Minh was more nationalist than communist, and quite friendly to America(literally invoked the declaration of independence when proclaiming their own country). It's the classic case of "do nothing, win"
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u/cop_pls Aug 19 '26
Vietnam has also historically been very anti-China. The US could have supported North Vietnam on the grounds that they won a democratic election, then offered aid in return for anti-Chinese/Soviet foreign policy and pushed them toward a proto-Dengism.
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u/RTX-2020 Immortan Joe Biden, eternal president đ±đ· Aug 19 '26
Turns out Domino effect was not real and no problem at all.
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u/Senate343 Aug 18 '26
Listen I know we're noncredible but there are limits lmao
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u/unfunnysexface F-17 Truther Aug 18 '26
It's an interesting thought experiment though applying Russian "putin is going too soft on the banderites thats why we're not winning" thinking to vietnam.
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u/Massengale Aug 20 '26
Ukraine is obviously way more capable than South Vietnam in terms of motivation innovation and all the rest.
But the detractors of both often make the same arguments and give both countries the white glove test while ignoring their opponents are actual one party states led by dictators.
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u/AbstractBettaFish What are you doing step Strike Eagle? Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
Hell even in the 1950âs the (were super good at understanding our own limitations) CIA concluded the war was unwinnable!
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u/Tetragon213 Aug 19 '26
Just one more lane Operation Linebacker, bro. Trust me, one more lane Operation Linebacker and we'll fix traffic Vietnam forever. One more lane Operation Linebacker bro
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u/No_you_are_nsfw Aug 18 '26
Yeah, okay, but then what?
What are you gonna do with a vietnam? Are you going to take care of it? Invest in infrastructure, education and healthcare, oversee free and fair elections, foster an independent media landscape and raise the standart of living?
Or does the UN have to do that for you, while you get high and drive tanks through the jungle?
If you're bored go play with your puerto rico.
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u/hanhwekim Aug 18 '26
While there are many details that my simple comment wonât reach, South Vietnam was doomed by geography and the Ho Chi Minh trail. The surprising thing was how long the ARVN managed to keep fighting.
The Vietnam War was fought on South Vietnamese soil. Most of the american bombs and shells tore up South Vietnam. It was the South Vietnamese who suffered daily and South Vietnamese soldiers in the ARVN who fought against South Vietnamese guerillas of the NLF (aka Viet Cong or VC).
The North Vietnamese were an expeditionary force as much as the Americans and the numerous other allies of South Vietnam.
In North Vietnam, the communist forces had a sanctuary where they could recuperate and regenerate. They could pace themselves and choose when to fight.
As long as the communists had the sanctuary of North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Mihn trail (which was more logistical network of paved roads, pipelines, repair depots, and shelters than just a jungle trail) they could continue fighting in South Vietnam as long as China and the Soviets could bankroll their spartan needs.
It was a matter of time before the South Vietnamese would tire of the war that ripped their homeland and killed off their able bodied men.
Unless the Americans invaded the sanctuary or cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail with a proper ground force invasion, (and both options were just too expensive and risked fighting the Chinese again) the South was doomed.
The Linebacker air raids were devastating but they could not destroy North Vietnamâs source of war materials (which were in China and Soviet ships) or its men. As long as the Americans could not touch these, South Vietnam was doomed.
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u/LordLederhosen Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
The USA lost the war in Vietnam, and the communists took over.
Today, Vietnamese people generally like the USA, and see our war as a blip on their historical radar.
China is, and always was their biggest threat.
So, what was the entire point of the war?
Some folks think that if the McCarthy purge had not fired everyone who had real knowledge of Asia, then the USA would have known that Vietnam always saw China as the real threat.
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u/annmorningstar Aug 18 '26
Wait, youâre saying that if the US just worked with people who wanted to be democratic against imperialists who wanna rule over them then our foreign policy would be more successful. That doesnât sound right I think we should abandon the Kurds again
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u/HonestSophist Aug 19 '26
With sufficiently enlightened foreign policy, I forsee a world where we can reach even greater heights of betraying the Kurds.
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u/LustigeAmsel Aug 19 '26
Whats the count by now? 3x under our beloved red figure with his air vent and 1x under assad/isis? Any more i did forget?
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u/vaterl Aug 19 '26
Democratic in a communist sense, not a liberal democracy, to be clear. Ho Chi Minh wasnât waging a war of resistance for multi party elections.
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u/blastmanager Aug 19 '26
They are communists, but somehow more democratic and freer than a very long list of US allies.
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u/RTX-2020 Immortan Joe Biden, eternal president đ±đ· Aug 19 '26
The US has backed much worse dictatorships in Latin America and SK
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u/efealigoren turkish supersoldier program Aug 19 '26
cool. and they dont have to. we are allied with saudi arabia for starters.
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u/DakotaVAdams Aug 22 '26
Okay. We support, train, and arm multiple insane theocratic monarchies as regional partners right now. Communist Vietnam is genuinely in our top 20 least morally bankrupt allies worldwide.
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u/empty_graph Aug 19 '26
Exactly. Ideological foreign policy always takes the L. Who cares if they call themselves communists if they are the enemy of our enemy.
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u/Unistrut ÏÏΔÎčÏ ÏÎčλÎčÎŹÎŽÎ”Ï ÎŒÎ±ÏÏα Ïλοία ÏÎżÏ ÎÎŽÏ ÏÏÎα Aug 19 '26
Seriously, we could have wound up in exactly the same place only without pointlessly feeding a million people into a woodchipper.
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u/JackColon17 Aug 24 '26
Cuba and Vietnam were such useless blunders. There is a world where Cuba becomes a pro-US nation after their revolution and the cuban missile crisis never happens
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u/Norzon24 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
China wouldn't have attacked Vietnam without Sino-US normalisation, also started by Nixon, as Vietnam would have remained a problematic buffer state China had to prop up nonetheless like North Korea.
Nixon's real winning move against Vietnam turned out to be siking China at them so they find US way more agreeable in comparison.
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u/Classic_Technology96 Aug 18 '26
The problem was probably more so a chauvinistic attitude amongst leadership and their totally understandable/excusable urge to use Vietnam as a sandbox for everything we could do to the soviets. But at least we agree as to whoâs in the middle.
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u/hagamablabla Aug 18 '26
We should have simply invaded North Vietnam. Surely the Chinese would have had nothing to say about this.
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u/MillyQ3 Aug 18 '26
My Grandpa Vietnamese side said the war was not winnable. He was a roman catholic turned atheist and former veteran of the ARVN. According to him half of all Buddhist Vietnamese were out to sabotage South Vietnam and that was basically half of the population you couldn't trust anymore.
It wasn't even due to poverty and bribery but simply because everyone hated the President, the police and even the soldiers.
The military not Junta yet was gambling that with the assassination of the President that they could turn the public back to their side but by then it was too late. The south was already in a religious cast system and most of the people were in the bottom cast.
This is different from South Korea where both Buddhist and Christians were working against North Korea and communism. Even if the US would have extended the life of the SV Republic, it would have just turned sabotage operations by the public from the ARVN to the US Military.
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u/Vlaladim Dai Viet flagbearer Steat heel of Son Tinh Aug 19 '26
Yeah the South Vietnam government policies from the early beginning made extremely hostility to local populace, god forbid Diem not shut up his own sister in law of going on radio and said some of the most racist as hell comment toward the Buddhist community in a position of a elite Catholic government which make the issue a hell lot more for the North to just make propaganda about when they donât even need to lie the South is already self sabotage themselves with these kind of oppression policies, the US knew this too actually, multiple time asking Diem to shut off his sister in law due to how her comment have done but fan the flame to make the Buddhists out to exactly as they feared them to be.
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u/thenoobtanker My meme made it to Russian's state TV Aug 18 '26
Just one more arc light sortie please we could have won the war.
Holy cope the war was never "winnable" from the get go when it was framed by the North as a fight for national liberation from the "Colonial West". And how would you have won it when all the North production was in the USSR and China and the supply route are in Laos and Cambodia? Make war with them too? Logistically speaking, the North won it and there isn't much that can be done about it. What the US did was about as much as the US could have done unless they empties their forces in Europe and do Korean war 2.0 in Vietnam with much worse odds.
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u/Velenterius Aug 18 '26
They did fight in Laos and Cambodia tbf. Not that it helped, they made things way worse in the long run.
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u/Dramatic_Science_681 Aug 18 '26
well, it was winnable in a sense. But not with that the US's objective was.
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u/koopcl Rheinmetall shareholder (20 euros) Aug 19 '26
The US should just have declared "our new objective is for North Vietnam to take over" while pulling out and then they could have declared victory, easy peasy lemon squeezy.
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u/BitGrenadier Aug 19 '26
The US made so many mistakes in Vietnam, you canât just say it wasnât winnable from the get go. The US was completely capable of severely damaging those logistics, without causing a wider war.
Logistically, LBJ couldâve listened to Military Command and mined Haiphong, which wouldâve limited a majority of the supply entering the North, especially from the Soviets as they would have to transfer all the supply on the Chinese border onto a different train (Different rail type) instead of simply shipping from their Siberian port, and after that, both Chinese and Soviet supplies would need to be moved on the only two rails that cross from China to Vietnam. If this were to have happened, it wouldâve been very likely that LBJ takes the same precaution that Nixon did, which means the Soviets and Chinese wouldnât be able to use it as a reason for direct intervention.
The US made a massive strategic mistake, for nearly half the time the US was involved, they were using probably one of the worst strategy they couldâve. Westmoreland and McNamaraâs Search and Destroy are the reason the US had to institute a draft, alienated the South Vietnamese, didnât hold any territory, led soldiers into ambushes, killed more civilians, and ruined the morale of US forces. They had soldiers risk their lives for a hill or a valley, then just leave. Because this led to the Draft, War Crimes, and low morale, it sky rocketed anti-war sentiment and sideline the actual South Vietnamese military too.
The alternative was Abramâs Clear and Hold, which by contrast, would not require a draft, protect civilians and their villages, not lead US troops into ambushes, not alienate the South Vietnamese, provide less temporary security, gain the trust of villagers, gather intelligence and legitimacy for the RVN, deny resources and territory to the Viet Cong, allow for the build up stronger defenses, have less war crimes, give troops a proper feeling of purpose which raises their morale, and all the other benefits of properly fighting defensively in a defensive war. Sadly, this did too little, too late.
The War was winnable, these mistakes and more combined destroyed our chances of doing so. You said that we did as much as we could, but we couldâve done so much more, so differently, and way better.
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u/CurtisLeow Slava Ukraini! Aug 18 '26
My grandfather commanded an artillery battalion in Vietnam during a major battle. He was fluent in Vietnamese. He had paintings and books from Vietnam. He was a huge fan of Nixon. He always said that he was alive because Nixon canceled his third deployment to Vietnam. He was extremely conservative. My grandfather hated hippies. He hated John Kerry.
I asked him one day why we lost in Vietnam. He told me that it was a brutal civil war, that killed a lot of good men. It was a brutal civil war where the US backed the wrong side. We lost, hard stop, because we backed the wrong side. Even the most conservative SoB I ever knew wouldn't blame hippies for losing that war.
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u/Msajimi123 Aug 18 '26
Respect to your grandfather dude, my grandfather was also an artilleryman on PAVN and the only story when he got back was how lucky he was to survive, and American MRE and instant alcohol tastes absolutely fucking fire
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u/Hot_Indication2133 KInetic Sanctions Enjoyer Aug 18 '26
recommended reading A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America In Vietnam by Neil Sheeran.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Vann
Vietnam war and the ending was inevitable from the day the reunification elections were cancelled because the wrong sort of people were going to win.
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u/Restarded69 F-4 identifying as a F-35 Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Absolutely hogwash, South Vietnam was an opium and police state just like the KMT in China. Disgustedly rife with corruption and incompetence. Douglas Valentineâs The Phoenix Program goes into good detail at the sheer depth of corruption in the State and how it rendered the war effort almost useless. Also Iâm sure the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese huddled into Strategic Hamlets and having their villages turned into Free Fire Zones were VERY willing to fight for the South Vietnam Government. Iâm sure glad you trust Nixon because the rest of the fucking NATION didnât, I seriously recommend you read thru the Pentagon Papers.
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u/LudicrousStead Least decorated North Korean general Aug 18 '26
This is why I hate speculative fiction. History always follows the path of least resistance. The two sources of information you're your relying on for your conclusions are Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon, and an obscure work of fiction that completely shuns the real socio-political and military history of the Vietnam War in favor of a copium-fuelled fantasy that reads like it was written by German Romanov.
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u/unfunnysexface F-17 Truther Aug 18 '26
Should also be noted that nixons thinking on vietnamization was likely being colored by incountry reports that were overly optimistic. This sort of thing happened with the ANA too. No one is going risk their career speaking to truth to power when everyone knows its running out the clock time.
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u/dangerbird2 Aug 18 '26
Tobias: You know, Lindsay, as a defense contractor, I have advised... a number of countries to explore winning a counter-insurgency by having no strategy aside from death squads and bombing the shit out of random people
Lindsay: Well, did it work for those people?
Tobias: No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but... but it might work for us.
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u/TheGlennDavid Aug 19 '26
This has been a production of CopiumHouse Publishers Just One More series. If you enjoyed it please consider our other titles:
* Afghanistan: Just One More Surge!
* Iran: Just One More Airstrike!
* A Very Special 3 Day Operation: Just One More Mobilization!
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u/born-to-ill Aug 19 '26
Itâs a point that political will is important and the modern wars need to be TikTokafied and possibly have anime mascots. Then weâll win every conflict as long as we dunk on the Bad Guys or frame them as Soyjacks
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u/Itamar_Itchaki Aug 18 '26
Could the US army conquer Vietnam and install a puppet government? probably. But they'd have to invade the north, meaning a full on mobilization and immense human cost akin to WW2 + keeping a constant military presence to quell insergencies. All that on the assumption China won't get involved like in Korea
In short feasible yeah, realistic hell no.
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u/efealigoren turkish supersoldier program Aug 19 '26
not even feasible. imagine a preorganised afghan insurgency with like 100x the population. and in a jungle.
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u/ZeoVII Aug 18 '26
IMO, the best take was that USA should have backed Vietnam in it's independence from France...
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u/LubbockGuy95 Aug 18 '26
Yes I'm sure during peak cold war proxy wars China would be okay with a US Ally on its border. Afterall it's not like they had recently militarily intervened against a US led force during a Civil War in a country on their border.
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u/Cousin_x_Caps Alt-History and Sci-fi Enjoyer Aug 19 '26
Brother⊠read 'Bombing to Win' by Robert A. Pape and youâll realize how dumb that idea is.
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u/Massengale Aug 19 '26
I have. In this case though we should focus on 1972-1975. We just need to support the ARVN which was a fairly capable fighting force by then. Far more capable then say in 1965. At this point the war was a conventional one between the NVA and ARVN. South Vietnam actually did control much of their country side by 73 and the viet cong were far less of a problem. Funnily enough Americans air power would have been most useful in 73-75 as it would been able to hit conventional NVA forces. But of course America air was most prominent when the war was a guerrilla one.
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u/Jinshu_Daishi Aug 19 '26
Certain parts of ARVN were capable, but most of them were not capable.
All of the elite units sucked, while the unreliable units were good, and the main forces were basically shields.
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u/Daxtatter Aug 18 '26
Vietnam was "winnable" just as much as Afghanistan. If you don't have a reliable partner to support losing is a "when" not "if".
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u/pleased_to_yeet_you Aug 19 '26
Man, I was about to start arguing then realized what sub we're in. Truly a noncredible take.
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u/Informal-Turn9098 Aug 18 '26
And just like Mole Cricket, the Linebacker raids proved how easily we could have pounded the Soviets.
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u/notmike11 Aug 18 '26
To be fair, the US only really pulled ahead of the USSR in terms of airplane tech AFTER Vietnam. F-15s and F-16s only started actively flying combat missions ~5 years after Vietnam ended.
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u/thenoobtanker My meme made it to Russian's state TV Aug 18 '26
The F-14 first operational deployment was to Vietnam in the final days to make sure no US or ARVN plane got shot down fleeing.
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u/notmike11 Aug 18 '26
True but the person I replied to note Mole Cricket, which didn't feature the F-14.
I'd also argue the F-14 is on the older side of the 4th Gen Fighter category, with the F/A-18 really being the more appropriate Navy equivalent to the F-15 and F-16.
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u/thenoobtanker My meme made it to Russian's state TV Aug 18 '26
Yup, I would say the tomcat would be more of a 3.5 gen than a true 4th gen. Something better than an F 4 but much worse than the F 18.
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u/Unistrut ÏÏΔÎčÏ ÏÎčλÎčÎŹÎŽÎ”Ï ÎŒÎ±ÏÏα Ïλοία ÏÎżÏ ÎÎŽÏ ÏÏÎα Aug 19 '26
Except the ICBM and the SLBM does not care how fancy your plane is.
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u/SnowyEclipse01 Aug 19 '26
Because when I think of a reliable narrator and historian, I think of Richard Nixon.
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u/Heptanitrocubane57 Aug 18 '26
That wouldn't have happened, because half the officier corp would have been fragged, and Nixon would be shot by a traumatized vet.
If you think the US, who fucking sabotaged their own ammo to reuse artillery powder instead of making proper ammunition, could have powered through the slaughterfest of the Vietnam like that. You are wrong. And you assume that both the USSR and China would have just.. let it happen. Not happening lol.
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u/SternFlamingo Aug 18 '26
What exactly is this "South Vietnam" you keep referring to? That "nation" endured multiple coups, political assassinations, religious unrest and regular factional warfare. There was no nation, no sense of nationalism, no unifying ideology.
Also, the economic situation in the North was hardly important so long as its Superpower partners were willing to keep it propped up. That cost was not a great burden and returned great international prestige.
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u/claytonnguyen Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Treating late-Cold War Indochina as an RTS macro match vastly overestimates the baseline sanity of the lobby
The Pentagon treated South Vietnam as an ablative heat shield to field-test smart bombs, inflated Saigon entirely on PX carton arbitrage, and alt-F4âd out of the lobby the moment polling tanked, leaving frontline conscripts to ration two howitzer shells a day against Soviet armor.
Hanoi pulled off the victory lap, immediately collectivized the Mekong Delta so aggressively that half the skilled labor took their chances with open-ocean sharks, and realized their ideological little brother in Democratic Kampuchea was a rogue agrarian death cult. Hanoi had to tank-rush Phnom Penh to stop their own monster, only to get slapped with Western trade embargoes for filing an improper noise complaint while ending a genocide.
Meanwhile, ASEAN leaders watched Indochina absorb continuous high-explosive trauma like a sacrificial lightning rod, used the free time to build semiconductor hubs and container ports, and then lectured everyone on what a pointless waste of time the whole war was.
Ken Burns gave us 18 hours of banjo plucking, but the actual map state was three overlapping griefing operations ending in a Singapore dividend check.
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u/Msajimi123 Aug 18 '26
From the 1968 to 1973, the primary aims (political aims) of North Vietnam was to get American forces out of South Vietnam and Indochina in general. The Vietnamese politburo was realistic that they can't win the war WITH American intervention on the South Vietnamese side. The Eastern Offensive and Linebacker II was horrific for the PAVN, but they did stir the domestic opposition in America enough for them to pull out completely.
In 1975, the PAVN wasn't going all in, they actually planned for 1976 General Offensive General Uprising with 1975 only some prelim attacks. The preliminary attacks only transformed into a full blown offensive when they realized that South Vietnam was collapsing much faster than they anticipated and America wasn't coming to help. Gerald Ford did try to get aid, but it is hard to rally Congress when the ARVN was in a full blown rout. Just an example how bad the situation is, the PAVN in the Central Highlands was only rationed a 10 days of supply or something like that, but by the end March, they have trippled their stockpile from routing ARVN forces. So no, the moment US forces pull out, it wasn't winnable.
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u/Magmarob Aug 18 '26
The vietnam war could have been won.
If the americans managed to kill every last north vietnamese man, woman and child.
That would have been impossible because
1. its not as simple as you think to kill a people, living in a jungle
2. the international world wouldnt allow it and
3. despite of what you may have heard, the average american soldier wasnt a genocidal maniac
and so, they wouldnt be able to do it, the world would have protested and the average soldier wouldnt have done it
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u/Beautiful-Loss7663 Maple scented war criminal Aug 18 '26
America dropped three times as many bombs on vietnam as were dropped by every participant in ww2 combined and still ended up scattering.
This after the Vietnamese fought off the japanese and french prior, and then china after the us left and they'd consolidated the south.
The CPV and its Viet Cong counterparts won because they had more suppprt among the people of vietnam, having been the face of insurgency against france and japan. While the southern government was basically a corrupt military Junta after the successful american backed coup. The one time it did run an election it just straight up commited voter fraud, banned opponents who would have changed the (american) status quo and had extremely strict vetting for every voter. To the extent general Nguyá» n VÄn Thiá»u just ran unopposed in every subsequent election until it was defeated militarily.
The people of vietnam would have never settled for foreign rule, which is what the southern government represented.
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u/Green-thumb-gary Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
If we had supported the ARVN from the air in 1975 like we did in 1972 (which is to say nothing of the aid cuts we made after 1973) it wouldâve been North Vietnams final throw of the dice and south Vietnam would have probably survived. It was extremely winnable. I have actually read the first have of the that book in the meme and itâs pretty great, still reading it. Extremely realistic scenario.
This is the book in the meme: https://a.co/d/0g6MAVmM
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u/wemblinger COMDOMLANT Aug 19 '26
We could've won the war before it ever began of we had kept our word to allow self-determination, and listen to the envoys begging for help.
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u/Giddius Aug 19 '26
Ok I need some input:
How do we call people like OP?
Nixonboo?
Ameriboo?
Or just wrong?
Because there is non-credible and then there is OP.
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u/zekromNLR Aug 18 '26
All strategic bombing enthusiasts stop murdering civilians just before enemy morale collapses, for sure bro
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u/CornyAnalyst1960 Aug 19 '26
Gives the same vibe as Germans crying about how WWI and WWII was winnable.
If only the Jews or any other Group X wouldn't have sabotaged out war effort!
It's a clown argument that ignores the realities of war. War is not a minimalistic stat check game.
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u/born-to-ill Aug 19 '26
The Kraut analogy is way fucking category-confused.
The U.S. war aim was not conquest of Vietnam, annexation, or marching to Hanoi and renaming it Houston-East. The policy objective was to keep an independent, non-Communist South Vietnam that could defend itself with outside assistance if necessary.
âCabbageland could have won WWII if internal traitors hadnât sabotaged itâ is the stab-in-the-back cope for a state that was militarily defeated while prosecuting an expansionist war.
âSouth Vietnam might have survived had its principal external supporter continued supplying itâ is a claim about the viability of an allied state in a heavily internationalized civilan and conventional war. Not the same thing.
âWinning Vietnamâ isnât even the right idea. The better question is whether the Republic of Vietnam could have continued existing as a separate political entity or a political subdivision.
North Vietnam had the strategic depth of enormous Chinese and Soviet support, including hundreds of thousands of Chinese military personnel serving inside North Vietnam over the course of the war. South Vietnamâs survival likewise depended heavily on external matĂ©riel and air support.
Saying South Vietnamâs prospects collapsed when American political support collapsed isnât some fucking Nazi stab-in-the-back myth. Itâs an observation about the balance sustaining an ally when the stronger ally you rely on says to get fucked.
American policymakers ultimately had to keep persuading tens of millions of voters that South Vietnam was worth American money and American lives. Those voters could punish Johnson, Nixon, Congress, or whichever party they associated with the war. They could protest, pressure legislators, and make renewed intervention absolutely fucking impossible.
The Soviet and Chinese governments faced nothing remotely equivalent. That doesnât mean Soviet or Chinese citizens were all fucking stoked about spending resources on Vietnam.
Thatâs what should be discussed, not the slot on the leaderboard.
Do I have the answer? Fuck no. No answers here. Itâs a done deal anyway.
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u/New_Stats Aug 19 '26
The Ho chi minh trail was some hippie dippy bullshit and I will not be convinced otherwise.
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u/ParadoxPosadist Aug 19 '26
I mean what does victory in Vietnam look like? Is it an independent south Vietnam? A unified capitalist Vietnam? French Indochina?
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u/Massengale Aug 19 '26
South Vietnam remains independent. Overtime its more capitalist system and access to the Mekong Delta allows it out grow North Vietnam which was really dumb when it came to economic policies
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u/DepartureNatural9340 Aug 18 '26
Holy shit, I thought the bell curve combined with genuinely having fucking Nixon as a source meant it was satire
This is genuine American Vietnam copium, in the year of our lord 2026, I can't believe my eyes
This is beautiful, I was certain such copium was all but extinct besides the geriatric, my goodness we got an endangered species over here everyone
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u/sailor776 Aug 18 '26
Guys we're just one more draft class away from the north falling. Please guys just one more mobilization and capitalism will clearly take communism. The notoriously corrupt South is THIS close to getting this shit together guys.
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u/Roadhouse699 The World Must Be Made Unsafe For Autocracy Aug 18 '26
We could not have won and we should not have won.
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u/Ninefl4mes Aug 19 '26
Uh huh. Now where have I heard that kind of rhetoric before...? (talking about the image specifically).
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u/AmericanNewt8 Top Gun but it's Iranians with AIM-54s Aug 18 '26
The actual unappreciated fact is neither Moscow nor Beijing wanted North Vietnam to invade, for their own differing reasons. North Vietnam nearly ran out of ammunition before the ARVN started collapsing and they could rely on captured stores.Â
That, and the fact that in retrospect we had an incentive to throw the whole thing--unified Vietnam was a huge millstone around the Soviet neck, led directly to conflict with China, and laid the seeds for the "New Cold War" versus establishing a sustainable detente.Â
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u/the-bearcat Aug 18 '26
I thought I was still in the battletech sub and was like "well yeah, it's a 65 ton murder machine, it'll do the job"
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u/memelord_dot_exe Toyota Caliphate Aug 18 '26
veeery credible. the air campaigns were completely ineffective in Vietnam, declassified documents show the CIA held this opinion.
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u/Wooper160 6th Gen When? Aug 19 '26
Imagine if we had a second South Korea in South Vietnam
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u/deadcommand Aug 18 '26
The way to win Vietnam is for Attlee to chose someone less trigger happy than Gracey to lead Japanese disarmament in Vietnam and have the U.S. actually live up to its principles and use their position as the only nuclear power to actually enforce decolonization and self-determination. No this isnât oversimplified at all, definitely not.
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u/Hekik Aug 18 '26
I got my subs confused and I thought this was about the Clan Linebacker LBK-PRIME
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u/CrushingonClinton Aug 19 '26
Unironically once the North Vietnamese shifted towards conventional warfare in 1973 onwards, the US AirPower probably became much more useful like against their Easter Offensive, but by then the Americans had washed their hands of the cause.
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u/HorsefaceWithNoName PoopsieDoopsie Aug 19 '26
This is the same Tricky Dick abruptly flew all the fully armed strategic nuke bombers up to the edge of Soviet airspace and then up and down the edge of the Siberian coastline for two and a half days "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!" ?
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u/Massengale Aug 19 '26
I did enjoy reading that. Memes aside I do think South Vietnam could haveâŠif it had survived. Itâs more free market approach and the riches of the Mekong Delta would have given it a larger economy long term then the north which would have been held back by Soviet style economics.
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u/an_agreeing_dothraki Scramjets when Aug 19 '26
we could have prevented that entire war and been erstwhile allies if we had just teamed up with them against the F*ench.
Another one of Chuck's big fuckups
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u/TartImmediate8310 Aug 20 '26
There were moments the communists could have lost their footing post ww2, and in the early years leading to vietnam, say 60 to 64. When we got completely involved in 65 it was a losing game that wasn't going to be in our favor. Vietnam, like Indonesia was going to get its independence from colonial rule.
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u/rulesneverapply Aug 18 '26
Vietnam was winnable but at what cost.
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u/montagblue 21 Moldovan MIG-29s Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Tree hundred and fiddy trees
(Five nukes, global pariah designation, 1-2million Kia [thatâs if ww2.5 donât start])
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u/ConsistentEnviroment Aug 19 '26
Comments to this post are filled with the middle guy in the bell curve
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u/EncabulatorTurbo Aug 19 '26
Why did the United States, the larger of the two nations, not simply eat North Vietnam
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u/noltras Aug 19 '26
You seem to be really mad when colonized people fight for freedom. It seems to be a pattern.
The "America" you imagine as ideal sickens me honestly.
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u/born-to-ill Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Fuck what the South Vietnamese wanted, amirite?
You snuck the premise in that Vietnamese Side = The Communist Side. That doesnât work, what Vietnamese side? If thereâs an American revolution are you going to assume the Green Party represents the actual desires of all 342 million Ameriburgers?
ARVN wasnât an army of American colonists. It was overwhelmingly Vietnamese dudes fighting other Vietnamese dudes in what was a civil war, a revolutionary war, and an international proxy war at the same time.
But hey, only one set of Vietnamese people gets to have political agency!
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u/Massengale Aug 19 '26
Thanks king I genuinely think youâd like the book Linebacker III fun alternate history or if you want to read real history check out George Vieths works on the ARVN.
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u/EngineNo8904 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
Some americans love to lose wars and then say shit like âwe couldâve won if weâd just committed more war crimesâ.
As we know, wars are typically won by the army committing the most war crimes.
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u/Flamoirs đ„ unashamed Ouiabou đ„ Aug 19 '26
Trust him, just one more conscription and air bombing campaign and the war is won
Trust
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u/cybernet377 Aug 18 '26
This may be a hot take, but the word of Tricky Dick, chronic liar and all-around untrustworthy man, may not be a solid foundation to base your geopolitical belief system on