A
a person
Guest
what caused them to lose this war?
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M
Malicious Intent
Guest
This is simple. They tried to occupy a country that was thousands of miles from the US. The war itself lasted for 19 years. As Sun Tzu states in his work "The Art of War" "No country has ever profited from a protracted war". He also goes on to explain the importance of not trying to occupy an area because it drains on the army as well as the home nations economy. His writings were very simplistic in meaning but very truthful. When compared to the Vietnam war you can see that just about everything we did went against common sense military doctrine. I know this may sound off topic a bit but it is odd how we yet again are trying to occupy two countries and complaining about the difficulties. This man figured it out thousands of years ago, yet today we still cannot grasp the concept.
single occupant- sorry to say but this is what we are going through in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Call me a defeatist but I've served in this war and i'm still serving in this war. I've stepped on pressure plates and been blown sky high. I've been shot at and I tell you now this is not where we should be.
single occupant- sorry to say but this is what we are going through in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Call me a defeatist but I've served in this war and i'm still serving in this war. I've stepped on pressure plates and been blown sky high. I've been shot at and I tell you now this is not where we should be.
A
*Aleka*
Guest
OMG!!! why you people say the US did1t lose?!?! of couse the US lost!!! they didn't know the terrain very very well, and the conditions of the soldiers wasn't that good. they went to war to avoid the comism in Vietnam, and tehy couldn't. so they lost the war. stop saying they didn't everyone knows the US lost it shamefully.
E
esmie
Guest
they were a lot of casualties already and it wasnt worth it........they tried so many tactics to stop communism but it was impossible.....but since there was so many deaths they had to stop and just leave and go
L
llordlloyd
Guest
The simple reason is that the Vietnamese were fighting for their independence and were prepared to fight forever for that ideal.
The US government saw the Vietnamese as puppets of Moscow who were fighting for communism, and thought they could be persuaded to give up if they were bombed enough.
The Americans, under Defence Secretary McNamara- an ex-General Motors CEO- took a 'rational' approach and saw the war as a 'cost-benefit analysis': if the cost to the Vietnamese outweights the benefits they receive from victory, then they will give up. Of course, the Vietnamese were fighting fr an emotional idea and Americans of all people should have understood this.
Another problem was that America created the puppet South Vietnamese government, which never really had any credibility to the Vietnamese, because it was self-serving and corrupt. It was hard to find people who would fight for it and feel committed to it. But the US government did not understand this and saw it's puppet government as equal in legitimacy to the government of Ho Chi Minh, whoch had fought for independence since the early 1940s.
A final factor was that for the US the cost/benefit analysis did not make sense. The benefit of a pro-US south Vietnam was not worth the deaths and the incredible expense of this war. The US public could not see the value in taxes and having their sons killed. By the time the US pulled out of the war in the early 1970s, their side was in fact doing very well militarily, but South Vietnam was wrecked by warfare and by the corruption that occurs when lots of money is poured into a poor third world nation.
Many of these lessons were forgotten before Iraq.
The US government saw the Vietnamese as puppets of Moscow who were fighting for communism, and thought they could be persuaded to give up if they were bombed enough.
The Americans, under Defence Secretary McNamara- an ex-General Motors CEO- took a 'rational' approach and saw the war as a 'cost-benefit analysis': if the cost to the Vietnamese outweights the benefits they receive from victory, then they will give up. Of course, the Vietnamese were fighting fr an emotional idea and Americans of all people should have understood this.
Another problem was that America created the puppet South Vietnamese government, which never really had any credibility to the Vietnamese, because it was self-serving and corrupt. It was hard to find people who would fight for it and feel committed to it. But the US government did not understand this and saw it's puppet government as equal in legitimacy to the government of Ho Chi Minh, whoch had fought for independence since the early 1940s.
A final factor was that for the US the cost/benefit analysis did not make sense. The benefit of a pro-US south Vietnam was not worth the deaths and the incredible expense of this war. The US public could not see the value in taxes and having their sons killed. By the time the US pulled out of the war in the early 1970s, their side was in fact doing very well militarily, but South Vietnam was wrecked by warfare and by the corruption that occurs when lots of money is poured into a poor third world nation.
Many of these lessons were forgotten before Iraq.