With hindsight, what should have been the US strategy in Vietnam?

[Insane Ranter]

Would this have changed the final result or just prolonged the war even further?

Or even better: Tell France already at 1940's that it must give independence to Indochina or else it won't get Marshall Aid.

Was the Marshal Plan even an idea in 1940? It did not happen until 1947-1948. I know we had the Morgenthau Plan in 1944 but that focused more on Germany.

What if the French balk at this idea? And the Soviets take the opportunity to tell France they will help them rebuild?

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

I wonder what the cutoff date would be and what it would take to get Ho chi Minh and America playing nice.

I imagine it'd have to be before or during the French Indochina war, so probably outside the scope of this question

1945 is my flip answer. On reflection, it may not be flippant,

 

[Dave Howery]

Was the Vietnam War worth winning?

no. It wasn't worth any of our blood or treasure. We spent too much of both.

 

[marktaha]

British Vietnams in.Malaya and Borneo.We won by playing the long game.

 

[htgriffin]

the problem is what if they vote for unification with the north

Presuming the prospect of honest elections (and U. S. economic ties) in the long term is being turned down? We are looking at East Germany tier disaffection and the best bet is to sit in on the accession negotiations.

 

[vetinari]

If the US had exploited the Sino-Soviet split a decade or so earlier (so early-mid 1960s instead of early-mid 1970s) the Vietnam War would have looked pretty different.

A unified Vietnam was not in the PRC's interest anyway: as 1979 demonstrated.

In some ways it was in both China and US's interest to have a Korea-type settlement in Vietnam.

The PRC in the late 1960s was an extreme left-wing country largely divided into various groups, such as the Red Guards, the Maoists, Chou En Lai-ists, the military and so on, basically equivalent to the Warlords that had once beset the place in the 1910s-1930s. So would the US negotiate with and who would be recognised as the authority that could make negotiations stick and who would the US deal with? The US if it is smart, they could exploit this situation but they are busy painting the PRC as the culprit in what the North is doing. Still didn't stop them buying large quantities of steel and concrete from them which they used in building defensive works in the South.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Was the Vietnam War worth winning?

It depends on how much is paid for what is won. And then it's a moral question of the value of a human life or the limits of pushing the bending of morality to the point it truly becomes immoral, and how far is just enough to still be moral. How many dead is too many? How many dead is still acceptable?

Were 60,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of casualties of civilians, ARVN, VC and North Vietnamese soldiers worth it? I'd argue not, but the North Vietnamese would argue it (unfortunately) was. What if it were 1,000 American troop deaths and tens of thousands of civilian, ARVN, etc deaths? What is the status of that question if it won the US the war? What if it still lost, and the question became one of more soldiers could have won it, and if they won it, those dead would have not died in vain? What becomes the opinion if only 100 Americans died but hundreds of thousands of others still died?

War is an inherently immoral thing. But war is sometimes a necessary thing. It is the greatest contradiction of the human condition and material existence in the world. It is the great breeding ground of hypocrisy, but it is a hypocrisy that may need to be lived with if the war is just. When is it just? How do we find if it is just? And how do we live with the contradiction and the hypocrisy if we feel it is just? That is the question, and it is unfortunately absolutely relative. That is why the Vietnam War is such a complex psychology.

 

[vetinari]

It depends on how much is paid for what is won. And then it's a moral question of the value of a human life or the limits of pushing the bending of morality to the point it truly becomes immoral, and how far is just enough to still be moral. How many dead is too many? How many dead is still acceptable?

Were 60,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of casualties of civilians, ARVN, VC and North Vietnamese soldiers worth it? I'd argue not, but the North Vietnamese would argue it (unfortunately) was. What if it were 1,000 American troop deaths and tens of thousands of civilian, ARVN, etc deaths? What is the status of that question if it won the US the war? What if it still lost, and the question became one of more soldiers could have won it, and if they won it, those dead would have not died in vain? What becomes the opinion if only 100 Americans died but hundreds of thousands of others still died?

War is an inherently immoral thing. But war is sometimes a necessary thing. It is the greatest contradiction of the human condition and material existence in the world. It is the great breeding ground of hypocrisy, but it is a hypocrisy that may need to be lived with if the war is just. When is it just? How do we find if it is just? And how do we live with the contradiction and the hypocrisy if we feel it is just? That is the question, and it is unfortunately absolutely relative. That is why the Vietnam War is such a complex psychology.

Amazing how you miss out the Australia, New Zealander, South Korean, Thai and other nationalities' deaths. I find it interesting that most people, particularly Americans ignore the sacrifice of their allies and other nations in their cause. Funny that, hey? I suspect you didn't even know of those nations' involvement in the Vietnam War. It is one of the many annoying things Americans indulge in.

 

[ric350]

British Vietnams in.Malaya and Borneo.We won by playing the long game.

Well in a “long game”, both of those conflicts differed from Vietnam in a big way - supply routes. Borneo is an island and Malaysia is at the end of a narrow peninsula. Interdiction of supply in those regions is greatly simplified vs Vietnam.

ric350

 

[DougM]

It is also funny how our “Allie’s” citizens like to attribute things like Vietnam to the US. Nominally all the countries involved were attempting to secure South Vietnam and to restrain the expansion of communism. Goals that presumably the governments the countries involved also supported. I don’t recall the US holding its Allie’s governments at gun point forcing them to participate. And for all the countries that sent troops, the reality is that they were all closer physically to S.Vietnam then the US was, so presumably they/thier governments were concerned with S. Vietnam going communist.
The Number for 4 of the countries plus the US. Thailand’s numbers were not easy to find so I didnt include them. And I didn’t include S.Vietnam as this was their war.
Country. Total. D. W
the Philippines: 2000. 9. 64
New Zealand: 3500. 37. ?
Australia: 50,000. 521. 3129
S.Korea: 320,000. 5099. 10,962
US: 2,700,000. 58281. 303,644

I don’t mean to discount the sacrifices of those injured or dead no mater what the country they are from. But outside of S.Vietnam itself the US. was by far the largest involved and paid the largest price in terms of casualties and money. So if someone especially someone from the US tends to discuss this from the point of view of the US and fails to mention other countries, I think that may be understandable.
And the question was if the cost was worth it. That is something that each country has to decide for itself. I would not presume to talk for the various countries that are not mine. But considering the cost to my country in terms of casualties, mental damage to those that participated and those that stayed home, lost opportunities and shear cost. And in my case cost to those that I know personally and to those I encountered in the VA hospital on my visits there I can say that the most decisive war in modern US history (and arguably most in US history period) was in fact not worth it.

 

[RousseauX]

The PRC in the late 1960s was an extreme left-wing country largely divided into various groups, such as the Red Guards, the Maoists, Chou En Lai-ists, the military and so on, basically equivalent to the Warlords that had once beset the place in the 1910s-1930s.

No, it really wasn't

 

[RousseauX]

Presuming the prospect of honest elections (and U. S. economic ties) in the long term is being turned down? We are looking at East Germany tier disaffection and the best bet is to sit in on the accession negotiations.

The average person in Vietnam was piss poor on both sides of the DMZ: the average person isn't some ideologue who believes in the superiority of capitalism in 1955 or whatever: but national unification is always popular

 

[htgriffin]

The average person in Vietnam was piss poor on both sides of the DMZ: the average person isn't some ideologue who believes in the superiority of capitalism in 1955 or whatever: but national unification is always popular

Perhaps so (although I made no mention of capitalism beyond international trade ties). My point is that taking South Vietnam out of the autocratic one-party state category would likely get more people to question the merits of subsuming themselves into another. ETA: And that is the only real chance of keeping South Vietnam as a separate entity with U. S. Occupation Forces at West Germany level/ROE or less.

 

[RousseauX]

1945 is my flip answer. On reflection, it may not be flippant,

it was possible way past that, hell the US is currently on good terms with Communist Vietnam

The reason why the US backed France over the Vietnamese was because post-war the US decided France was too important in the anti-Soviet alliance in Europe. And thus it cannot afford to piss them off over the colonies.

It the same time period the US supported Indonesian nationalists in their independence struggle against the Dutch: because the US didn't think the Dutch were that important, and the US did believe that it needed to gain the support of 3rd world nationalists in the struggle against Communism

Later on the US escalated in Vietnam in the 50s/early 60s largely because Khruschev was pushign the US over West Berlin, and Vietnam was a low-stake battleground to "demonstrate resolve" and for presidents to demonstrate to both the international community AND the voters that the US is "standing up to Communism". That's how the US started getting into the quagmire and kept getting pulled in more and more.

The pentagon papers reveal that 70% of the reason why the US was fighting the war in 1965 was basically to avoid -looking weak- if the US lost. "Containment" was only 20% of the reason why the US was fighting.

At any point in their chain of escalation the US from the 1950s-1965 could have just chosen to not escalate, cut their losses and had good relationships with Vietnam within a decade or so.

A Vietnamese-American partnership would have turned it into the SE Asian version of Yugoslavia. The problem was lack of political will to do it in the US and fear of domestic backlash. There was fear that McCarthyites who would accuse any presidents who "gave up" on Vietnam of being "Soft on Communism", one of the major reasons with LBJ sent troops in 1965 was because he thought if Vietnam fell you would have another wave of McCarthyism in the US (the first wave of which was triggered by the Korean War).

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Amazing how you miss out the Australia, New Zealander, South Korean, Thai and other nationalities' deaths. I find it interesting that most people, particularly Americans ignore the sacrifice of their allies and other nations in their cause. Funny that, hey? I suspect you didn't even know of those nations' involvement in the Vietnam War. It is one of the many annoying things Americans indulge in.

I was using a brief example to make a conceptual point. I don't understand this resentment, presumption of thinking based on generalization and assumption of worst intent.

 

[TIMER]

As an American of the appropriate age range, sitting on the side lines with a cup of coffee and letting them work it out for themselves strikes me as a sensible policy.

 

[cjc]

Blocking the ho chi min trail in loas (and blockading cambodia) and providing a shield along the dmz, there by keeping northern troops and supplies from reaching the southern insergancey and keeping the northern army from launching an invation. Allowing the us army to fight a war there are most prepared for and allowing the south vetnam army to concentrate on counter insergancy (this would probably take a 1/3 less troops then the us sent in otl even 😆)

Ether fight the war right or don't fight at all.

 

[Popcorn]

If you’re gonna be in a war, be in it. No tiptoeing around the niceties. The generals need to make it clear to Johnson that it’s not his job to approve bombing targets. Put every north Vietnamese port facility out of business and keep them that way. Do the same for anything resembling a transportation network. Radars and missile systems are targets BEFORE they become operational. The Soviets aren’t going into WW3 over some dead technicians. Large scale commando missions in the north, force them to keep more of their troops at home instead of causing trouble in the south. Start learning on the south’s government about reforms. Start rotating units to the Philippines to replace casualties and let the FNGs train with them instead of feeding them in piecemeal to become casualties on their first day.

 

[Popcorn]

As an American of the appropriate age range, sitting on the side lines with a cup of coffee and letting them work it out for themselves strikes me as a sensible policy.

Even without US involvement they wouldn’t be working it out for themselves, there was no shortage of supplies and training from the Soviets to the north.

 

[marktaha]

The PRC in the late 1960s was an extreme left-wing country largely divided into various groups, such as the Red Guards, the Maoists, Chou En Lai-ists, the military and so on, basically equivalent to the Warlords that had once beset the place in the 1910s-1930s. So would the US negotiate with and who would be recognised as the authority that could make negotiations stick and who would the US deal with? The US if it is smart, they could exploit this situation but they are busy painting the PRC as the culprit in what the North is doing. Still didn't stop them buying large quantities of steel and concrete from them which they used in building defensive works in the South.

Mao was in charge and overseeing his country's economic suicide.