Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
As I said to begin the thread, "strategy begins with empathy."

And like every journey, one is not going to get very far without taking that first step.

The attached link is to an perspective on Vietnam that closely mirrors my own assessment of the nature of that conflict. For those who buy into the uniquely American perspective that "we defeated the insurgency in South Vietnam, and it was only after we left that the state of South Vietnam was defeated in traditional combat by the state of North Vietnam," this will require taking a more empathetic perspective.

I have heard General Keane state in person, but many other "experts" as well, and certainly the dominating theme in US written histories of the conflict is the "we won but they lost after we left" perspective. That is, IMO, not being able to see the strategic forest for the tactical trees.

A good read, regardless of personal perspective:

http://discover.wooster.edu/jgates/p...ar-in-vietnam/
Hello Bob,

Apologies for the delay in replying. I was out of town for a while.

I read Gates’ article thoroughly. I completely agree with you that the United States did not militarily defeat the NVA/NLF, and American victory in battle was as irrelevant to this outcome as German victories in 1939-1943 were to the outcome of World War II in Europe.

Here is where I agree with Gates:

  1. The CPV was engaged in total war. I will not use the terms “people’s war” or “protracted people’s war”, as they are merely a variant of total war, tailored to local conditions
  2. The CPV pursued a strategy of “long-term” or “prolonged” war against the French and Americans
  3. The CPV fluidly used subversion, guerrilla war and mobile warfare separately and in combination
  4. There was no “border” between North and South Vietnam, only a military demarcation line
  5. North Vietnam was considered by the CPV as a “revolutionary base” from which to unite Vietnam rather than a sovereign state
  6. The war was more one of some South Vietnamese fighting for autonomy and secession rather than an inter-state war


Here is where I either disagree with Gates, or where I find that he supports my views:

  1. Gates notes that the NLF was “an element” of the NVA rather than a separate insurgency that received NVA support. Therefore, American forces in Vietnam were fighting both local insurgents and NVA infiltrators, and were forced to tackle combinations of subversion, guerrilla warfare and conventional warfare which they had a difficult time adapting to. NVA border infiltration and conventional warfare was crucial as American soldiers could not simply engage in light peacekeeping or policing duties in insurgent areas (against subversives and guerrillas), as they could then find themselves in heavy battles with the NVA. Nor was entering these areas with heavy armor in preparation for clashes with the NVA particularly conducive to gaining the confidence and trust of the villagers in question. Add a single booby-trapped hut to the equation, and well…

  2. The use of North Vietnam as a “revolutionary base” was key to NVA operations and for supporting the NLF. The micromanagement of and restrictions on the air campaign against North Vietnam rendered it worthless, except in bodycounts. North Vietnam took advantage of this situation to establish one of the densest IADS’ then in existence, to create an inviolate staging area for infiltration of the South and for receiving Soviet and Chinese supplies, and to redistribute resources no longer necessary for defense. By the time the Nixon Administration took the gloves off, the North had had years to prepare for the onslaught. Early airstrikes against all legitimate NVA targets would have severely curbed the North’s ability to infiltrate heavily armed forces into the South, and would have allowed the South Vietnamese and American ground forces to focus almost exclusively on anti-guerrilla and anti-subversion activities. Would the NVA/NLF had won if they had had no revolutionary base?

  3. The total war as practised by Mao and Ho was clearly ineffective against the Japanese occupiers of China and Vietnam. On the contrary, it was practised against weakened opponents (KMT, France, South Vietnam) and against democratic governments who had to answer for drawn-out bloody conflicts (France, United States). Germany was not deterred by the high casualties inflicted by resistance movements in Poland, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and these areas were only liberated by conventional forces practising conventional warfare. The same is true of the Japanese in China, Korea and Southeast Asia. At no point did Berlin or Tokyo envision completely defeating insurgency without killing every person capable of resistance, and both seemed to envision a future in which insurgency was reduced to a more “acceptable” level and insurgent-held areas would be similar to a “Wild West” where future soldiers could make a name for themselves. The French and Americans by comparison seemed to picture a future in which their soldiers could march from one end of Vietnam to the other unmolested.

  4. The case for South Vietnam was much weaker than that for South Korea, yet I believe that it would have been possible to establish a state based upon Saigon that could have existed in a state of siege and which would have eventually been viable. Unfortunately, this would have meant an American whole-of-government effort to: (a) get the people of South Vietnam behind the project, (b) prevent the North from being used as a base and (c) develop a South Vietnamese leadership that has as much perceived legitimacy as possible.

  5. Lastly, Gates cannot discount the immense support provided by the Soviet Union and China to North Vietnam, which included advanced equipment and some 300,000 advisors, trainers and regulars (pilots, SAM operators, radar operators, materiel personnel, etc.). You had might as well deprive the Red Army and Soviet partisans of the factories in the Urals and Allied aid against Germany. Without this support, it would have been possible to fight Hanoi to a stalemate and reduce the local insurgency to “acceptable” and declining levels.