Could the United States Have Really Won the Vietnam War?
By Robert Farley at War is Boring: https://warisboring.com/could-the-un...on-in-vietnam/
Introduction:
Moyar's key points:Mark Moyar, the scholar of U.S. foreign and military policy, recently had the opportunity to update an older argument on the viability of the Vietnam War.
Moyar argues that the historical consensus on the war is wrong on several points, and that in fact the United States could have won the war and preserved the Saigon government at acceptable cost.
While Moyar’s argument is worth consideration, he still fails to make his case against the long-standing consensus on the war.
- South Vietnam was a viable state by 1972, afflicted but not overwhelmed by insurgency
- Local Communist forces in South Vietnam had been mortally wounded in 1968
- With U.S. support, South Vietnam could blunt and even defeat North Vietnamese offensives
- Saigon was far more democratic and less repressive than Hanoi
- The war was less unpopular in the U.S. at the time than it is presently
Farley’s “realities”:
- South Vietnam could not survive on its own in the way of South Korea
- Hanoi was unified whereas Saigon was prone to infighting
- The U.S. could not have stopped North Vietnamese aggression
- The war was unpopular enough that Nixon faced no opposition in 1972 for abandoning South Vietnam, and Ford could not generate any support for re-engagement in 1975
- The U.S. could have militarily won by invading and occupying North Vietnam or have merely remained engaged in the South indefinitely, but both options would have been very costly politically and materially
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