Long Term
Factor 1: Ideological - American Misunderstanding
- The United States believed that it was a proxy cold war they were fighting against the USSR. They failed to recognise the strength and determination of the Vietnamese people, eventually resulting in their capitulation. From the very outset, the success of their endeavours in Vietnam was compromised by their misunderstanding.
1. By the late 1960's 75% of all Vietnamese supplies were coming from the USSR. It is clear to see how this could be turned into a misunderstanding on the American's part.
2. The Vietnamese had just broken a 70-year colonial rule under the French with a 6 year war, suffering 300,000 casualties in the process. They were a group of people sick and tired of being under the despotic rule of a colonial power and America looked like a metamorphosis of the French nightmare. The Vietnamese were fighting for independence, not communism.
Primary Source:
1. “You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.” Dwight D. Eisenhower on Domino theory, a main cause of the war. The Americans were intrigued by communism and didn't understand their opponents.
2. "You may kill 10 of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at these odds, you will lose and I will win." Ho Chi Minh to American authorities, highlighting the determination and drive of Vietnamese to achieve independence.
Factor 2: Military - Lack of a clear or direct goal
- The United States entered the Vietnam war with the aim to eradicate Vietnam of "communism". However, they had 0 clue as to how they should go about eradicating an ideology. This inevitably shaped the military approach they took to the war and was a major reason for their failure. It is clear to see they merely intended to raze the entire of Vietnam to the ground, believing that communism would disappear once the "communists" were wiped from the face of the Earth.
1. The United States employed a certain strategy known as "search and destroy". It involved the insertion of troops into enemy territory before eliminating hostiles and then retreating. However, there was no way to measure how many hostiles had been eliminated. Furthermore, as Viet Cong were also dressed as civilians, it is hard to estimate the number of civilian casualties suffered. This is a good example of American ineffectiveness as the "success" of these search and destroy missions was determined by body count. Operation Attleboro and Operation Junction City had 1,106 and 2,728 casualties respectively. However, be reminded this takes into account estimates from mortar attacks and could include civilian deaths. All based on "observation".
2. Operation "Rolling Thunder" is another clear example of the lack of goal/clarity the American's had in Vietnam. It was a carpet bombing campaign started in march of 1965 and terminated in 1968 due to it's ineffectiveness. Roughly 864,000 tons of ordinance was dropped on Vietnam during this campaign and yet afterwards US intelligence said there had been "no observable evidence of any shortages in Vietnam supply lines". Over the course of the war, over 7 million tons of ordinance would be dropped on Vietnam. This was more than twice the amount dropped during the entirety of WWII.
3. Operation "Ranch Hand" is another example of atrocious military tactics ill suited to the Vietnam War. Resembling the German's scorched earth policy, Ranch Hand involved the use of agent orange, a herbicide mixed at 50x the concentration of regular herbicides. Over 45,000 cubic meters of this herbicide was sprayed on Vietnam, destroying roughly 14 million acres of all Vietnam's land. It destroyed crops and caused horrendous birth deformities in children.
Short Term
Factor 1: MIlitary- Military Failure/Military shrewdness on the Viet Cong's part
- Word being sent back to the US as the war progressed was that General William Westmoreland was leading the American "heroes" in a courageous battle against the communists and this garnered support amongst the Americans back home for the war. However, this was misleading to say the least and America's lies were blown wide open during the Tet Offensive
1. On the 30th of January 1968 at 2:45 am, the American embassy in Saigon was taken by Viet Cong soldiers. Although the Americans quickly recovered the embassy, significant damage had already been done to the American public. Once news that the embassy had fallen reached home, support for the war quickly plummeted from 40% to 26%. The Tet offensive revealed to the public that perhaps the Americans were not as dominant as they had tricked their people into thinking during the war.
2. On the 16th of March 1968, American troops stormed the village of My lai and carried out the My lai massacre, where between 347 and 504 innocent civilians were killed. This did not help the growing anti-Vietnam sentiment back home but rather set it alight.
Primary Source:
1. Walter cronkite of CBS news in the United States perfectly encapsulates the attitude after the Tet Offensive when he exclaims “what the hell is going on. I thought we were winning the war.”
Factor 2: Media/Technology - Misrepresentation of the Tet Offensive
- Despite actually being a victory for the United States, in which they practically pushed the Viet Cong back into oblivion, the offensive was portrayed by television and media as a failure for the americans rather than the comprehensive military victory for which it actually was.
1. Out of the 84,000 north vietnamese that participated in the ensuing battles following the tet offensive, 45,000 died as a result of American resistance.
Primary Source:
1. Peter braestrup a New York Times correspondent, said that given the magnitude of the war effort, reporters in their haste interchanged “analysis” for “facts” and the half-informed projected the idea that “tet was a disaster.”
2. ABC network’s Howard K Smith says, “Viet Cong Casualties were one hundred times ours. But we never told the public that. We just showed pictures day after day of Americans getting hell kicked out of them. That was enough to Break America apart.”
Factor 3: Social- American Anti-War sentiment Starts to Build
- As the war progressed, anti-Vietnam sentiment started to build amongst the community back home. As sentiment slowly started to morph into action and protests, it was clear that support for the war - a part of the bedrock upon which the war effort was built - was waning.
1. On May 4th, 1970, at Kent State University, a peaceful protest against the war turned ugly when police opened fire on the crowd. 4 students died and 9 were injured. Within 2 weeks, in outrage at this incident, 450 American universities closed their campuses.
2. There was a Vietnam moratorium march on Washington DC, November 15th, 1969. 500,000 supporters gathered in Washington DC to protest the war.
3. In April of 1971, the fullbright hearings were held. A series of 22 proposal were evaluated and this was to signify the beginning of the end for US involvement in Vietnam. By the end of 1971, only 158,000 troops were left in Vietnam, 300,000 less than 3 years previous.
Many Americans contest that they are yet to lose a war because Vietnam was a "conflict". Internecine and pyrrhic, it is one of the USA's greatest blunders. As Martin Luther King perfectly summarises, "If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam."