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Thread: What a German soldier of WWII thought of US soldiers.

  1. #101
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    Not too much is known about his time here. He traveled under various names, and employers did not keep very good records back then. But it's known that he worked at the Parker House Hotel in Boston, whose guests over the years included Charles Dickens and John Wilkes Booth.

    As a cook there, Ho Chi Minh — the future leader of one of the most violent communist insurgencies the world would ever see — may well have made some of the hotel's signature dishes, such as the Boston cream pie and the Parker House roll, both of which were invented there. Ho Chi Minh wrote a postcard to a friend in France, mentioning his job there.
    We ate there years ago and the waitress told us the story. The article also mentions what I knew and forgot, that even at the end of WWI and the League of Nations, Asian countries that asked for support against the colonial regimes were rebuffed. Same after WWII.

    Racism against Asia might have contributed to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The anti-Asian immigration acts soured their view of us. There was lingering resentment over Admiral Perry and even though they lost WWII, some thought it was legit payback for the forced armed opening of their country. Not excusing it, just explaining. After WWII, the Allies carved up the Ottoman Empire but resisted Japanese claims to some of the German Pacific territories, esp. in China.

    So, Jeep - do you have (in all good will) Boston Cream Pie on your face!

    Back to VN - read an analysis of the strategic hamlet program. Absolute failure as it didn't understand the local economy and culture. When DARPA behavioral experts documented that, the Army had them fired and brought in paid consultants who decided it was a wonderful program. A friend of mine was an Army doc in VietNam and we were discussing it. He said, they all knew it and shut up. He carried one of those black Swedish/SW clone 9mm subguns.

  2. #102
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    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer View Post
    Back to VN - read an analysis of the strategic hamlet program. Absolute failure as it didn't understand the local economy and culture. When DARPA behavioral experts documented that, the Army had them fired and brought in paid consultants who decided it was a wonderful program. A friend of mine was an Army doc in VietNam and we were discussing it. He said, they all knew it and shut up. He carried one of those black Swedish/SW clone 9mm subguns.
    Does "Strategic hamlet program" refer to the Marine CAP units as well? My understanding is those were overwhelmingly successful, not just through studies but also primary sources.
    "Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer

  3. #103
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    Japan started the war in the Pacific for economic reasons. It is essential to realize that Japan is extremely poor in natural resources such as iron, copper, oil, etc. The reverence for the katana and how it is made overlooks why it is made that way. Good iron suitable for high carbon steel was scarce, so poorer, softer iron formed the spine and body of the blade while the scarce, good stuff was used to make the harder core and edge. When Japan was an agrarian, late medieval island that largely isolated itself from the world, it didn't matter. However, when Adm. Perry opened Japan to the rest of the world, their pride and sense of self meant they couldn't remain a backwards, 3rd world country. Japan has been, and largely still is highly racist. Every other race and country is inferior to Japan and the Japanese. So Japan started building factories, modernizing their military, etc. That meant a very lopsided trade deficit. They had to buy virtually all the raw materials they needed. So starting early in the 20th Century they determined that they needed to seize the sources. There were two competing plans, go north and get the resources from Siberia and Manchuria, or go south to SE Asia, Indonesia, etc. North meant conflict with Russia/USSR. South meant conflict with the UK, France, the Netherlands and the US. Their first moves were the invasion of Korea and China.

    This is important. The US response was not military, it was economic. We stopped selling them scrap metals and cut off their oil from SE Asia until they left China. Look at their choice from their perspective. If they gave in and withdrew from China, and their plans to seize the resources, Japan would have severely scale back their economy and accept that they were not #1. More like #99. That was unacceptable so their only choice was to go to war and seize what they needed. I'll go back to their plan, but keep this in mind. We've been using economic sanctions for many years as a central part of our foreign policy. Do what we like and you get favorable trade deals, grants, assistance, etc. Don't, and we boycott, sanction, etc. When they don't see themselves as having any option other than to knuckle under, they do. But you need to look at the situation from their perspective, not ours. One of these days, there will be another country or people who see war as a preferable, or the only acceptable option.

    Getting back to Japan. Japan needed resources. To take them, rather than pay for them, they had to conquer China and SE Asia. That meant war with France, the UK, and the Netherlands. To protect what they took, they would need to expand the range to take those islands from which their enemies could mount a counter attack. That meant the Philippines, New Guinea, the Solomons, and Australia. The Philippines would put them in direct conflict with the US. They never had a plan for invading the mainland US. They KNEW, and they knew it before they went to war that they couldn't defeat the US, all they could do was make it so painful and expensive to take everything back that we wouldn't do it. So that's why they attacked Hawaii, took the Philippines, took Wake, tried to take Midway, took the Solomons, and almost got New Guinea on their way to Australia. All because Japan didn't have the resources they needed to regain their rightful place in the hierarchy of nations.

  4. #104
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    Vietnam

    The US entered the civil war in S. Vietnam between the non-communist government and the Viet Cong insurgency with the stated goal of defeating the VC and stabilizing S. Vietnam. Invading, conquering, destroying, etc. N. Vietnam was never the US goal. Was that short sighted? Arguably, yes. Again, studying history is a good thing. I haven't done an exhaustive research for other examples of unconditional surrender, which was the goal in WWII, but suffice to say, it's rare. Most of the time, wars end as a result of negotiation. Someone loses territory, pays tribute, etc., but it continues to exist, national leadership frequently continues, there is no occupation. Rome destroyed Carthage. Judea/Israel was conquered and occupied, but that wasn't a peer-peer war. Rome was consolidating their control over the Mediterranean coast and securing a land route to Egypt. But in any event, we have forgotten world history and judged victory as an unconditional surrender by our opponents. So Korea became a war we didn't win. Vietnam was a war we didn't win. But those conclusions are either false or rely upon altered history.

    N. Korea invaded S. Korea, due in part to a flawed statement by the US Secretary of State Acheson that did not include S. Korea as one of those states that the US would defend with force of arms. So given the green light by Stalin, N. Korea invaded S. Korea and pushed defending US and S. Korean forces back to Pusan. In brief, Pusan was stabilized, then an amphibious invasion was successfully carried out at Inchon, the port city for the S. Korean capital, Seoul. N. Korean forces in the south were cut off and many were captured. Others were able to flee north. UN forces continued north with the purpose of defeating N. Korea. Crappy intelligence didn't observe the buildup of Chinese forces north of the Yalu river and their infiltration into N. Korea. The war started in June 1950. In November 1950 we had almost reached the Yalu when Chinese forces counterattacked and started the UN retreat. The war finally ended with a ceasefire back at the 38th Parallel, the original border. So why is Korea a loss? The goal was to restore the border at the 38th Parallel? When it looked like we could eliminate the N. Korean government and unite Korea, suddenly that was the goal and because the war "ended" at the original goal, it was a loss. So now, back to Vietnam.

    The Tet Offensive in January 1968 has been touted by the left as a sign that the US military had failed in Vietnam. The reality was that it was an absolute disaster for the Viet Cong. They were largely destroyed and were no longer an appreciable force in S. Vietnam. The insurgency was gone. The war continued, but it was NVA, Army of North Vietnam that fought it. Keep in mind the original goal. Assist the S. Vietnamese government in defeating the communist insurgency. That was accomplished. It has been said that the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail was unsuccessful. That is absolutely correct. Efforts to interdict or stop the infiltration of troops and supplies into the south through Laos, Cambodia, etc. were largely unsuccessful despite some successes. They kept getting through. So why did N. Vietnam finally go to the peace talks? Operation Linebacker II, the B-52 bombing of N. Vietnamese industrial sites and mining Haiphong harbor. N. Vietnam's war effort was almost totally dependent on supplies from the USSR and China. Cutting off those supplies tipped the balance.

    In March 1975, the NVA invaded S. Vietnam with more tanks than Germany had for the invasion of Russia in 1941. It was a conventional invasion, with conventional forces, not an insurgency, that defeated the ARVN forces. Post WWII, victory and defeat have largely been determined by moving the goal posts. Kennedy started the US involvement in Vietnam, it continued under Johnson and was finished under Nixon. The left, and the left controlled media successfully controlled the narrative and moved the goal posts. While the letter of our involvement was the defeat of the VC, the spirit of our presence was the preservation of S. Vietnam, just as we were committed to defending S. Korea and W. Germany. The military won the war in 1973. Democrat politics lost it in 1975 when US forces were not allowed to support S. Vietnam.

    And now the bigger picture. If you didn't grow up during the Cold War, or serve in the military during the Cold War, you may be missing that perspective. I was at K.I. Sawyer AFB during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. I remember the nuclear attack alerts. In grade school, we had duck and cover drills when you would hide under your desks. I was at Elmendorf AFB in 1973 when Israel was advancing on Alexandria, the Russians were threatening to intervene and we went to DEFCON 3. In 1980, my ship spent almost our entire time at sea under EMCON conditions with no radar or radio transmissions to make it harder for the Russians to track us and we still had overflights by Bear bombers. Avoiding a nuclear war with Russia, and "winning" it if we had one, was the major concern for over 40 years. US aircraft could not pursue enemy aircraft into China during the Korean war. We couldn't invade and defeat N. Vietnam during that war. All because there was a constant dance to avoid going too far and provoke a Russian response that could escalate to WWIII. That overshadowed everything we did for 40 years and no military actions can be analyzed without keeping that in mind.

  5. #105
    Quote Originally Posted by TGS View Post
    Does "Strategic hamlet program" refer to the Marine CAP units as well? My understanding is those were overwhelmingly successful, not just through studies but also primary sources.
    That was the "inkblot" campaign and if given enough time to work would have probably been sucessful. It didn't fit with senior officers preconcieved ideas of war though so...... not given a chance to succeed.

  6. #106
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jeep View Post
    Glen: I agree that it was a strategic and tactical mistake. Once we are in, though, it is best to win the wars we fight. We could have won that one without occupying the North, just like Korea. And the crappy authoritarian regime would have morphed into a tolerably democratic one, like Korea. Moreover, a lot of good Vietnamese, Cambodians, Meo, and Montagnard's who trusted our promises wouldn't have been executed.

    I don't think that there was enough of a national interest to fight in Vietnam or Laos. But, once we were in we should have won the war--which despite a lot of armchair civilian pontifications could have been done relatively easily. Cut your enemy off from supply and they collapse, and cutting off North Vietnam from supply was not difficult at all. And failing to win wars because of what the world perceives to be a lack of will just leads to more wars in the future.

    Unfortunately, we not only got involved for reasons that remain nebulous, the tactics we used--which were imposed by LBJ and Robert McNamara (at the recommendations of numerous DC grandees)--were brain dead. They were the classic tactics used by mandarins who have a pool of free draftees to use as cannon fodder with no possible risks to themselves.
    I'm sorry but I have to disagree with your assessment that the war in Viet Nam could have been won by us. We were able to keep the Communists from turning the whole Korean peninsula red because it is a peninsula. We had complete control in the waters that surrounded Korea, so there was no way for the Communists to keep pouring in the supplies needed to wage war except over land routes.

    Now, look at all the feeder routes the NVA used to move supplies into the south. The Chinese and and North Vietnamese communists would have just kept sending supplies the same way, even if the two RR bridges coming from China had been put out of action and Haiphong mined. For both of those countries, waging war for twenty, thirty or more years would not have made any difference. There was no way that America was going to outlast them. Bomb them back to the Stone Age? In many ways, they still are now and were more so while we were fighting there.

    I read a book where the author ( sorry, can't remember the name or title) described seeing an American helicopter returning to base with an arrow sticking out of it's belly. The author opined that when he saw that, he knew we wouldn't win. Also, while many made disparaging remarks concerning Gen. MacArthur, he probably knew the Asian mindset better most Americans have or will. I believe the quote, "Do not become involved in a war on the Asian landmass," was attributed to him. In that, I have to agree.

  7. #107
    Quote Originally Posted by fastreb View Post
    I'm sorry but I have to disagree with your assessment that the war in Viet Nam could have been won by us. We were able to keep the Communists from turning the whole Korean peninsula red because it is a peninsula. We had complete control in the waters that surrounded Korea, so there was no way for the Communists to keep pouring in the supplies needed to wage war except over land routes.

    Now, look at all the feeder routes the NVA used to move supplies into the south. The Chinese and and North Vietnamese communists would have just kept sending supplies the same way, even if the two RR bridges coming from China had been put out of action and Haiphong mined. For both of those countries, waging war for twenty, thirty or more years would not have made any difference. There was no way that America was going to outlast them. Bomb them back to the Stone Age? In many ways, they still are now and were more so while we were fighting there.

    I read a book where the author ( sorry, can't remember the name or title) described seeing an American helicopter returning to base with an arrow sticking out of it's belly. The author opined that when he saw that, he knew we wouldn't win. Also, while many made disparaging remarks concerning Gen. MacArthur, he probably knew the Asian mindset better most Americans have or will. I believe the quote, "Do not become involved in a war on the Asian landmass," was attributed to him. In that, I have to agree.
    fastreb: Let me explain why I don't agree with you. First, the war in the South was not much of a guerilla war after 1965, and after the Tet offensive of 1968 the Viet Cong were smashes and much less effective. The war was largely being fought by PAVN (NVA) regulars, and where there was no PAVN presence the Viet Cong presence was starting to evaporate. And while PAVN did not use nearly the amount of munitions as the US forces did, it used a lot. All that had to be supplied down the trail, and it included a lot of food because PAVN could no long get most of its food from taxes on South Vietnamese peasants. In addition, the trail took an enormous investment in infrastructure and manpower. They were able to keep it open despite our air attacks, but the investment was huge.

    Basically 100% of the military supplies came through Haiphong and Sihanoukville in Cambodia off East Bloc freighters. Chinese aid decreased markedly because of Mao's Cultural Revolution starting in 1965 and getting worse after that. While some aid did come over those RR bridges, it was a relatively small amount since China's railroads were a mess at the time and since Russia and China were getting closer to war with each other (they fought a nasty border war on the Amur in 1969 if I have my dates correct). We knocked out Sihanoukville in 1970 with the incursion into Cambodia and the overthrow of Sihanouk. That meant that 100% of the material (less the small amounts smuggled south on junks and sampans, which the USN pretty effectively interdicted) had to be landed in Haiphong. When we finally took the gloves off in 1972 and mined Haiphong Harbor, the enormous PAVN force on the trail and in SVN was out of supply. Hanoi rapidly agreed to peace terms--which it proceeded to break as soon as we de-mined Haiphong.

    The truth is that no matter how determined Hanoi was, it could not perform magic, and an army that is out of supply needs supply. The Japanese in New Guinea and many other places in 1944-45 showed that. The literally starved to death and lacked the ability to fight our forces.

    Was there another potential supply channel? No. The only possible one was to greatly increase the number of roads and railroads to NVN from China. But the terrain was/is very difficult and it would have taken years. Moreover, during the Cultural Revolution China had no capacity to do any such thing. Finally, Hanoi did not want greater Chinese access. The Vietnamese--and especially the North Vietnamese (the Tonkinese)--hate and fear the Chinese for some very good historic reasons. LBJ and his aides got us heavily involved in Vietnam because they somehow thought it was in danger of coming under Chinese control. That was never a possibility--the Chinese did give them some aid, but Hanoi primarily relied on, and sided with, the Soviet Union. There were Soviet officers travelling south on the trail to observe PAVN, but no Chinese officers.

    Blocking the trail was not possible--though we did a good job of making life miserable for the North Vietnamese and pushing them to their limits. Blocking military equipment coming into NVN and Cambodia was relatively easy. It would never have been a 100% barrier, but we did not need such a barrier, and when we stopped the imports in Sihanoukville and Haiphong we saw the result.

    So yes, the was could have been won--had we followed the classic military strategy of cutting an army off from supply. Instead, we followed a domestic political strategy of making as few waves as possible and we did not cut off Haiphong (or even bomb it)or Sihanoukville because the Johnson administration convinced itself that doing so would appear too militaristic and thus alienate some voters. Losing hundreds of dead every week in the end alienated many more voters and we lost the war as a result.

    This is not just my view. I was in the Army just after Saigon fell, and these facts were explained to me not by senior or junior officers (who all knew not to criticize the politicians) but by some highly intelligent senior Special Forces NCO's who had spent years in South East Asia (many had run recon on the trail), who understood war, who had cheered when we finally mined Haiphong Harbor (most military professionals cheered that) and had thought we finally intended to win. They were bitter when Congress cut off funding to SVN, which ensured its defeat in 1975. They thought that we had betrayed everyone we had made promises to but could have won if we followed basic military precepts instead of conducting a strategy designed to maximize this week's poll numbers.

  8. #108
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jeep View Post
    fastreb: Let me explain why I don't agree with you. First, the war in the South was not much of a guerilla war after 1965, and after the Tet offensive of 1968 the Viet Cong were smashes and much less effective. The war was largely being fought by PAVN (NVA) regulars, and where there was no PAVN presence the Viet Cong presence was starting to evaporate. And while PAVN did not use nearly the amount of munitions as the US forces did, it used a lot. All that had to be supplied down the trail, and it included a lot of food because PAVN could no long get most of its food from taxes on South Vietnamese peasants. In addition, the trail took an enormous investment in infrastructure and manpower. They were able to keep it open despite our air attacks, but the investment was huge.

    Basically 100% of the military supplies came through Haiphong and Sihanoukville in Cambodia off East Bloc freighters. Chinese aid decreased markedly because of Mao's Cultural Revolution starting in 1965 and getting worse after that. While some aid did come over those RR bridges, it was a relatively small amount since China's railroads were a mess at the time and since Russia and China were getting closer to war with each other (they fought a nasty border war on the Amur in 1969 if I have my dates correct). We knocked out Sihanoukville in 1970 with the incursion into Cambodia and the overthrow of Sihanouk. That meant that 100% of the material (less the small amounts smuggled south on junks and sampans, which the USN pretty effectively interdicted) had to be landed in Haiphong. When we finally took the gloves off in 1972 and mined Haiphong Harbor, the enormous PAVN force on the trail and in SVN was out of supply. Hanoi rapidly agreed to peace terms--which it proceeded to break as soon as we de-mined Haiphong.

    The truth is that no matter how determined Hanoi was, it could not perform magic, and an army that is out of supply needs supply. The Japanese in New Guinea and many other places in 1944-45 showed that. The literally starved to death and lacked the ability to fight our forces.

    Was there another potential supply channel? No. The only possible one was to greatly increase the number of roads and railroads to NVN from China. But the terrain was/is very difficult and it would have taken years. Moreover, during the Cultural Revolution China had no capacity to do any such thing. Finally, Hanoi did not want greater Chinese access. The Vietnamese--and especially the North Vietnamese (the Tonkinese)--hate and fear the Chinese for some very good historic reasons. LBJ and his aides got us heavily involved in Vietnam because they somehow thought it was in danger of coming under Chinese control. That was never a possibility--the Chinese did give them some aid, but Hanoi primarily relied on, and sided with, the Soviet Union. There were Soviet officers travelling south on the trail to observe PAVN, but no Chinese officers.

    Blocking the trail was not possible--though we did a good job of making life miserable for the North Vietnamese and pushing them to their limits. Blocking military equipment coming into NVN and Cambodia was relatively easy. It would never have been a 100% barrier, but we did not need such a barrier, and when we stopped the imports in Sihanoukville and Haiphong we saw the result.

    So yes, the was could have been won--had we followed the classic military strategy of cutting an army off from supply. Instead, we followed a domestic political strategy of making as few waves as possible and we did not cut off Haiphong (or even bomb it)or Sihanoukville because the Johnson administration convinced itself that doing so would appear too militaristic and thus alienate some voters. Losing hundreds of dead every week in the end alienated many more voters and we lost the war as a result.

    This is not just my view. I was in the Army just after Saigon fell, and these facts were explained to me not by senior or junior officers (who all knew not to criticize the politicians) but by some highly intelligent senior Special Forces NCO's who had spent years in South East Asia (many had run recon on the trail), who understood war, who had cheered when we finally mined Haiphong Harbor (most military professionals cheered that) and had thought we finally intended to win. They were bitter when Congress cut off funding to SVN, which ensured its defeat in 1975. They thought that we had betrayed everyone we had made promises to but could have won if we followed basic military precepts instead of conducting a strategy designed to maximize this week's poll numbers.
    We greatly hurt the NVA by mining Haiphong. That took away their easiest way of resupply. Linebacker II greatly diminished their supply of SAM missles. However, neither would have stopped the Communists from their determination to continue the war. The Chinese showed they would continue the struggle by their example of the 1937 retreat. Ho was organizing and fighting the Japanese all during WW II. He and the rest of the Communists continued to fight the French when they re-occupied the country. Finally, he was fighting us. Our cutting off the flow of supplies through Haiphong and Sihanoukville might have caused them delays, or even made them call off planned operations but it was never going to stop them from finding other routes and ways to resupply. Was it difficult for them? Absolutely! Manhandling artillery pieces up the side of mountains was also extremely difficult but they did it, then shelled Dien Bein Phu.

    You are exactly correct that the Vietnamese people, especially in the north, have no love for the Chinese. You are correct that the Chinese themselves were in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, with several factions trying to out-revolutionary the others. Then, there's also the fact that Russia and China were on edge against each other. All those factors were in play back then and did influence the resupply coming in for the North. From what I read, there were even times the Chinese stopped all shipments of aid, including Soviet supplies, heading to the North that was traveling through their country. Every single time they did so, they also turned the taps back on later. Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese were going to let the North fail in their objective. Get a bloody nose, maybe, but never fail.

    The fact is that with a long land border, there is no way to fully cut off supplies and infiltration routes. Couple that with the determination of the Communists to continue the fight, no matter how long it took, and you have no way to win short of cutting off the supplies at the supplier. We were never going to do that with either the Soviets or the Chinese.

    From my reading, our strategy was to fight long enough for the South to eventually be able to stand against the insurgency on its' own. With so many factors like the wide-spread corruption, the division of the people by so many different religions, even regions, etc., that strategy was doomed to fail even if given one hundred years to solidify. You have the same situation in Afghanistan. We could stay there for the next century and we'll still be fighting an insurgency.

  9. #109
    Quote Originally Posted by fastreb View Post
    We greatly hurt the NVA by mining Haiphong. That took away their easiest way of resupply. Linebacker II greatly diminished their supply of SAM missles. However, neither would have stopped the Communists from their determination to continue the war. The Chinese showed they would continue the struggle by their example of the 1937 retreat. Ho was organizing and fighting the Japanese all during WW II. He and the rest of the Communists continued to fight the French when they re-occupied the country. Finally, he was fighting us. Our cutting off the flow of supplies through Haiphong and Sihanoukville might have caused them delays, or even made them call off planned operations but it was never going to stop them from finding other routes and ways to resupply. Was it difficult for them? Absolutely! Manhandling artillery pieces up the side of mountains was also extremely difficult but they did it, then shelled Dien Bein Phu.

    You are exactly correct that the Vietnamese people, especially in the north, have no love for the Chinese. You are correct that the Chinese themselves were in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, with several factions trying to out-revolutionary the others. Then, there's also the fact that Russia and China were on edge against each other. All those factors were in play back then and did influence the resupply coming in for the North. From what I read, there were even times the Chinese stopped all shipments of aid, including Soviet supplies, heading to the North that was traveling through their country. Every single time they did so, they also turned the taps back on later. Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese were going to let the North fail in their objective. Get a bloody nose, maybe, but never fail.

    The fact is that with a long land border, there is no way to fully cut off supplies and infiltration routes. Couple that with the determination of the Communists to continue the fight, no matter how long it took, and you have no way to win short of cutting off the supplies at the supplier. We were never going to do that with either the Soviets or the Chinese.

    From my reading, our strategy was to fight long enough for the South to eventually be able to stand against the insurgency on its' own. With so many factors like the wide-spread corruption, the division of the people by so many different religions, even regions, etc., that strategy was doomed to fail even if given one hundred years to solidify. You have the same situation in Afghanistan. We could stay there for the next century and we'll still be fighting an insurgency.


    Again, the insurgency was effectively beaten in RVN, and the native SVN Viet Cong main force units were effectively destroyed (perhaps deliberately--many of the VC leaders were reluctant to take orders from PAVN commanders and their commissars and the Vietnamese Communist Party was thoroughly centralist). But for whatever reason, it was a spent force. The threat to RVN was the regular army division of the PAVN--the divisions that conquered the South in 1975. And those divisions could not have been maintained in RVN/Laos and Cambodia without the supply chain through Haiphong. They would have had to been pulled back and some of them demobilized (the war put a huge strain on NVN's economy--it was importing food as well as weapons and ammo from the Warsaw Pace because so many peasants were in uniform/dead).

    Without those divisions the war would have reverted to an insurgency--one in which a large percentage of the VC main force units had already been destroyed, the VCI had been crippled and the North Vietnamese units protecting it were largely gone. It is correct that a lower level guerilla war could have been continued, but the pull back of the PAVN regular army would have caused a huge loss in prestige in the VC and a big increase in prestige in the SVN government. Would some areas have remained under VC control? Yes. But Saigon's military could have contained and started reducing that, and the tensions between NVN and China that resulted in the 1979 war were already becoming obvious. Sometimes mere determination does not win wars.

    By the way, the reason why the Afghan war is unwinnable in not primarily because the Pushtun tribes are essentially ungovernable (true, but you really don't need to govern them very much so long as they just fight among themselves) but because Pakistan is supporting the Taliban, as it has done for the almost 30 years the Taliban has been in existence, and we are effectively giving it the money to do so. The fear, of course, is if we don't provide Pakistan with money it will go completely rogue and use its very dirty nukes on India.

    Had the Pakistanis not been supporting the Taliban, and had their support come only from the Russian, Iranians (and probably the Chinese) the insurgency would never have gained as much size. I suppose our strategy now is simply build up enough Harzara, Tajik, and anti-Taliban Pushtun military forces to keep the Taliban from overrunning the whole place after we leave (and thus unleashing some things that will look like genocide), but how that will work if the Pakis continue to support the Taliban, I don't know. Lots of people will continue to die no matter what happens.
    Last edited by Jeep; 11-16-2019 at 03:02 PM.

  10. #110
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    Re Post 102, strategic hamlets, and the CAP

    Before we made the RVN (Republic of Vietnam or South Vietnam) war against the DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam, North Vietnam) an American war some concern about how to wage war at the hamlet and village level got some attention. Based on the success of British COIN efforts to defeat "communist terrorists" in Malaya, creating strategic hamlets with more than just self defense capabilities but economic development got some push. Sir Robert Thompson - Brit expert - was posted to Saigon and initial efforts by the US to support such a rural development effort to help make strategic hamlets try to work.

    The Viet Minh (VM) never really left the South, though. Insurgents began undermining the new RVN. Gov't in the south started from scratch - legacy of colonialism notwithstanding - without the discipline or decades of organization under fire of the VM. Organization at the all the way down at the hamlet-level wasn't just the putative benefits of communism and Vietnamese nationalism but included brutal coercion (beheadings, disembowelments, etc) of low-level officials, school teachers, and the like.

    US Army Special Forces (SF) began a program in 1961 organizing mountain tribes - montagnards - to provide local defense and development. These tribes lived in the border regions between Vietnam and Cambodia or Laos. Ethnically and linguistically distinctive, these communities had supported French irregular efforts in the in the French war. Vietnamese authorities looked down on the hill people. But the border region was porous even then to efforts to move key people and weapons south over what would become the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Living among the montagnards, sharing their lives, bringing in civic action (wells, better breeds of pigs, most importantly village health workers), SF teams TDY from 'Bragg made great strides in mobilizing different Montagnards tribes.

    Efforts to mobilize the Montagnards went well. But there were very real limitations to what could accomplished with marginalized populations. As we've learned - again - as nation, killing a country's way to success in COIN works only if the country had the stomach for a Roman peace. Democracies do not have such a constitution. A Montagnards uprising or mutiny in 1964 demonstrated that such marginalize groups have their own agendas (like the Kurds? competing groups in Afghanistan?) at cross purposes with the larger issues of their nation. But Montagnards continued their relationship with SF throughout the war. Even now there are Montagnard refugees that have relocated to North Carolina to start new lives.

    The USMC began the Combined Action Program as an economy of force measure to establish better local security in the I Corps area of operations. Squads of volunteers - normally serving on extension - trained (and often helped lead) local security operations. Americans - marines and SF - had access to all important fire support and medevac through their radios. Both efforts while making hamlets, villages, and fortified camps safe then extending the reach of the RVN proved to be more light than heat since the RVN couldn't extend the reach of their programs or counter the insurgents day-in-day-out until after Tet.

    As an aside, pick a variable date for beginning the American war from allowing the assassination of the Diem brothers in fall 1963 to introduction of army and marine combat forces. These American forces would protect installations, airfields, while having the ability to project force through the new-ish air cav or inherent marine mobility from the sea or helicopter.

    This American war ultimately gave way to a different RVN war after Ten 1968 and Nixon's program of "Vietnamization." Between the defeat forced on the DRV's military and communist insurgents in the south, the RVN could with different American help push out into much more of the country. The RVN was by then, brittle (Afghanistan?) after decades of war, coups, fighting, and intrigue. A corrosive effect of the war having been made an American one remains harder to assess, but was very significant.

    Ultimately (as a previous post notes) even after demonstrating RVN resolve backed by American advisors and firepower during the Easter Offensive, the DRV overwhelmed the RVN in 1975 with a blitzkrieg just as the Germans overwhelmed their European opponents from the Poles to the French. American perfidy made the RVN defeat possible. Our promises of aid, ammunition, and firepower were undercut by the change in the American Congress and public.

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