Originally Posted by
Jeep
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.