HIST 217 History of War

Vietnam War
Alena Papayanis, PhD

Prologue to last week

End of WWII brings 45 years of uneasy peace
Two superpowers emerge: each with opposing

political and economic systems

Shadow of nuclear weapons
Destruction of colonial empires of the West
Science as dominant theme in warfare

Aftermath of WWII
1940s+ goal of deterring Soviet Union

and containing the Communist world

Lead to Korean and Vietnam Wars

(among other conflicts)

U.S. pushed limits of technology: cruise

missiles, mini nuclear weapons, ballistic

missiles, computer revolution
Soviet Union: disadvantaged and fell

behind

The Cold War (1947-1991)

Political and military tension between Western

Bloc (U.S.) and Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union)

Threatened with mutual assured destruction

(MAD)
Fought through proxy wars
Also includes the Space Race
Irony: Cold War brought stability

The Vietnam War: Background

19th C. French expansion into Indo-China
French education in Vietnam creating Vietnamese

nationalists
French defeated by Japan (1945)
Six months later, Japanese surrender to

Nationalist Chinese troops (North)

British moved into South to disarm Japan

The Vietnam War, Part 2

1954 Eisenhower decided that not worth trying

to defeat the Viet Minh

However policy allowed U.S. to slip towards

involvement
Anti-communist regime in SV set up
U.S. helped SV establish a conventional army

to defeat a conventional invasion (p. 350)

The Vietnam War, Part 2

NV launched a campaign of infiltration,

political action, and military and logistical

support for an insurrection to overthrow the
regime in South Vietnam (p. 350)
Insurgency spread
1961 JFK: pay any price, bear any burden to

defeat communism

The Vietnam War, Part 2

U.S. military not prepared for the Viet Minh

Prepared for conventional or nuclear war

Not prepared for politicized guerilla war in
terrain of Southeast Asia

Did not learn lessons of the conflict

One-year tour of duties and lacked knowledge of

Vietnamese culture and language

The Vietnam War, Part 2

Robert McNamara (photo

from 1961)
Statistical and systems

analysis to eliminate
uncertainties

The Vietnam War, Part 2

Numbers game

Number of enemy dead and wounded

Number of battalion-days in combat

Tons of bombs dropped

Tons of cargo moved

Meaningless in judging progress of the war

The American military command thought this was like

any other war: you searched out the enemy, fixed him,
killed him and went home.
The only measure of the war the Americans were
interested in was quantitative, and quantitatively,
given the immense American fire power, helicopters,
fighter-bombers, and artillery pieces, it went very well.
That the body count might be a misleading indicator
did not penetrate the command; large stacks of dead
Vietcong were taken as signs of success.
That the French statistics had also been very good
right up until 1954, when they gave up, made no
impression. (Timothy B. Lee)

The Vietnam War, Part 2

Clip from Fog of War
Kennedy pursued active and aggressive policy

in Vietnam
Underestimated opponents and overestimated

Saigon allies

The Vietnam War, Part 2

Rosy war vs. deteriorating situation
Lyndon Johnson
1964 resistance in South collapsing, launches

air raids against NVA (Gulf of Tonkin)

No fear of American firepower
Rolling Thunder

The Vietnam War, Part 2

Contempt for past experience

Ignored French after-action study

Repeated the same mistakes and refused to
learn

Resulted in destruction of the countryside with

no tactical purpose: search and destroy

missions vs. political war

The Vietnam War, Part 2

Statistical approach dominated American view
Eg) Body counts
My Lai massacre
Cleared whole areas of country
Allowed U.S. the illusion of military victory

(p. 353)

The Vietnam War, Part 2

Provided men through the draft, but best and

brightest could escape service (through

exemptions)
Burden fell on poor black and white Americans

Tet and After

NV launched massive assault, the Tet

Offensive, on SV cities (1968)

Military disaster for the North
However Tet showed Americans the graveness

of the conflict, without government

explanation
Vietnam and TV News

Tet and After

Military moves meet political protests at home
NVA and U.S. negotiate, U.S. can withdraw

with some dignity (p. 355) then NVA pull out

of it
Paris Peace Accord in 1973 fail
1975 NVA offensive against the South, it

collapsed; NV unified Vietnam under their

control

Tet and After

Vietnam War as sobering experience(p. 356)
First loss in recent memory
No strategic assessment of opponent or costs
Underestimated ideological commitment of

Vietnamese
Cost to American values and self-esteem (p.

356)

So what would you say

Are some of the mistakes the U.S. made in

Vietnam?

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Three Servicemen
Statue

Womens
Memorial

Vietnam in popular culture

The Deerhunter
Full Metal Jacket
Platoon
Apocalypse Now
What do they tell you about the war or the

era?