What alternative policies could the President (whoever they were- though hoping it would not be the crook) have adopted on taking office in 1969 which would have ensured less damage to the people of Vietnam and less damage to the US's reputation?
Was 1969 too late do minimize damage of Vietmam
- Thread starter Derek Jackson
- Start date
You could go in one of two ways - either declare victory and pull out asap; obviously that would be a highly dangerous test of the "Domino theory". Alternatively, go all-out to win, mining Haiphong, bombing Hanoi in the style of the December 1972 air raids, and close the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Of course that entails the risk of Russian & Chinese intervention.
Yes, on both accounts.
There were already a million dead from US bombing and military intervention in South Vietnam, and the country's civil society and infrastructure was shattered. The atrocities the US military committed against the Vietnamese peasantry and the NLF only served to make the country sufficiently devastated for the eventual take over by the Stalinist commissars in the thoroughly clientized North Vietnam.
The Tet Offensive had already obliterated the mystique about the war, and the unveiling of atrocities like My Lai had made the war far too costly in political terms for the elite.
There were already a million dead from US bombing and military intervention in South Vietnam, and the country's civil society and infrastructure was shattered. The atrocities the US military committed against the Vietnamese peasantry and the NLF only served to make the country sufficiently devastated for the eventual take over by the Stalinist commissars in the thoroughly clientized North Vietnam.
The Tet Offensive had already obliterated the mystique about the war, and the unveiling of atrocities like My Lai had made the war far too costly in political terms for the elite.
Hold everything
If the war was lost in 69, why did 200000 Viet Cong switch sides in the last 4 years? Why was a full scale northern invasion defeated in 1972?
Source Anthony Joes Resisting Rebellion and Sir Robert Thompson's Peace is not at hand. The counterinsurgency stragty of Nixion almost worked.
If the war was lost in 69, why did 200000 Viet Cong switch sides in the last 4 years? Why was a full scale northern invasion defeated in 1972?
Source Anthony Joes Resisting Rebellion and Sir Robert Thompson's Peace is not at hand. The counterinsurgency stragty of Nixion almost worked.
Orville_third
Banned
What of the "Small War" theory? That could have helped the US maintain a hold in Vietnam- with fewer forces. (Despite my disagreement with Max Boot's neoconservative ideology, his "The Savage Wars of Peace" was an informative and interesting book.)
Best chance would've been before '69, when Eisenhower shoulda told the Frenchy's to go F themselves when they tried to blackmail the US in funding there reacquisition of Indo-China. Then turned around and have a sit down with Ho Chi Minh and ask him what would it take for him to side with us, while sticking it to the Chinese and the Soviets.
Riain
Banned
It was not too late to minimise OTL damage of Vietnam in 1969, I'd think at lot of damage was done between 1969 and 1975. Personally I'd go for what occured in 1972, the linebacker/mining offensives in 1969 and call it the post Tet counter offensive. IIRC the VC/NVA copped a tactical hiding during Tet and a good offensive aimed at the north in January 1969 could drive them to the bargaining table far more effectively that the OTL drawdown after Tet.