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Who won the Vietnam War?

Who won the Vietnam War?

  • The French

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The British

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The Americans

    Votes: 6 6.1%

  • The Canadians

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The Chinese

    Votes: 3 3.0%

  • The Russians

    Votes: 3 3.0%

  • The Japanese

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The Vietnamese

    Votes: 46 46.5%

  • No one

    Votes: 23 23.2%

  • Other

    Votes: 18 18.2%
  • Total voters
    99
StillBallin75 said:
Well, I actually WAS being sarcastic. If a war doesn't have the public's full support behind it, it likely isn't a very good policy decision. In which case the blame lies with the policymakers, not the people who are against the war, because if you fight stupid wars there NECESSARILY WILL BE PEOPLE OUT THERE TO PROTEST IT. Vietnam was a stupid war. The war was lost from the moment JFK decided to become involved. Even if we had "won" the war, we still would have lost because the sacrifice simply would not have been worth it. It was simply a mistake to get involved in the first place, and everything that the policymakers decided to do after that simply compounded their original error.
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i know you were, which is why i mentioned it. And i just simply disagree with you. The sacrifice would have been very little if the American's were actually able to fight to win. We suffer the same problem's with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. NO war is going to have the public's full support, especially the counter culture of the hippies who lived in Nitrous Oxide Land would oppose any war no matter what. Liberals/Media war policies and rules lost us the war and dragged it out for 7 years killing more American lives, pure and simple.
 
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The sacrifice would have been very little if the American's were actually able to fight to win. We suffer the same problem's with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
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Believe it or not, America just isn't able to impose her will on any situation and make it happen the way she wants to. The are limits to American power, and there are limits to armed force. At the end of the day, the North Vietnamese should be given some damn credit. Their will to fight outlasted ours, simply because they had more at stake than we did.

As for Iraq and Afghanistan, those wars are dragging out because nation-building and counterinsurgency are simply really hard.

NO war is going to have the public's full support, especially the counter culture of the hippies who lived in Nitrous Oxide Land would oppose any war no matter what.
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100% support is a bit much to ask, but I believe wars are only truly worth it if the vast majority backs it. A benchmark for whether or not a war is worth fighting, or if it is a quote-unquote "good" war, is to ask yourself if you yourself would be willing to go fight, or if you would send your child or a loved one to go fight. Given a particular war, if you ask all Americans the above questions and the vast majority answer "yes," then it is a war worth fighting and a cause worth dying for.

Liberals/Media war policies and rules lost us the war and dragged it out for 7 years killing more American lives, pure and simple.
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The liberals and the media don't make or craft policy. The POLICYMAKERS make policy. A stupid war is a stupid war, and a bad idea is a bad idea. Blame the people who came up with the bad idea, not the people who criticize it because they recognize it for what it is. The media does play a role in how public opinion about the war is shaped, but they don't dictate how the war is executed. To blame the media and the left for the failure that was Vietnam is ridiculous.
 
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Wiseone said:
Thats not so true. The North Vietnamese were bigger allies with the USSR than the Chinese, and during the Sino-Soviet split chose to ally with the USSR instead. China invaded North Vietnam in 1979 and was soundly defeated. Of course China helped out North Vietnam during the war because it wanted to get America out and in the early parts of the war the Chinese Soviet relations were pretty good, but since Vietnam became dependant on Russia and not China like North Korea had, it wasn't an ideal end.
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I guess that's why the North Vietnamese used more Chinese weapons than Soviet weapons.
 
Depends on your point of view.

From a military point of view, the United States won the war. The North Vietnamese Communists certainly achieved their objective of conquering the south and creating a unified Vietnam, ruled by the Communist party, but not because of anything they did, or anything they accomplished. You could almost say they got it on accident, because they military speaking, they got their asses handed to them everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.
 
It's a bit of a myth that we weren't allowed to fight to win. We dropped a ton of ordance on VN. We killed a lot of people. What was required to pacify the country would have beens omething close to genocide. What you spend "to win" has to be in someway related to need. VN held no importance that would justify such an expenditure of life. The blame lies with those who took us to war there for no real reason or justification. Much like Iraq, we need just cause to spend lives and should never do so with out that cause. Blaming those for opposing such a poorly reasoned effort is kind of like your mom for you being a drug adict because she told you drugs were bad.
 
Boo Radley said:
It's a bit of a myth that we weren't allowed to fight to win. We dropped a ton of ordance on VN. We killed a lot of people. What was required to pacify the country would have beens omething close to genocide. What you spend "to win" has to be in someway related to need. VN held no importance that would justify such an expenditure of life. The blame lies with those who took us to war there for no real reason or justification. Much like Iraq, we need just cause to spend lives and should never do so with out that cause. Blaming those for opposing such a poorly reasoned effort is kind of like your mom for you being a drug adict because she told you drugs were bad.
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It's not that we weren't allowed to fight to win, but the tactics being employed were too ****ty to win. It's what happens when politicians try to play tactician. Defensive strategies are rarely successful.
 
apdst said:
Depends on your point of view.

From a military point of view, the United States won the war. The North Vietnamese Communists certainly achieved their objective of conquering the south and creating a unified Vietnam, ruled by the Communist party, but not because of anything they did, or anything they accomplished. You could almost say they got it on accident, because they military speaking, they got their asses handed to them everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.
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From a purely military sense, the United States won every battle and every tactical engagement. We didn't win "the war." If you're the New England Patriots and you win every regular season game, that perfect record doesn't mean **** if you lose to the Giants in the SuperBowl. So whether or not the US won in a military sense is irrelevant.
 
StillBallin75 said:
From a purely military sense, the United States won every battle and every tactical engagement. We didn't win "the war." If you're the New England Patriots and you win every regular season game, that perfect record doesn't mean **** if you lose to the Giants in the SuperBowl. So whether or not the US won in a military sense is irrelevant.
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From a purely military sense, we did win the war. We won the super bowl of the war, too, which in my opinion would be the Easter Offensive. It wasn't until we left, that the North was able to launch another offensive, two years later. The only reason that offensive was successful, is because the ARVN just plain ran out of beans, bullets and gas.

Militarily, we won the war and politically speaking, we quit the war. At no time were we ever forced into any position by the North Vietnamese Army.
 
Vietnam was lost before the war even started. In 1945, the U.S. decided to throw its sanity out the window and decided to give Vietnam back to France as a colony. That seriously undermined our credibility as anything other that imperialist hypocrites, while simultaneously requiring that the Vietnamese turn to the USSR for weapons. In 1954 when Ho Chi Minh manged to win, the U.S. once again managed to screw it up horribly. The sensible policy would be to treat Ho like another Tito, which was especially credible considering his primary fear was the Chinese at that point. Instead we split the country in half, installed a puppet and ignored the mandated national referendum because we knew Diem would lose.

By the time the actual war started, it was already pointless. The South was filled with corrupt idiots who only cared about grabbing U.S. aid for personal power. The North had ruthless nationalists determined to reunite the country regardless of losses. China also prevented any serious action against the north. It was essentially like playing football when all you can do is play defense and your teammates don't give a damn about the game.

Domino theory ultimately proved to be one of the most moronic ideas of all time. It not only failed to prevent the spread of communism, it actively promoted it. War instability and the need for soviet weapons all made communism far more appealing than simply leaving the region alone.
 
apdst said:
From a purely military sense, we did win the war. We won the super bowl of the war, too, which in my opinion would be the Easter Offensive. It wasn't until we left, that the North was able to launch another offensive, two years later. The only reason that offensive was successful, is because the ARVN just plain ran out of beans, bullets and gas.

Militarily, we won the war and politically speaking, we quit the war. At no time were we ever forced into any position by the North Vietnamese Army.
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All i'm saying is that it's irrelevant if you play hard and outscore the opponent for three quarters and then quit in the fourth. Whether or not the NVA "forced" the US into quitting doesn't make damned bit of difference. Our Vietnam policy was doomed from the day the West decided to hand Vietnam to the French. The Easter Offensive didn't mean jack **** in the grand scheme of things, because that happened in the third quarter.
 
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StillBallin75 said:
Believe it or not, America just isn't able to impose her will on any situation and make it happen the way she wants to. The are limits to American power, and there are limits to armed force. At the end of the day, the North Vietnamese should be given some damn credit. Their will to fight outlasted ours, simply because they had more at stake than we did.

As for Iraq and Afghanistan, those wars are dragging out because nation-building and counterinsurgency are simply really hard.



100% support is a bit much to ask, but I believe wars are only truly worth it if the vast majority backs it. A benchmark for whether or not a war is worth fighting, or if it is a quote-unquote "good" war, is to ask yourself if you yourself would be willing to go fight, or if you would send your child or a loved one to go fight. Given a particular war, if you ask all Americans the above questions and the vast majority answer "yes," then it is a war worth fighting and a cause worth dying for.



The liberals and the media don't make or craft policy. The POLICYMAKERS make policy. A stupid war is a stupid war, and a bad idea is a bad idea. Blame the people who came up with the bad idea, not the people who criticize it because they recognize it for what it is. The media does play a role in how public opinion about the war is shaped, but they don't dictate how the war is executed. To blame the media and the left for the failure that was Vietnam is ridiculous.
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:roll: I'm sure your aware that America was not able to target main strategic points in all these wars due to our war policies. If we treated a war like a war and not pretend it's like backyard wrestling with penalty boxes, we would have won and with very little sacrifice.
My girlfriend is in the Air-force and she sat in on a Vietnam veteran-pilot guest speaker and he basically talked the whole time on how the Vietnamese knew exactly what all our war restrictions were. In response they would stock weapons in hospitals and dams because they knew we were not allowed to strike them. As a result more lives were lost and we stayed there for 7 years.
My father was in the Vietnam war and he signed up himself as soon as he knew they needed people. Right out of high-school he was going to college, but he stopped, all for his country and went into the Air force; spent 2 years there while his best friends died. He was welcomed back to the country with spits in the face and being called a baby killer.
It is widely misinterpreted that there was not a lot of support for the war. Actually, the majority of the educated people in America did support it.

The media was the sole manipulator showing people for the first time the horrors of war. This war was no different then any other in it's gruesomeness, but since this is the first "living room" war it showed people who were completely ignorant and innocent to what war truly means, and manipulated people against it. The emotion driven from the media clouded the values of the American people to back their soldiers up.
 
celticwar17 said:
:roll: I'm sure your aware that America was not able to target main strategic points in all these wars due to our war policies. If we treated a war like a war and not pretend it's like backyard wrestling with penalty boxes, we would have won and with very little sacrifice.
My girlfriend is in the Air-force and she sat in on a Vietnam veteran-pilot guest speaker and he basically talked the whole time on how the Vietnamese knew exactly what all our war restrictions were. In response they would stock weapons in hospitals and dams because they knew we were not allowed to strike them. As a result more lives were lost and we stayed there for 7 years.
My father was in the Vietnam war and he signed up himself as soon as he knew they needed people. Right out of high-school he was going to college, but he stopped, all for his country and went into the Air force; spent 2 years there while his best friends died. He was welcomed back to the country with spits in the face and being called a baby killer.
It is widely misinterpreted that there was not a lot of support for the war. Actually, the majority of the educated people in America did support it.

The media was the sole manipulator showing people for the first time the horrors of war. This war was no different then any other in it's gruesomeness, but since this is the first "living room" war it showed people who were completely ignorant and innocent to what war truly means, and manipulated people against it. The emotion driven from the media clouded the values of the American people to back their soldiers up.
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Sure, I can agree with some of that. None of that has any bearing on whether or not a war is worth fighting in the first place, which is my personal concern.

Edit: I wouldn't call showing images of the war to ordinary Americans "manipulating" them to be against the war, rather it is as you put it, to show them war's true nature. It is horrible, it is terrifying, it is bloody. Showing someone the truth is not "manipulating" them, it is the truth. Those images on a television screen should be a lesson to all Americans that war is not pretty, and that military force should not be casually deployed (because armed forces is never okay unless it's the last resort) simply because some policymaker thinks it's his business what form of government the Vietnamese people want for themselves.
 
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StillBallin75 said:
All i'm saying is that it's irrelevant if you play hard and outscore the opponent for three quarters and then quit in the fourth. Whether or not the NVA "forced" the US into quitting doesn't make damned bit of difference. Our Vietnam policy was doomed from the day the West decided to hand Vietnam to the French. The Easter Offensive didn't mean jack **** in the grand scheme of things, because that happened in the third quarter.
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But, it was still the last offensive the North launched and they lost their asses. At no point, did the North have the upper hand, militarily over U.S. forces.
 
apdst said:
It's not that we weren't allowed to fight to win, but the tactics being employed were too ****ty to win. It's what happens when politicians try to play tactician. Defensive strategies are rarely successful.
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Not sure that is true. Can you be more specific?
 
celticwar17 said:
:roll: I'm sure your aware that America was not able to target main strategic points in all these wars due to our war policies. If we treated a war like a war and not pretend it's like backyard wrestling with penalty boxes, we would have won and with very little sacrifice.
My girlfriend is in the Air-force and she sat in on a Vietnam veteran-pilot guest speaker and he basically talked the whole time on how the Vietnamese knew exactly what all our war restrictions were. In response they would stock weapons in hospitals and dams because they knew we were not allowed to strike them. As a result more lives were lost and we stayed there for 7 years.
My father was in the Vietnam war and he signed up himself as soon as he knew they needed people. Right out of high-school he was going to college, but he stopped, all for his country and went into the Air force; spent 2 years there while his best friends died. He was welcomed back to the country with spits in the face and being called a baby killer.
It is widely misinterpreted that there was not a lot of support for the war. Actually, the majority of the educated people in America did support it.

The media was the sole manipulator showing people for the first time the horrors of war. This war was no different then any other in it's gruesomeness, but since this is the first "living room" war it showed people who were completely ignorant and innocent to what war truly means, and manipulated people against it. The emotion driven from the media clouded the values of the American people to back their soldiers up.
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The media, as a whole, was against the war and they used their power of the print to undermine the war at every turn. The unfortunate part, is that they probably succeeded in extending the war by 5 years and cause South Vietnam to be overrun by the North. Walter Cronkite is probably one of the biggest traiterous mother****ers in the history of the United States.
 
Mayor Snorkum said:
No one won it.

The US acheived it's goal of making the South militarily self-sufficient, with the premise that the US would continue to supply war materiel as needed. Two years after the US combat troops left Vietnam, the South was defeated, mainly because the Democrat Congress in it's euphoria at having unseated Nixon naturally stabbed America's ally in the back.

The NORTH Vietnamese achieved their goal of enslaving those in the South as didn't manage to escape.

Those that have escaped that I've talked to say the Vietnamese lost the war. Since half the Vietnamese won, half lost, that adds up to zero.

The French haven't won a war since Austerlitz.

The Russians got what they wanted.
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Most of the Republicans were against sending more aids as well. By that time few felt that sending more military aids were going to win the South Vietnamese the war, merely so that America would not be seen as abadoning its ally - it was a "moral obligation". And the North Vietnamese won. That they won two years after the Americans left the stage doesn't change the fact that they won.
 
apdst said:
But, it was still the last offensive the North launched and they lost their asses. At no point, did the North have the upper hand, militarily over U.S. forces.
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Again, none of that **** really matters. From a policy/strategy standpoint, which is pretty much the only one that really counts, we lost. Even if we had "won" the war militarily and unified Vietnam under the RVN, America still would have lost in the long run (strategically) because it really wouldn't have made a lick of difference in the lives of ordinary Americans. It didn't advance our interests, it didn't make Americans safer, it sure as hell didn't do a lot of favors for the Vietnamese. That's what I mean by strategic error. Some wars are just not meant to be fought.
 
apdst said:
I shouldn't have to be, unless one is totally clueless.
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That's a cop out. What I question is your understanding. I need clarity of what it is you are refering to.
 
jamesthebond said:
A very strange poll. So if North Korea had won in Korean war it would have been a victory of Koreans? Of course, Communists won the war in Vietnam.

And what sense in listing nations? As well Gonduras or Serbia could be in the list.
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All the nations listed have been involved in Vietnam IIRC.

Let me just apologise for using the word 'funny' in the OP. I don't think war is funny. It is pretty sad actually considering all the lives lost and bodies maimed.
 
Boo Radley said:
That's a cop out. What I question is your understanding. I need clarity of what it is you are refering to.
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What apdst really means is defensive tactics and operations. In terms of grand strategy, occupying a foreign country can hardly be called a defensive action.
 
StillBallin75 said:
Again, none of that **** really matters. From a policy/strategy standpoint, which is pretty much the only one that really counts, we lost. Even if we had "won" the war militarily and unified Vietnam under the RVN, America still would have lost in the long run (strategically) because it really wouldn't have made a lick of difference in the lives of ordinary Americans. It didn't advance our interests, it didn't make Americans safer, it sure as hell didn't do a lot of favors for the Vietnamese. That's what I mean by strategic error. Some wars are just not meant to be fought.
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Stop the spin, I'm getting dizzy.
 
StillBallin75 said:
What apdst really means is defensive tactics and operations. In terms of grand strategy, occupying a foreign country can hardly be called a defensive action.
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It can't be done on your home turf, either. It didn't work worth a damn for the Confederates.
 
apdst said:
It can't be done on your home turf, either. It didn't work worth a damn for the Confederates.
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It can, it just doesn't always work. Sure as hell worked during the Revolutionary War.
 
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