What is the main reason why the U.S. lost the Vietnam War?

Question

What is the main reason why the U.S. lost the Vietnam War?

Answer 1

I agree with Paul B. I was there, for two tours. We were in the North, many of us, it was a little know front. I was with a Ranger/special forces unit that was training the Hmong tactics.

     We fought savagely for survival because we were expected to take control of something we had no handle on. No or few supplies, we ran if we didn't at first succeed, we were at the enemies mercy. We couldn't even get our wounded out. I was shot twice and had to "take it"

      When we left, it was running for our lives to the South, blowing bridges and roads, setting boobie traps and hoping like h**l they didn't catch us, you didn't want to know what they did to captives.

        I would like to have seem Nixon, McNamara and a few of their cronies with us.

Answer 2

If the USA was willing to drop another atomic bomb to the N Vietnam like it had done to Japan, the war could have been over immediately and the USA could have won this war.

Regardless, the consequences of war is losing lives, and I would prefer to make it a decisive one to shorten the length of  war.

I personally appreciate the decision of the USA to stop the Japanese invasion by using this powerful bombs, yes, it had killed many lives and yet it had saved even more lives.  I wondered why the USA didnt use this powerful bombs in the Vietnam war to save Vietnam from falling into the communist hand and to avoid the majority of the USA soldiers from being tortured mentally and physically by this war and to save the lives of both the USA soldiers and innocent Vietnames  

If the then political leaders of S. Vientnam were corrupt, the USA could replace those corrupted leaders after the war was over, but first, had to win the war fast and clean.

With so many preservations, how  the USA was able to win this war.  This war was destined  a loser.

Answer 3

Because of protests. Because the people got it stopped. Yanks think that they are the greatest, but when the body bags started coming back they began to think. The draft was the main reason that it failed. We, in the UK, have a lot to thank Wilson for for keeping us out of it. I wish that Blair had such guts. But, of course, he's a Christian.

Answer 4

I agree with J.S. The American administration failed to "empathize" with the enemy. If they did they would have realised that it was a civil war they were getting involved in, and not the spread of Communism throughout Asia as they feared. The north Vietnamese people where prepared to sacrifice everyone and go to any extreme length for their cause, the American's where not.

Answer 5

Their policy for conducting the war was dependent on the decisions of politicians who were more concerned with voters at home than winning the war. The overwhealming superiority of US airpower was hamstrung by rules of engaement that were fully exploited by the Vietnamese.

Their allies on the ground wer corrupt and incompetent.

If the US had listened to the general's advice it would have been over quickly-Hanoi bombed into the stone age, bases in Cambodia attacked early on and repeatedly, an invasion of the north rather than waiting behind the DMZ.

PS ROger, you should consider Canada or any one of those wonderful European countries that still believe in the rule of law, habeus corpus, socialised health care and very few hand guns! Enjoy your torture, phone taps and ludicrous political system!

Answer 6

The US army was fighting against guerrilla fighters, who knew the landscape and were practically impossible to tell apart from innocent civilians. It is impossible to defeat guerrilla warfare, as is now being demonstrated again in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Answer 7

It set itself an impossible goal: to change the "hearts and minds" of people. You can't change the hearts and minds of anyone by waging a war and imposing values; you only make them resentful. The world is larger than any one nation, even America, though I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Answer 8

"Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster."

Sun Zi, 'The Art of War'

Many people are still under the false impression that the war in Vietnam was a one-sided affair, and will give no credence to the Vietnamese and their victories - the very people who fought against the French and became the Democratic Republic of Vietnam; and against the Americans and became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Over 30 years ago the U. S. did not understand the Vietnamese, and even though they fought one hundred battles and won, they still  met with disaster. Over 30 years later many Americans still look at the same historical event in the same fashion and they still fail to learn anything new.

I would just for once like to see someone ask the question, "What is the main reason why the Vietnamese won both the First and Second Indochina Wars?"