Why the US Lost the Vietnam War (Documentary)
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- Опубліковано 10 вер 2024
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In late April 1975, dramatic images from Saigon are beamed across the world. North Vietnamese troops proclaimed final victory. Just how did the US lose the Vietnam War?
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» SOURCES
Amter, Jospeh A. “America Negotiates a Meaningless Peace” in Yancy, Diane (ed.), The Vietnam War, (San Diego, CA : Greenhaven Press Inc. 2001)
Anderson, David L. (ed.), The Columbia History of the Vietnam War, (New York, NY : 2011)
Anderson, David L. The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War, (New York, NY : Columbia University Press, 2002)
Anderson, David L. The Vietnam War, (Basingstoke : Palgrave MacMillan, 2005)
Anderson, David L. & Ernst, John (eds.), The War That Never Ends: New Perspectives on the Vietnam War, (Lexington, KY : The University Press of Kentucky, 2007)
Appy, Christian, Vietnam: The Definitive Oral History, Told From All Sides, (London : Ebury Press, 2006)
Bluhm Jr. Raymond K. (ed), The Vietnam War: A Chronology of War, (New York, NY : Universe Publishing, 2010)
Buzzanco, Robert, “Military Dissent and the Legacy of the Vietnam War”, in Anderson, David L. & Ernst, John (eds.), The War That Never Ends: New Perspectives on the Vietnam War, (Lexington, KY : The University Press of Kentucky, 2007)
Caputo, Philip, A Rumor of War, (New York, NY : Ballantine Books, 1977)
Carruthers, Susan L, The Media at War: Communication and Conflict in the Twentieth Century, (Basingstoke : Macmillan, 2000)
Daddis, Gregory A, Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s Final Years in Vietnam, (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017)
Ehrhart, W.D. Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir, (Jefferson NC : McFarland, 1983)
Harrison, James P. “South Vietnam Falls to the Communists” in Yancy, Diane (ed.), The Vietnam War, (San Diego, CA : Greenhaven Press Inc. 2001)
Herring, George C. “The Long-Term Effect of the War on U.S. Foreign Policy” in Yancy, Diane (ed.), The Vietnam War, (San Diego, CA : Greenhaven Press Inc. 2001)
Hopkins, George W. “Historians and the Vietnam War: The Conflict Over Interpretations Continues” Studies in Popular Culture, Vol. 23, No. 2 (October 2000)
Jesser, Peter & Young, Peter, The Media and the Military: From the Crimea to Desert Strike, (Basingstoke : Macmillan, 1997)
Langer, Howard J. The Vietnam War: An Encyclopedia of Quotations, (Westport, CT : Greenwood Press, 2005))
Lawrence, Mark Atwood, The Vietnam War: A Concise International History, (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2008)
Longley, Kyle, Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam, (Armonk N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, 2008)
Moïse, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, (Annapolis, MD : Naval Institute Press, 2019)
Prados, John, “American Strategy in the Vietnam War” in Anderson, David L. (ed.), The Columbia History of the Vietnam War, (New York, NY : 2011)
Ruane, Kevin (ed.), The Vietnam Wars, (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2000)
Schulzinger, Robert D. “Antiwar Protests Rock America” in Yancy, Diane (ed.), The Vietnam War, (San Diego, CA : Greenhaven Press Inc. 2001)
Thee, Marek, “The Indochina Wars: Great Power Involvement - Escalation and Disengagement”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1976)
Tiu Bin, Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoir of a North Vietnamese Colonel, (Honolulu, HI : University of Hawaii Press, 2003)
Tovy, Tal, The Gulf of Tonkin: The United States and the Escalation in the Vietnam War, (New York, NY : Routledge, 2021)
Wyatt, Clarence R., “The Media and the Vietnam War”, in Anderson, David L. & Ernst, John (eds.), The War That Never Ends: New Perspectives on the Vietnam War, (Lexington, KY : The University Press of Kentucky, 2007)
Yancy, Diane (ed.), The Vietnam War, (San Diego, CA : Greenhaven Press Inc. 2001)
»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Mark Newton
Director: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: above-zero.com
Research by: Mark Newton
Executive Producer: Florian Wittig
Channel Design: Simon Buckmaster
Contains licensed material by getty images, AP and Reuters
Maps: MapTiler/OpenStreetMap Contributors & GEOlayers3
Music Library: Epidemic Sound
All rights reserved - Real Time History GmbH 2024
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Please upload a video about the Watergate Scandal
next your need to make video about the fourth Vietnam war
We didn't just leave, and you're perpetuating a myth. That's not history it's propaganda at best. Tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.
In 1973 we signed, The Paris Peace Accords Ending the War in Vietnam. It's very real and maybe you should look it up you know history and all.
The reason there were no troops to be seen was the war was over amd we were gone had been for 2 years.
So no we didn't loose that war, the war The South Vietnamese lost that war.
Truth is truth period, if your going to call yourself an historian try actually sticking to the history. Otherwise you're you're just a propagandists.
@philswift791 Wrong the U.S fled after it was clear they couldn't defeat the Vietnamese people's hope of independence from western imperialism.
@gre - thanls for the CRT NO FACTS rhetoric ..
. ya never disappoint
I am Vietnamese, we do not want war and do not want to win with any country. But we are so haunted by being colonized throughout history, we don't want to be slaves, we just want to live our way.
Indian here...same sentiment buddy.
If you don't want to be slaves you need to get rid of your communist government.
Well said.
Unless it's the communist colonizers, then it's OK.
Yeah, the Americans, like the French, Japanese, and Chinese before them, simply didn't understand that the Vietnamese people simply wanted all foreign occupiers out of their country regardless of their ideology.
You can see with the defeat and retreat from Afghanistan that the US government leaders learned little from the Vietnam War.
Ya, I am surprised he didn't mention that at the end.
There is a reason for that. The successes of the Panama and Iraq wars totally erased any self-reflection the US had about Vietnam and itbwas a deliberate choice. George H. W. Bush said it best: our victories washed away the sin of Vietnam...
It is not the retreat, but rather the intervention itself that was the problem. Looking back, the war in Afghanistan repeated many of the same mistakes (poor understanding of local politics, over-reliance on military might, failure to develop legitimacy of the client government, unchecked corruption within the client government,...) that we saw in these videos about the Vietnam War. These mistakes, and US inability or unwillingness to address them, made the eventual defeat almost inevitable.
not exactly, In Vietnam at least not many US equipment was left, Afghanistan left enough military equipment , to become one of the main sources of funds for Taliban, it was found even in Haza used by Hammas terrorists.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131success in Iraq? 1mln civilians died... Abu Graib photos ruined US military outlook
You can debate whether US lost or not, but there is no doubt that NV won the war. They got want they want in the end.
Yup, the US just backed out.
Very true, just like the quote in the video at 11:42
FREDERICK WEYLAND
" 'You know you never beat us on the battlefield,' I told my North Vietnam Army counterpart... 'That may be so,' he replied, 'but it is also irrelevant.' "
American public support was the biggest Factor to the US withdrawal in Vietnam.
You are right, they wanted independence and that's what they got.
@@billdecompsa4705 That's a defeat lol
As a Vietnamese, thank you for continuing to discuss our Vietnam War episodes. I wonder if you could possibly make a video about the Khmer Rouge-led Cambodian-Vietnamese War in 1978.
That would be interesting to dive into
we are working on two more videos related to the Vietnam War. One will in fact cover Laos and Cambodia in the Vietnam War and beyond.
@@realtimehistory& please make a video about the Watergate Scandal during the US President Richard Nixon
And the war between China & Vietnam 79-90. And the Mongol invasions in the 13th century for that matter. Damn these guys have been at it for a while.
@@realtimehistory Thanks for your response. I am looking forward to it.
no , they lost because they failed to understand the main population. When the Vietnamese officer in the south refused to pay his soldiers , the motivation fall down. It was not the same in the north.
We lost the very moment we entered the war. Never should have been over there in the first place
John Kennedy sent the boys over there. It's his fault for being a young dumb president
Probably if jfk had lived we would have left
Real Time History - the only channel that would have won the Vietnam War.
i dotn think anyone can can invade vietnam tbh
Real Time History - the only history channel that can see a Viet Cong and stay away from it.
Well, to be fair... you're not saying on which side. :P
@@jessecarozza6745 unpopular opinion----- we lost because of freaking hippies😤
@@tyshawnbryant3468 If you win fast enough then there won't be any hippies to protest. After 20 years of pointless fighting, no wonder some will want to protest the war and ask for peace.
So many deaths and for nothing, we have repeat in Afganistan, 10 years of occupation thousand of dead and then leaving.... why we repeating the same scheme?
That's what empires do. Especially ones in decline.
Absolutely pointless wars, pointless deaths, humanity never learns
stealing oil and selling weapons. That's all American politicians want
Cauise it makes the people that runs the Military Industrial Complex filthy rich.
There are too many Warmongers in the political circle in the US still today .
It’s a strange war, the US and South Vietnam never send their troops north to invade North Vietnam. They only bombed the North, but never followed up with ground operations. It was mostly a defensive war for the US and South Vietnam while North Vietnam was on full offensive with their proxy, the Vietcong, in the south and even their main army, the NVA. Such a war with an enemy that constantly on the offense and you are only on the defense, it was doomed to be a defeat. If the US would have conducted the war like they did in Korea, they might have been successful. They allowed the fear that China will get involved and trigger a wider war hamstrung them.
You may be right. North Vietnam would have lost the war if the US had attacked the north with ground troops. But you should learn this lesson, the US will be the next France and there will be the next Dien Bien Phu. Because to the Vietnamese, the US is an invading empire, 100 years from now or 1000 years from now it will still be the same. Vietnam will defeat the US like France, Japan, the previous Chinese empires and the Mongol empire. You should learn about Vietnamese history from ancient times.
Well said
@EPluribusUnumSemper It's simple they were already getting ther backsides handed to them in the South if they went North they would lose even quicker.
The Main Army NVA involved in the War?
*Laugh manically as the PAVN unit redesignated to an NLF unit as they moved South*
The U.S could only had the justification to bomb the North since the Gulf of Tonkin for a reason. The North never invaded the South.
Haha lol 😂😂, America is always the victim of the whole world through its giant propaganda machine 🤣
What I find amazing (and tragic) is how these events have found their way into the American historical narrative, yet the Afganistan withdrawal is consistently buried by the media in spite of the overt similarities and ramifications.
There is one more tibid (though I failed to get the precise proof): The last helicopter leaving Viet Nam is also the very same helicopter leaving Afghanistan
The ramifications of Vietnam far outweigh the debacle in Afghanistan.
@@raulduke6105 First of all, quantifying which historical events were more "impactful" is not something that we, as students of history, should ever do. Second, the debacle in Afghanistan is too recent for its ramifications to be fully known or understood. Give it another 50 years or so, and then MAYBE we'll be able to discuss the consequences of Afghanistan.
@@Patrick_3751 Unfortunately for that theory, the ramifications of Vietnam were immediate and long lasting. We said we were doing it to stop the Communists from taking over all of Southeast Asia and even Australia. Ironically, we let the communists into our colleges during the war instead. I was involved in both of those tides of history and remember it all. The whole thing was a disaster for the country during the war and now.
Actually two situations are incomparable. We only lost 4000 or so troops throughout our entire occupation of Afghanistan. It was not an "active" war, we were not fighting well organized militias nor uniformed enemy's. There were no jungles to conceal Charlie nor any nations to be at war with. By the time we left Afghanistan there was no war. That's like calling the British occupation of Afghanistan as war.
What we call “The Vietnam War” is more complicated than that. South Vietnam lost. The US left southeast Asia some three years before North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam. In the timeframe 1971-72, the US and SV had for the most part, stabilized the country (SV). US ground forces were nearly all gone by late 1971. North Vietnam tried an invasion of the South in the spring of ‘72 and was successfully repulsed by SV forces with US air support. It took NV another three years before they launched the successful invasion of the South in the spring of ‘75. NV used conventional tactics - infantry, artillery and armor. The US Congress has caught off re-supplying of SV, while Russia and China continued to supply NV. Thus, the North won.
Now today, they embrace free enterprise more than many. Ironic eh?
Vietnam was not communist to begin with. They only choose it because the US who was supposedly the leader of the free world wasn't so supportive of freedom afterall. Even going as far as to defeat the US back mass genocidal man Pol Pot, but then again US turned a blind eye when Sadam was gasing the Kurds.
Free enterprise, not freedom. I asked my Vietnamese friend if he is free? He said, "Sure, just don't say anything bad about the government."
True,Giap say that "what matters is not material but humans" forgot that he received billions worth of advanced military equiptment from their sponsors like china and the soviet
The coping is so hard that you start to look high
When an enemy forces you to not achieve your objectives... you've just lost a war.
Half of Americans even today: "We didn't lose, We just merely failed to win"
It’s stunning how many Americans think they won the Vietnam war
We didn’t “lose” there was a change in leadership because politically the war became unpopular and Americans no longer wanted to fight. Sure we didn’t “win” but we also didn’t lose our armies were not defeated.
@@bentrinker1937 In other more accurate words, you lost, you failed to achieve war goals, failed to protect your puppet state of South Vietnam, and failed to topple the Northern Goverment chosen by the Vietnamese people.
Mostly likely economic and social issues related.
@@bentrinker1937 here im gonna summarize the entire thing for you 3.1 millions americans deployed in vietnam 1.5 millions south vietnamese drafted for the war and somehow only 58000 americans died when 360000 south vietnamese died there are documents about americans saying they ripping off loads of vietnamese but they also say they cant see the enemy and there are some say they lost almost all their batallion without even seeing a vietnamese that ambushed them they also said in the times newspaper that they got all these kills but the soilder claimed that they didnt even see the vietnamese soilders and plus i dont think 7.6 millions of pounds of bomb millions of arm 12000 uavs+aircraft+helicopter shot down doesnt sound like their winning they basicly lost the entire war because i dont think they can keep funding it
Can you please cover three topics? 1). The ‘64 - ‘73 Secret War in Laos, including Hmong involvement and status of Hmong in Laos today. 2). The ‘78 - ‘79 Vietnamese overthrow of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. 3). The 1979 Chinese invasion of Vietnam. 🙏
Early comments proving that the debate is still very much alive.
In my opinion the Economy was the culprit....
In 1967 there was not enough Physical Money to Pay for the Conflict, and fund another War.
The Currency Crisis of that Year cost LBJ another term.
He wanted to declare War on Poverty.
That seemed a more visible and destructive Foe?
Now as Colonial Conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine and Israel
cost more than even the Fiat Dollar replacement for the Gold Standard,
was capable of providing,
we appear to be once again out of Cash.....
If the War on Poverty were actually to have seen a sincere effort in that direction,
and the Colonial Conflict in Southeast Asia were not,
would we have a better world to live in?
Some folks can’t accept they lost. I’d love to see a generational breakdown of who thinks the US lost. Boomers are likely out of step with X, Y and Z here
meanwhile vietnams chillin
@@Crazy_Talk96Nope. The debate won't quit. Vietnam suffered badly after the war. Brutal wars with Pol Pot and Mao.
@@ejt3708 pretty sure Vietnam cares little of what the losing side feels 60 years after winning their war for independence. Seems to me the Loser leftovers of ARVN & salty Americans are the only ones still talking about it.
PFC Reginald Edwards: "Sometimes I think we would have done a lot better by getting them hooked on our lifestyle than by trying to do it with guns. Give them credit cards. Get them hooked on sugar and television...you can take blue jeans and rock n' roll records and win over more countries than you can with soldiers."
(from "Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War" by Wallace Terry)
Same thing might work for Cuba.
Elon Musk and starlink are doing it right now
There is no doubt that this has and continues to occur. Communism requires totalitarianism to survive, and an enemy that the state can focus the people's will against. After a communist victory, such as occured in eastern Europe, Vietnam Nam, Cuba et al. the citizens of these countries eventually tire of the sacrifice required to maintain a system that provides very little quality of life for them. In response, the leadership is faced with the choice of increasing repression, modifying their ideology, or both, as in the case of China. Countries that cannot evolve from ideological communism inevitably collapse, either at once, such as in Eastern Europe, or in a process where the country retains a form of communism or socialism on the books but moves away in practice. This is what is ongoing in Viet Nam. All of the above is true for facist governments as well.
Yet that is exactly what had been done in South Vietnam. The result was a small corrupt urban middle class and large destitute rural class, both of which with little love for the regime.
For a contemporary example, China is becoming a consumer-focused manchester-capitalistic economy, yet somehow they are far from becoming friends of the USA.
@@Nickname-ef9tv Except the peasants were freed in 1971 I think.
You gotta give it to Vietnam. Not only did they beat the US, they also beat huge armies like the Mongols, Imperial China, French, and most recently China. They should not be taken lightly.
They did have a lot of help but they did sacrifice a lot too.
@@johnnotrealname8168Without sacrifice, victory cannot to obtained.
@@johnnotrealname8168Vietnam may have some help from Soviet Union but it was us Vietnamese who fought and won.
@@angkhoanguyen6114 Some? All your military equipment and hardware was soviet or Chinese. You were better equipped than South-Vietnam.
@@johnnotrealname8168 Unlikely. Republic of Vietnam had the backings of US economy and foreign army. The DRVN only received bootlegs Chinese equipment, nothing more.
Comparing Vietnam to Korea could help understand the media better.
During the Korean War, the TV was a luxury item so very few households had one. Because of that, news organizations didn't have a TV division yet. The public still got their news from newspaper and radio. Also, reporters always started and ended with "reporting, from somewhere in Korea". So, the details of the battlefield weren't given away to the enemy.
America is always the victim of the whole world through its giant propaganda machine , haha lol 😂🤣
My complaints about how American public has been reacting to the defeat in Vietnam:
1. I still stumble upon folks whining and sniveling about "Hanoi" Jane Fonda. But has it ever occurred to them that she was either under the Pentagon's payroll or had any say in US foreign policy and military plans? No. Should they direct their anger at the US government instead?
2. The US has a poor track record in exit strategy. (If you want to come anywhere close to winning, you better have viable exit strategy.) There have been exceptions such as South Korea being able to clinch onto the southern half of the Korean Peninsula after the 1953 armistice, but the US has nothing to boast about from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
3. The US seems to have fallen for the same trap the Germans fell for in both world wars--i.e., winning battles, but losing wars. No amount of tactical prowess ran compensate for flawed strategy.
4. Perhaps the single stupidest blunder the US made prior to the US intervention: disregarding Ho Chi Min's letter urging the US to pressure the French to pack up and leave Indochina. There is a widespread fallacy of guilty by association committed by US policymakers. In case of Ho Chi Minh, just because he was a communist, they eagerly assumed that he was nothing more than yet another Soviet puppet, similar to Kim Il-Sung. However, it turned out that Ho Chi Minh was a popular nationalist leader among the Vietnamese. This helps to explain why South Vietnamese leadership (which has changed a few times over the years) never gained the level of legitimacy Ho Chi Minh enjoyed, resulting in chronic political instability.
Because you can't win with will of the people to be free, united and independent from foreign powers. Greetings from Poland to the brave people from Vietnam.
finally someone said it!
Sure. Says the Polish who let the Soviets in.
Which foreign-powers? Also what freedom? The Vietnamese still are not free.
@@johnnotrealname8168 Japan, French and American. Just after the war with Americans they fought with China what attacked their land. They were nationalistic first comunist later and they chosen that themself. Learn some history and come back later. The are as free as you...they dont have check point from borderd guards deep inside country as you have and they dnt have Police which shoot into minorities in their country as you have. They can travel all aroun the world if they want.. we have few hundreds thousends of them in Poland.
@@johnnotrealname8168Foreign powers none other than the Americans, the French and the Chinese. And no, the Vietnamese are free to decide the fate of our nation. Freedom and anarchy are not the same.
US Cold War policy was insanely stupid. Its interpretation of communist countries completely ignored how political power actually works at an individual level. The idea that everyone was a Soviet puppet was small-minded and simple. Add cruelty, you get Kissinger.
For Eastern Europe it was simply true. East Asian communist regimes sometimes had more leeway as they could play Moscow and Beijing against each other. In South America and Africa there were compelling political reasons to be friendly towards Moscow while not being subjugated to them, which the USA routinely ignored.
@@Nickname-ef9tv It was only true for the Warsaw Pact countries. It didn't even apply to Yugoslavia nor Albania.
To be fair, that's literally how the dominant political doctrine of the US viewed the world at that time.
It's called Realism and it proposes that all of political happenings in nations are in reaction to some external factor.
The counter ideology is that the same things stem are reactions to the inner happenings in nations, it's called Idealism
And yes, Kissinger was literally an advocate for Realism, sometimes incorrectly described as Realpolitik (a similar, but different political doctrine)
Actually, the US switches between Realism and Idealism depending on the people's ideas of the time. Woodrow Wilson was a staunch Idealist, at least he's described as such.
@@San_Vito Two exceptions does not prove much (Both also began as soviet puppets.). The soviet union was sponsoring plenty of communist @~?£ like in Ethiopia and in Central-America.
No, it was not. The communist parties of the world were mostly at the beck and call of the soviet union.
The winning of a war is answered by whether you achieve your goals.
Lack of a clear goal, an unwilling public, an unreliable and unpopular alternative to the enemy, and a poorly coordinated military/government establishment of strategy, all while accepting that the fight was really against outside powers but keeping to fighting in the mud. It was an utterly inane waste of countless lives.
Unfortunately, we repeated the exact same mistakes in Afghanistan, when the people themselves won't fight, And don't have trust in the government we are backing, there's no point in being there
Hey, this video is about Vietnam, not Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Allied Intervention in the Baltics, or the Chinese Civil War!
This is probably one of the few sensible comments.
@@cadenbigler America was justified in her initial war in Afghanistan. America won the war, she handily won the war, but lost the occupation/nation building and that loss started at the 2001 Bonn conference.
Don't forget that the start of the war was built on a lie and the leaking of military secrets that explained the deception (Pentagon Papers) was considered a constitutional right in 1972. "Unwilling" public? More like "Hoodwinked" public that have finally opened their eyes...
Crazy to think that we are as far away from the Iraq War as the Gulf War is from Vietnam.
the big winner, Halliburton and military industry
Yeah just forget about the thousands murdered by the Vietnamese.
"i don't want another bien Diem phu" Johnson already in 1968 has concluded that the Viet nam was a losing game
No, he was comparing Battle of Khe Sanh (1968) to the older battle.
Great editing and footage once again! The Vietnam War, controversial as it was, certainly shaped the course of the 20th century and beyond, for better or for worse. Thanks a lot for sharing and the excellent content
The United States soldiers saying we didn't lose but the politicians lost the war is a lot like the german stabbed in the back myth after ww1
Indeed, it's the same disingenuous (and ideologically dodgy) spin. Once you claim that "the politicians/protesters betrayed the soldiers", you're already halfway into a conspiracist rabbit hole. See also the equally baseless corollary "the US fought with a hand tied behind its back", which will come as a surprise to the two million Vietnamese dead.
I’ve thought the same thing…it’s a disquieting thought every time.
You know, I've never thought about connecting those two things. I wonder how much of that sentiment can explain our current political stuff in the US.
@@TheKrossbowmanin a way it has. When I was in the Marines there was a general dislike for politicians and any social policies changes. The idea being the average congressman has no idea how to fight a war and should just leave the military alone.
US soldiers lost the Vietnam war ..they withdraw...they escaped...and there is no possibility to win with will of the people to be united, free and independent from foreign powers.
"We may have failed to achieve our primary objective, but we got higher K/D ratio so we didn't lose" they say that as they turn civilian into hostile casualities
Everythng became about body count because leaders needed something to quantify, something to justify that we were winning the war. insane
If it runs its VC
If it stays its a well trained VC
You can’t fail a primary objective if you can’t even define what your objective is. Therein lies the problem. Dying to take a hill and then giving it up. US got caught in that same spiral of aimless action early in Iraq/Afghanistan after Saddam and the Taliban were toppled
That's the problem right there, turning people's lives into a numbers game. I don't think those statistics would matter much to veterans that got crippled, or the family that lost their love ones in that war. What matters to them was the war really necessary and was it really worth it. Our government sold us the idea that we needed to go t war because if Vietnam falls to the communists then our Democracy would be in mortal danger, well Vietnam did fell to the communists.
@@KonradvonHotzendorfeverything is VC, based blaming strategy af
The lack of clear objectives is the main issue. This happened in Korea, Vietnam, Somali, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine. Desert Storm was a military victory, but long term we still lost.
150 years of American interventions like the list of countries you just described is why America lost. Because the next country that got targeted had a list of what American enforced liberty actually means for other countries?
Heard Schwarzkopf talk about that. He took the Iraqi surrender in 1991. He called back to Washington for instructions. He got none. The National Command Authorities had no plan for what to do with the victory. IMO this is because the State Dept is a clusterfuck.
We had a clear objective. It was a stupid one but it was clear. Go back and read the official government statements about why we should be there from 1960 to the end. They started selling the idea of invading Vietnam in the 1950s. They do things like that.
Wrong. In desert storm the U.S. achieved it’s main objective which was to ensure Kuwait’s independence all you have to do is literally read for 2 seconds
@@Bewdabob and deny that it poisoned a whole generation of its own soldiers ......murca is a joke......
Some people say: "The US didn't lose militarily, it was a political defeat". They are wrong, war is not a sport or a game, it is a way to achieve political and strategic objectives. If those goals are not achieved, it cannot be called a victory.
It was a political loss though. The military crushed opposing Vietnamese forces in basically every engagement. They fulfilled their part of the bargain and then some. At the end of the day we didn't convince the South Vietnamese to defend themselves and we couldn't convince them that aligning with the west was better than the east. We also could not convince our own people that dying in war that did not threaten to harm the US was worth it. You cant help people who don't want your help. That's the sad part of Vietnam and Afghanistan. Alot of boys died defending a place nobody really wanted them to be in the first place and they were there because of politicians.
I subscribed to the “US didn’t lose military” line for a bit but it slowly sour on me. If those wins didn’t get translated into political leverage it’s a lost.
@@txsnowmanThey lost militarily, they couldn’t defeat the enemy. They won countless battles, but winning battles doesn’t win the war.
Clausewitz's military doctrine on total war defines wars as merely "continuation of politics by other means" and a grand strategy for war as "the sum of the tools of statecrafts," not just warcrafts.
A famous quote, usually attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, states, "War is old men talking and young men dying." Does old men talking here not simply mean politics?
@@txsnowman The South-Vietnamese wanted to fight, they did, but the Americans refused to supply them properly.
Great miniseries Jesse. President Ford said in 1975, "Our long national nightmare is over." But for most South Vietnamese, the nightmare was just beginning.
Indonesia made a name for itself in this final years, Indonesian government provided Galang island, uninhabited island at that time as refugee centre for many vietnamese refugee, from the end of 70's to 1991, 250.000 vietnamese refugee would be there, churches and temples are being built and so does schools markets and temporary housing, Indonesia doesn't ratified 1950 international treaty regarding refugee, so Indonesia's obligation regarding these refugees are only limited to temporary housing based on customs of universal human rights value, the temples and churches are still being preserved to this day and the island became historical tourist destination.
Yes. You are right, Sir
Sadly, two reasons for America’ defeat. (A) Poor American leadership wouldn’t allow the US military to totally destroy North Vietnam (B) LBJ lost the support of the American people
Pretty sure they DID try and totally destroy vietnam. Thats what war is !
They even used illegal weapons like napalm, and chemical weapons.
They lost the support of the people because the people knew they couldn't win and the gov was just bullshitting them.
Your point is just denial !!!!
(C) They cannot win against a natiom that yearn for independence and freedom. Vietnamese fighting spirit is unyielding.
@@angkhoanguyen6114 lol, what a larp. Communist propaganda.
@@angkhoanguyen6114 Jesus Christ you are a propaganda machine. Yes, the commies were ideological but it had nothing to do with independence.
I think I remember seeing Walter Cronkite talk about the fall of Saigon. Just seeing the helicopters pushed off the carrier was difficult to watch. Total disaster for America.
only a disaster for that US govt and right wingers
@@marimbadearco ...but the war was started by democrats?
It was a disaster. It wasnt just the horrific waste of lives buut the horrible waste of money, like how you mentioned the helicopters. Millions of dollars of US supplies/equipment was wasted
Afghanistan showed that we still have much to learn... COIN is very difficult to succeed at.
The sad truth is the war was lost when Walter Cronkite said it was lost in 1969. The tragedy was the innocent people massacred on the ground in vietnam and the GIs who came back to a society who did not appreciate their sacrifice
No, it was not. The War still could have been won.
1968.
@@tedmccarron I stand corrected
If the media had kept a tight cap on the victories of the North Vietnamese, on the gross corruption of the South Vietnamese government as well as rising number of U.S. soldiers killed, we would have "won" the war, right?
Wrong. It was a war that was impossible to win. We watched the French struggle with it for years before leaving in disgrace, then repeated the same performance ourselves.
Vietnam is difficult to see who get to blame, one thing is true, the US lost, the same way we have seen in 2021 when the US and alliance forces left Afghanistan to it's fate, some people will say that the US didn't lose, but most will say they did lose
Not entirely correct. The US partially achieved its objective in Afghanistan by sending Osama Bin Laden to Allah's eternal bunghole.
The US sign a peace treaty what's North Vietnam agreeing to withdraw from Vietnam in exchange for peace but after we left they broke their end of the bargain.
@tedmccarron that's true, but former south Vietnam didn't want to sign this, but the US is putting pressure on South Vietnam.
Watch the story repeat itself in Afghanistan.
In the UNICEF account, they say that US media basically prohibits showing children in Gaza nowadays, probably in direct response to the picture of the Vietnamese girl. So that's "lessons learned" from the war, I guess.
This is bull@~?£ most of the media is pro-Gaza. Most people do not like looking at gore.
That's not true because you see Palestinian children on NBC, MSNBC, AND ABC. Maybe that was true in the 80s and 90s.
Why? Because the Americans followed Clausewitz and the Vietnamese followed Sun Tzu.
Great content!
The US retreat from Afghanistan in 2021 shows they didn't really take on the lessons of the Vietnam War. Even moreso, they lost much, much more resources than in Vietnam
I burnt my draft card and lived in Canada and said FU to Vietnam
For every American that fled to Canada one decent Freedom loving Canadian came to the US to volunteer to fight in Vietnam.
People should think long and hard about waging a war with a peer. If they think there was a lot of casualties in Vietnam, they’re delusional
Ho chi Minh trail was over stated...with many supplies for the war coming through Sinoukville. Hanoi had purchased 2 legitimate Cambodian trucking companies. Papers released by Hanoi show that 39 tons on average came through Sinoukville per day. Just look at a map
Do you know what the North call the sea supply route ? The Ho Chi Minh sea trail, very creative😁
Nevertheless, the sea route supplied around 160 thousand metric tons of material during the war, almost no personnel. This is significant but still pales in comparison with the overland route, which transported 1 million metric tons of materials and 2 million personnel trip in and out of the South.
Specializing in history, British author/writer Nigel Cawthorne said, "These people [the Vietnamese] culturally know about war much better than any American does." History does matter. History is actually a collection of valuable lessons as a guidebook to our present and our future. The rich history of Vietnam has been long known for its unmatched reputation of resisting the world's great powers. The first foreign invasion of Vietnam ever recorded in the world history, was launched by the powerful Chinese Qin dynasty under the leadership of Qin Shi Huang over 2,000 years ago, in 221 BC to be exact. It was also considered the first Sino-Vietnamese War ever recorded in China's history when over 500,000 Chinese troops-one of the largest armed forces ever in the ancient world, led by the Chinese General Tu Shu were bitterly defeated in the first ever guerrilla warfare by the ancient Viet state named Au Lac (present-day Vietnam). Later, all the powerful Chinese dynasties had dominated Vietnam for over 1,000 years, but the Vietnamese effectively managed to kick them out all one by one back to their mainland China along with their utterly bitterly failed attempts to assimilate the Vietnamese. The course of human history would have been totally different if the Mongol Empire after having annexed China, had had a better understanding about the history of the teeny tiny Southeast Asian country known as present-day Vietnam. Sadly, the mighty Mongol Empire had completely failed to understand the Vietnamese people and their long standing history and tradition of fearlessly defending their freedom and independence. In his diary, Marco Polo called Kublai Khan a "Lord of Lords" and "the most powerful man in people and in lands and in treasure that ever was in the world". However, even Kublai Khan-the "most powerful man in people and in lands" had been unable to subdue the Vietnamese people. In fact, the Mongol army-the mightiest, deadliest and the most feared military force known to man, had been resentfully defeated by the Vietnamese people, not once, not twice, but three times in a row, which eventually brought an end to Genghis Khan's dream of conquering the entire world. Also, China with over 4.000 years, is still unable to conquer Vietnam, and Vietnam is still Vietnam standing tall today as a symbol of resisting the world's great powers. In his 14th book-Ending the Vietnam War in Vietnam, Henry Kissinger (RIP), a former US secretary of state and national security adviser admitted, "The Vietnam War was our longest-longer than the Civil War and the two world wars ... Up against a far weaker opponent-in conventional terms-we learned the limits of traditional military power; our B-52s did not subdue a tough and determined enemy." The legendary Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap said later in a PBS interview, "The reality of history teaches us that not even the most powerful economic and military force can overcome a resistance of a united people." The Vietnamese General once said, "We Vietnamese can achieve what others deem impossible."
"Why the US Lost the Afghan War" when?
Why the US can't leave other countries alone when?
@@inuyasha142314 Answers simple: Israeli interests
@@inuyasha142314 They used to, back before all the World Wars. See how that turned out.
@@ZNLBailey wrong. Usa interference started in the 1890s. The most prominent example is Spanish America war of 1898. Usa started interfering from early 1890s not during after world wars
which government is currently sitting in Kabul? the one which the American taxpayer poured billions of USD or the flip flop no air support ak 47 hill desert fighters, ah yes they are currently ruling Afghanistan.
Pls can you join all Vietnam videos into 1 multi-hour video? thanks
we will, it will release in october
In the final stages of the war, China prevented North Vietnam from sending troops into the South, even cutting off aid and establishing diplomatic relations with the United States. China wants Vietnam to be divided, not a unified country.
The American response to anti-colonial struggle was to ignore an agreed upon plebiscite because they knew full well the will of the people ran counter to their wishes and impose their will upon the country. Their intervention was doomed from the start.
yeah trying to stop murderous communist dictators always bad eh?
If the plebiscite you're referring to was the proposed Vietnamese unification elections for 1956, you are wrong there. First, the US did not ignore the elections. Ngo Dinh Diem refused to hold them in the first place. Second, Diem had valid reasons to refuse them. The State of Vietnam never signed the Geneva accords or agreed to hold the elections, so Diem was under no obligation to uphold them. Third, if the elections DID happen, a legitimate Communist defeat would have been a very real possibility because the North was in absolute shambles after the First Indochina war.
@@Patrick_3751 South Vietnam was a continuation of the French colonial government and remained under their occupation ostensibly so they could evacuate the region. There was no high minded or technicality reasoning behind Diem's refusal to hold the plebiscite as agreed to. He fully recognized that he was installed by the Americans and that the Vietnamese people had zero loyalty to him, as they had for Ho Chi Minh. He would have lost, badly, and the Americans would have lost their foothold in the region without him... Yada yada, Vietnam War
@@Patrick_3751 The South Vietnamese government was a colonial administration of France in Vietnam.
After their defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the signing of the Geneva Accords, all French forces (including the the Vietnamese colonial administration and army) moved peacefully to South Vietnam. After the complete withdrawal of the French in 1956, both North and South Vietnam were to hold elections for reunification.
At this time, the United States, the villain of the story, intervened to exert its influence and help Ngo Dinh Diem dissolve the old pro-French government of Bao Dai and establish a new republic. This was a blatant act of sabotage. The US could easily claim that the new government had not signed the agreement and was therefore not bound by the Geneva Accords. Without US backing, how could Diem have quickly built up an army and suppressed opposition factions in the South in just five years?
You trying to make me laugh with this?
As long as there are two humans on the surface of the earth, the possibility of a war between them both cannot be ruled out.
As always thank you for the video! My new favorite channel!
Allow free elections in 1956, recognize how chi Minh right to reunite Vietnam instead of supporting French colonialist s colony there,and ho chi Minh got support from communist s so he turned communist, US dropped ball a long time ago.
Hey guys! Wanna fight a proxy war in Ukraine?
Nah....I don't support Banderastan
Sure why not......
3:26 it is so crazy how this quote lines up with a vietnamese documentary with less than 200k views a viet cong soldier had said shortly after the takeover people had thrown government papers into the streets shooting into the air in cheer and he had joined in on the celebrating and cheering of the people in the capitol.
Macnamaras critique is correct. If only politicians in US should read history and study it correctly, they would've wisen up and not get entangled in vietnam
Never believe anything that McNamara said.
Robert Mcnamara was one of the chief political leaders who got the US involved in the war in Vietnam.
Why not? Letting communism flourish has not done Indochina well wherever you look. Millions of deaths. The issue was not fighting the War as it should have been and will.
Politicians don't care if we win or lose our overseas wars, they get filthy rich either way, the important thing to them is there is a war.
@@johnnotrealname8168Helping the French only made communism spread more. Your government should have aided Ho Chi Minh secure Vietnamese independence.
The incident with the little girl getting burned by napalm was not a US airstrike. It was done by South Vietnamese forces.
We never should've been there to start with and all that happened is we got in deeper and deeper to a point we couldn't get out without losing face.
That’s exactly what my father used to say.
@@myintegruns12s51 Was he in the war ??
Why not? Vietnam was fighting against communist aggression.
@@johnnotrealname8168 we lost because we fought a war we didn't understand.
@@johnnotrealname8168 it was a reunification of a people. The domino effect didn't play out.
We lost because our arrogance dismissed the easily verifiable history that demonstrated that these people are unconquerable, and will fight and continue to fight long after the invader has had enough.
America did not invade though. South-Vietnam was willing to fight also.
Gulf of tonkin incident started by Americans.
@@Go4Broke247 No, it was not.
@@johnnotrealname8168 who started? North Vietnam did? Lmao just like USS Maine explosion that started US-Spainish war also?
@@Go4Broke247 Yes, but not like that second one.
US army couldnt defeat NVA or VC even their operation and strategics was no secret anymore. Just admit it
Thx for your efforts.
Someone said that we thought we'd win because we were playing chess....but the North Vietnamese weren't playing chess, they were (literally) playing the ancient game of Go.
no, they werent "literally" playing go.
We could have wiped out North Vietnam fighting a conventional war? Instead we fought a war of containment not conquest?
"The only history channel that is voluminous, lurid, and distorted!"
Aww, c'mon. Y'all don't even do Ancient Aliens worked with Hitler to get him through the Great War. :P
When you massacre a million civilians in another county while constantly covering it up then your own citizens find out of course you'll have to leave that country and end your involvement in that war.
Those of us who served in Vietnam DID WIN OUR WAR.
Since the U.S. should not have been in Vietnam to begin with and the people were never 100% in favour it doesn't matter who lost the war. They were there to support a military junta instead of trying to promote democracy.
If you look back at Versaille back in 1919, Ho Chi Minh was actually there and was asking Woodrow Wilson and the French for independence. Since it was a French colony, there was no way the French were going to give that up. Later HCM went to Moscow and asked Stalin for help, which of course he would do. Even though he wrote the communism in 1 country, he was still trying to spread communism where ever he could.
Take a look at wars, people fighting for freedom and independence have a whole lot more at stake than a power looking to provide weapons and support. Other than the "fight communism" doctrine of the 50's and 60's, there was really no reason for the US to get involved in this war. The US had no actual goal, so what exactly was the point? From my perspective, this never would've been an issue of the French loosened their grip on the government and Wilson put some pressure on the French to come up with a long term plan for Vietnamese independence. That, however, was a very different time and I'm not sure either of those could've happened.
Autonomy, he was not asking for independence.
@@johnnotrealname8168Independence is always Ho Chi Minh desire for Vietnam.
@@johnnotrealname8168Ho Chi Minh lead Vietnam to independence, remember that.
@@angkhoanguyen6114 So what? What is your problem man? In 1919 he did not ask for independence.
@@johnnotrealname8168 You mean Ho Chi Minh? Yes he did. And because they refused Ho Chi Minh decided to lead Vietnam to regain independence by itself.
'That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.' And that is why the US won all the battles but lost the war.
The United States lost the Vietnam War because the American people didn't have the will to fight it, and the politicians knew they had to end it or lose their jobs. If it was decided on military power and technology alone we would have won quickly. However, there was way too much political interference and meddling.
The American army wasn’t designed, as all national armies to fight against hit and run tactics and an enemy that knows it will be obliterated in a frontal contact. Look at Vietnam, look at the Russians in Afghanistan, look at Iraq and the Americans in Afghanistan. That’s not a matter of politics or someone’s will to fight. Persistent hit and run tactics almost always win against conventional armies
The operations of US army is funded by Americans via political entities like Congress and the Government. So are the military and civilian research projects that gives the US forces the technological and logistical advantages, which are the most important key to winning battles. If one is to draw a line separating military and politics, why not there? Why not "the US army would have won nothing without all the politcal meddling?"
@@conors4430 After 1968 this was no longer true.
Please do the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Utterly disgusting the way America left and what happened to the innocent Vietnamese for decades later. Even if its JUST Agent Orange.
Unfortunately the US was on the wrong side. The government never understood that the North was much more of a nationalist movement than a communist movement as Vietnam’s present culture and economy clearly bears out.
either way they murdered 300,000 people when we left, murderous communist dictators then and now
I get the sense that the Vietnamese Communist Party (like other post colonial communist parties outside the Warsaw Pact) were a mix of Leninist communists, nationalists, and a spectrum of those in between. Hence, Vietnam today is a part of the global capitalist economy but, like China, a very atypical one with an unusual number of state-owned firms. The political divisions in these parties continue to influence politics in countries like China and Vietnam, where different factions of the party exist and operate with different goals and values.
If that's the case. Why did Vietnam became a communist country after North won the war? Why is vietnam even after adopting capitalism is still one party communist dictatorship? Why did Vietnam supported communist insurgency in laos and Cambodia which turned into one party dictatorship while Cambodia became a kingdom afterwards while laos is still one party state. As much as people downplay their communist leaning vietnam is very big into communism. Otherwise they would have adopted democracy afterwards
@@ShubhamMishrabro That is because when the US became their enemy, communist countries became their friends. This had consequences on the political landscape of the north Vietnamese government. In many ways, the US government's out of touch actions drove them into the arms of communism.
@@ShubhamMishrabroDude, did you expect that they would embrace America after the end of the war? It's like expecting the Poles to embrace Russia after 1990.
Best military history channel by far, you guys are awesome
It's insane how similar the Afghanistan war is to the Vietnam war.
There are too many Warmongers in the political circle in the US still today .
The United States was absolutely defeated in Vietman.
They weren't defeated just politically.
Or just defeated strategically.
They lost the Vietnam war-Period!
Hogwash we had the air power to win the war Gen Curtis LeMay said he could win the Vietnam war in 10 days he was denied permission. Later on president Nixon ordered the bombing of Vietnam and after 11 continuous days and nights of bombing the North said they wanted to talk peace. I was 3 miles off the coast of Vietnam and watched the B-52's fly over every 20 min it was an awesome display of air power.
What defeat ? Where is it that the Americans were surrendering to the North Vietnamese. The Americans left in 1973 due to a peace treaty called The Paris Accord. All sides signed it for peace. America left and 2 years later North Vietnam slowly built up attacks on South Vietnam. North Vietnam was on the look out and testing to see if the Americans would come back as they said they would. They couldn’t win the war with America there. Because of Political turmoil in America over the war. The Americans never sent aid or troops to South Vietnam,where the North was being supplied by the USSR and CHINA. There was such infighting in Congress over the war. If anything it was a political loss but not a military loss. North Vietnam knew if America stayed the war could not be won. So they took advantage of that. April 30 1975, Saigon fell and so did South Vietnam.
running away = surrender
@@markarren7480
All sides agreed. One side broke the agreement.
By that logic a sports team leaving the field in the middle of a match doesn't deserve a loss scored against them
What is Saigon called these days?
@@No.1_ZIL-130_Fan
Ho Chi Minh City. But most of the locals call it Saigon. I too call it Saigon.
Truth always dies first in war
I'm inclined to agree with the last comment. We didn't loose militarily we lacked resolve as a nation to win. If we wanted to win we certainly could have ,we have a nation divided between left and right politically. Depending on the cause the left will support it or the right it's just a matter of getting the nation on board for a united cause. United we are pretty much unstoppable militarily. We are internally defeated by our diversity. That's another problem that deserves a look into. Does diversity promote weakness or strength.? I'm inclined to believe we need to be united in belief not necessarily in race to become stronger.
Romans must have said the same thing?
They simply admit that they were taking Colonies to support their Lifestyle.
The Conflict was about supporting US Firms like Anaconda Company,
who were interested in Central Highlands minerals.
The Standard Oil folks were looking at offshore Oil deposits.
While Chase Bank had only one Branch location in Saigon.
All those business interests were associated with the Rockefeller Bros,
who hired Hank Kissinger to assemble the Prospect for America
in the mid 1950's.
"Follow the Money" ..........Deep Throat
Let me ask you a question: did the US win WW1? Everyone is united in defeating Germany at that time so what did the US gained from defeating Germany in WW1?
Absolute nonsense. That’s nothing but a poor attempt to crowbar your grievances about American politics today into a situation that happened 60 years ago, just because you want to sneak your current political opinions in.
@@conors4430 For a critic who knows everything,
You present no facts, simply opinions.
The military won the battles. The politicians lost the war.
Hot take…because nobody can beat the Vietnamese.
France, Japan, Cambodia, US, China all tried it and all regretted it. Vietnam is like the GOAT of Hippity Hoppity Stay Off My Property
They can if everyone invaded them at once. Remember the French colonised them for more than a century it's just 20th century was the era of decolonisation and nationalism
No. It was Vietnamese resistance which prevailed
Because it’s very difficult for an outside power to beat what is a national independence movement, it’s just that the United States were terrified of the Reds under the beds, that they could only view Vietnam as a extension of sovietRussia and China, when it was just a national independence movement that happened to be Based around communism. Also, the American Army is based around engaging in operations against another traditional national army. That goes out the door with hit and run tactics and an enemy that is happy to pick you off rather than lose in a frontal engagement. America could have never won. And unfortunately, there are still plenty of people who have decided that they just didn’t go about it the right way and that’s why they lost. It’s very hard when you go through the trauma of being in a war or losing somebody in a war to admit to yourself that the suffering was pointless, so it’s human nature too build a narrative that it was just, and somebody else did you wrong. Nobody wants to hear their effort and suffering was in vain, so it’s easier to create a myth to comfort yourself with otherwise.
It was just a national independence struggle aggressing on a fellow non-colonial state that happens to want to impose communism on their neighbour. Genius argument.
The reason we lost was because we were not fighting to win. We were conducting a holding action, which turned into a bloody stalemate year after year
It reminds me of the American general during the Korean War who stated that the American army was not retreating, it was just "advancing in another direction"...state of denial anyone?
In that case that was a fighting retreat
Don't fight a war with one hand tied behind your back.
Anything after January 27, 1973 doesn’t involve the USA. Why is this so difficult to understand?
So, is South Vietnam a US Ally or not after that?
Signature line at the end was top notch.
We lost because our politicans are idots.
More like, it was a stupid proxy war that the United States should have given a wide berth.
On a tactical scale, the US Military dominated most engagements. But strategically, it was doomed from the start.
America lost when the first GI touch ground in Vietnam. So determined to fight the spread of communism, that America failed to understand that it was a national independence movement that just so happened to be communist. They literally couldn’t comprehend the reality of their enemy because the paranoia of communism blinded them to anything else.
America supported the Vietnamese against the Kennedy-Nixon war hawks.
It took a while, but in the end Vietnam and it's American allies won.
So, you’re telling me America was winning the Vietnam war until they lost? What a waste of time, money and lives.
We were never winning the war at any point. We were winning battles.
@@neilreynolds3858usa spent 10 times their enemies to win a battle, that became the reason why they lost the war
Too much wasted money
@@neilreynolds3858 still, the whole war was a complete bloody waste of time, money and human lives. And, to top it off, my American converse sneakers are made in Vietnam 🇻🇳! The communist are doing business with the American corporations! Just goes to show how to our politicians and we’re just useless eaters and cannon fodder
@@shade6931America had plenty of money to burn but when the people at home saw the waste of their tax dollars they rightfully were pissed and rose up against it. Although America could obliterate Vietkong soldiers (if they could find them), they couldn’t keep the truth from reaching the public.
@@mesuper455 What truth? They were winning the War.
Jebus, put a collared shirt on 🤔🤔
Meeting your operational goals and getting the enemy to sign a treaty that negatively impacts them isn’t considered winning? I guess we lost both world wars then.
Winning every battle and losing the war is still losing. Especially on the treaty was suggested by America because they wanted to get out,. That’s losing. America fought conventional armies during World War II. America didn’t fight against a conventional army in Vietnam. America will win every time against a conventional army most likely, America has never won a major war against an unconventional enemy
@@conors4430 America did fight a conventional war in Vietnam.
All troops were out by 1973... LMAO! I know a guy here in town who was shot by an NVA soldier in Da Nang in 1975. He was an Army electrician who ended up in a firefight. I know another guy who was still fighting along the Laos border after "all troops were out". We had regular troops there before 1963 and after 1973. That's the problem with the war: Everything about it was a lie so the histories are lies.
Not really? They very well explain what that means. All troops were essentially put because they no longer served the main role in the war. It was essentially left to the ARVN ans its leaison teams
18:27 ngl thats one of the most hardest line i've ever read.
Truth we never should have been there in the first place ! Truth all of South East Asia was not worth one drop of American blood ! Truth 50.000 + Americans died for absolutely nothing!
You can't beat your enemy if you never invade their country.
Did Vietnam invade the US?
America did invade Vietnam, that’s what they didn’t understand, for most of the population. It wasn’t about north Vietnam and South Vietnam, it was just about interference in Vietnam. Rule number one, understand your enemy, America never took the time to understand, therefore it could never have one.
@@conors4430 They didn't invade the North and thought they helped the South. Many Southerners today are still sad the Americans left and hate the Northerners. The war was first and foremost a civil war.
@@nicolaasfourie ever heard about the Tonkin accident where the US shootin at nothing and use that to escalate lol. Those who want to get their american friends who push them agaisnt their brother back , they should go to America to live. Calling the VN war as a civil war is like calling the US revolution a civil war between UK colonies
@@vuvu9750 I've heard of the Tonkin Incident. The funny thing is that North Vietnam acknowledged the first shooting at US ships. You obviously have only heard about the war from an official Vietnamese perspective. As you know no other opinion is allowed in Vietnam. It was a civil war.
The US and Australia still had special troops operating there in April of 75.
Stupid rules of engagement.
Never let a politician run a war.