dimitrig said:
Why did the United States lose the Vietnam War?
1. Ambiguous Aims & Objectives of the War
The US failed to articulate clear-cut aims and objectives at the tactical level. Consequently, there was a lot of confusion about the desired results of the military intervention. It just jumped in without properly defining any tangible and verifiable goals and objectives in terms of military achievements. Lack of clarity about the overall objective of the military intervention, therefore, resulted in inconsistent policy and strategy formulation by the Pentagon.
2. Lack of Consistency in Policy Formulation
Americans paid lip service to the Vietnamese while treating them horribly. You have to destroy the village in order to save it.
3. Public Support for Vietcong
Henry Kissinger has rightly pointed out that "The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerilla wins if he does not lose."
Viet Cong guerillas had time at their disposal. They solicited public support through extremely effective use of propaganda inside Vietnam; they just painted the USA as an invading force. Americans tried to use bombing campaigns and advanced weaponry and coupled them with brutal tactics to show how strong it was, and how futile it was for the Vietnamese to continue resisting. It wanted them to submit by scaring them which worked the opposite way. The images of American atrocities horrified the world, especially America's population. It did not achieve any objective for America. If anything, it made the local population hate America even more and join Viet Cong.
4. Support of China.
One of the most crucial reasons for the defeat of the USA was the wholehearted support of China to North Vietnam. The Chinese support for the Vietcong was not only for strategic security concerns of China but also motivated by the sense of an international responsibility to help brotherly comrades and promote the anti-imperialist revolution.
Consequently, despite the best efforts of the USA, there was no interruption of supplies of food and war materials for the Vietcong from China.
5. Lack of understanding of Political Dynamics
The USA failed to comprehend the political dynamics of the local and regional landscape, and, more importantly, what Vietnam wanted to become. They thought it was about communism vs capitalism, and that as a result, the Vietnamese would support the Americans if they understood what America was promising. Instead, the US antagonized everyone and pushed even its former supporters against America.
6. Intelligence failure of the CIA.
It failed to gauge the scope of the war and underestimated the strength of the Vietcong. It was compounded by confusion about definitions, faulty accounting techniques, and figure fudging. Focusing too much on technology instead of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) resulted in a disconnect that prevented the integration and fusing of information to achieve efficient, accurate intelligence assessments. These failures, in turn, led the USA to adopt conventional military solutions for an unconventional problem.
7. Dwindling Domestic Public Support
Vietnam War was the first fully televised war creating its supporters as well as opponents in every house in the USA. News about the atrocities and horror stories like the Mai Lai massacre soon made the war very unpopular. The use of the draft made it even more detestable.
Link:
https://shahidhraja.medium.com/why-did-the-united-states-lose-the-vietnam-war-e9bfc4096724
Russia looks like it is on target to achieve most of these and it has only been 8 years (since 2014)! It took the US 20 years to lose!
Let's see how Russia is doing...
1. Ambiguous Aims & Objectives of the War
Check.
There are no tactical objectives. The Russian military has no idea what it is supposed to be doing or what would constitute a victory. There are no verifiable goals and objectives to be met.
2. Lack of Consistency in Policy Formulation
Check.
Russia claims it is protecting ethnic Russians living in Ukraine. It is doing that by waging war in their cities and causing them hardships.
3. Public Support for Vietcong
Check.
One reason Ukraine is holding out so long is that the populace is supportive of Ukraine. They reveal troop movements and locations to the Ukraine army. They tend to Ukraine's wounded. When people like Cal88 cite the numbers of Russian troops deployed they gloss over the fact that most of those troops play support and logistics roles and will never see any fighting. Ukraine's civilian population is a force multiplier, because they aren't counted among the number of soldiers fighting Russia and yet they are performing roles that Russian soldiers are performing. The number of people actively opposing Russia is likely in the millions if not tens of millions. Russia's army is in the mere hundreds of thousands. If they activated every single reservist and had them all supporting the action in Ukraine it would still be just 3 million.
4. Support of China.
Check.
Russia's China is of course the United States and NATO. Russia is not able to severely disrupt the steady stream of food and war materials into Ukraine.
5. Lack of understanding of Political Dynamics
Check.
Russia thought that Ukrainians would support them in the same way they did when they annexed Crimea.They thought that Ukrainians would welcome their help to depose their corrupt government. They were wrong. Even those who sympathize with Russia will get more and more weary of the disruption to their lives as the war drags on. Russia is uniting the Ukrainians against them.
According to a poll conducted by KIIS in July of 2022, a historic 85 percent of Ukrainians identify themselves above all as citizens of Ukraine, as opposed to residents of their region, representatives of an ethnic minority, or some other identifier. As many as 84 percent of Ukrainians reject any territorial concessions to Russia, and this indicator has increased over time. Even among residents of the south (the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Mykolayiv, Odesa, and Kherson regions), 77 percent oppose concessions. Among residents of the east (Kharkiv and the Kyiv-controlled parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions) -- 82 percent do not accept concessions.
Moreover, the data indicates that as many as 61 percent of Ukrainians support opposing Russian aggression until all of Ukraine -- including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea that Moscow illegally annexed in 2014 -- is under Kyiv's control. Some 12.2 percent were willing to accept Moscow's continued occupation of Crimea, while 8.6 percent argued for the restoration of all territory captured by Russia since February 24. Just under 15 percent were willing to accept an immediate cease-fire along the current lines of conflict with both sides pledging to enter long-term peace talks.
Russia thought Ukraine was a country without an identity separate from Russia. That is not true anymore if it ever was.
6. Intelligence failure of the CIA.
Check.
Russian intelligence underestimated the strength and resolve of the Ukrainian military and its people. Its own capabilities were oversold. Corruption and lies led Russian commands to believe that their military was in much better shape than it really was. As the war drags on, Russian is relying more on high technology solutions to try to bomb Ukraine into submission from afar, not realizing that only upsets people more when civilians are killed. Russia is also focused on fighting an artillery battle with Ukraine. This war can't be won with artillery because artillery doesn't occupy any territory and indiscriminate shelling only destroys Ukrainian infrastructure and makes people's lives miserable. I think early on Russia realized this and tried to be very delicate in its attacks, but as frustration mounts they are starting to lose their cool and applying more pressure to the civilians. This is only counterproductive.
7. Dwindling Domestic Public Support
TBD.
Publicly, there still seems to be a lot of domestic support for this war. However, Russians are not always forthcoming about their beliefs. Still, it seems support is very high. This is because Russia has been using mercenaries, prisoners, and people from outer territories to wage this war. It hasn't much affected the Russian public. As the war continues and more Russian soldiers from Moscow and St. Petersburg return home in body bags this support will sour.
Further, ties between Russia and Ukraine are very close. Many Russians have friends and relatives in Ukraine and vice versa. As more Ukrainian friends and family are killed it will be harder and harder to swallow the lies that Russia is liberating Ukraine from Nazi extremists and corrupt leaders.
This will be the hardest box to check off, but once it happens I think the war will end and it will end in defeat for Russia. If they are lucky they will be able to negotiate keeping the land they occupy now. I view that as the best possible outcome for them. If they are stubborn it will get much worse as the West ramps up military production and aid to Ukraine. Time is not on Russia's side.
