Alternative history time: What if we had gotten serious during the Vietnam War and decided to invade North Vietnam?

[glenn1]

Seems to me that one of the reasons, if not the main reason, that the U.S. lost the Vietnam War is that we insisted on playing only defense rather than offense. It simply became a conflict where our ability to win was premised on standing there and taking the punches, and hoping the other side's arm eventually got tired of hitting us.

So let's jump in the Wayback Machine and head for 1972, pre-Watergate. Operation Linebacker had been in play for months, and Hanoi's will basically broken after thousands of air sorties by B52s, which led to the North agreeing to a cease fire in October. And we all know how things wound up after that, if not google helicopters evacuating the American embassy in Saigon in 1975.

So how could we have actually fought Vietnam to win, rather than sitting there hoping the north would get tired of fighting?

 

The word of the decade was "containment." Occupying North Vietnam would make us look like aggressors and not containers, and that's the opposite from what we wanted. Since we were simply acting as the world's police and we hadn't been attacked, invading North Vietnam would have drawn worldwide criticism, since we were only supposed to be holding the communists back.

 

[Queasy]

You'd have to consider the fact that if the US had broken into North Vietnam that there was a big chance that the USSR and/or China would have upped their support of the NVA...possibly by sending in their own troops which would have greatly expanded the war.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Originally posted by: Queasy
You'd have to consider the fact that if the US had broken into North Vietnam that there was a big chance that the USSR and/or China would have upped their support of the NVA...possibly by sending in their own troops which would have greatly expanded the war.

Yes, let's take that Wayback Machine a little further back to remind ourselves of what happened when we invaded North Korea!

Our present predicament in Iraq should also remind us that winning the war militarily leaves us with the problems of occupation which are harder to solve.

 

[HappyPuppy]

Originally posted by: PowerEngineer

Originally posted by: Queasy
You'd have to consider the fact that if the US had broken into North Vietnam that there was a big chance that the USSR and/or China would have upped their support of the NVA...possibly by sending in their own troops which would have greatly expanded the war.

Yes, let's take that Wayback Machine a little further back to remind ourselves of what happened when we invaded North Korea!

Our present predicament in Iraq should also remind us that winning the war militarily leaves us with the problems of occupation which are harder to solve.

Pardon me, but didn't North Korea invade South Korea? All we did was push the NK's back to the DMZ and, with MacArthur in charge, go on into NK? Yep, the Chinese came in and pushed us back to the DMZ, but WE never INVADED North Korea.

 

[FleshLight]

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy

Originally posted by: PowerEngineer

Originally posted by: Queasy
You'd have to consider the fact that if the US had broken into North Vietnam that there was a big chance that the USSR and/or China would have upped their support of the NVA...possibly by sending in their own troops which would have greatly expanded the war.

Yes, let's take that Wayback Machine a little further back to remind ourselves of what happened when we invaded North Korea!

Our present predicament in Iraq should also remind us that winning the war militarily leaves us with the problems of occupation which are harder to solve.

Pardon me, but didn't North Korea invade South Korea? All we did was push the NK's back to the DMZ and, with MacArthur in charge, go on into NK? Yep, the Chinese came in and pushed us back to the DMZ, but WE never INVADED North Korea.

Yup, NK invaded SK by crossing the 38st (or was it 39nd?) parallel aka DMZ and it even went as far as pushing Macarthur to the southern. However, MacArthur was pretty successful in pushing them back to the 38st parallel. The chinese amassed troops near the Yellow River (name is probably incorrect) and Macarthur wanted to drop a few nukes on them. However, Eisenhower got pissed and fired Macarthur.

 

[TheNinja]

There is little doubt in most people's minds that we could have "won" the Vietnam war. But as mentioned already our hands were tied so to speak b/c we were limited in what we would and could do.