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Vietnam
Topic Started: Mar 2 2014, 11:37 PM (184 Views)
Basil Fawlty
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Post Tenebras Lux
Could the Vietnam War have been won? If so, what in your opinion would have been the optimal strategy, on the ground as well as in the air?
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Delta Force

That kind of depends on how you define victory. Even the Johnson and Nixon administrations didn't have a clear idea what that entailed.
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Basil Fawlty
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Post Tenebras Lux
Indeed. The impetus for my original question was some reading I had been doing on Operation Rolling Thunder, and the numerous restrictions placed on it. For example, airstrips were declared off limits. It sounds as if the campaign was doomed from the start.
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Simon Darkshade
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Nefarious Swashbuckler
If we define victory as preserving South Vietnam as an analogue to South Korea, then it could be done with a long term commitment of troops and airpower.

A necessary precondition would be having clear objectives and an accompanying political strategy to build up the legitimacy of the RVN government and address issues of corruption.
There isn't a single convenient point of departure, but there would need to be a different course of action from the mid to late 1950s onwards.

Rolling Thunder was tactically hamstrung by the limitations placed on it, but even a "gloves off" bombing campaign would need to be accompanied by effective reforms in the South, long term commitment of ground troops and an effective counter insurgency.
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