Comment by guildwriter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by guildwriter | Hacker News Reader

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In a sense yes actually.

Take the Tet Offensive for example. From a purely military perspective it was a total disaster for the NVA. Casualties were incredibly in the favor of the SV and US forces for a fairly small amount of territory gained. What the NVA realized correctly though was the effect that the Tet Offensive would have on an already questioning American public. The media impact of the Tet Offensive along with the request for another 200k recruits did a major blow to the American public who really began to lose faith with the war. The NVA understood that they didn't have to beat the US Army, they just had to make the American public unwilling to fight.

Note that this isn't an argument that the War was worth fighting or not. Simply that protesters can and do have an effect on how the enemy fights and can assist the enemy intentionally or unintentionally. War in the modern era is no longer just calculated in how it affects the battlefield at hand, but also the media landscape. That was one of the major lessons of the Vietnam War.

The general consensus is that the US could not win the war in Vietnam, because the vast majority of South Vietnamese were not on board: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/opinion/vietnam-was-unwin...

I would agree that the major lesson the US military learned was "manage public opinion", but that wasn't the actual lesson on offer, which was that you can't win a country without winning over its people, and that was learned all over again in Iraq between 2003-2008.

Your article doesn't support your claim:

> "Despite its ally’s fundamental weakness, the United States might possibly still have won, of course, had it been willing to fully mobilize its own national power. But that would have required raising taxes, calling up the Reserves and other sacrifices that President Lyndon Johnson shrank from asking the American people to make."

...

"But Johnson was the most astute politician to sit in the White House during the 20th century, and he knew that he faced a paradox. As long as the war in Vietnam didn’t demand too much of them and they believed that victory was just around the corner, most Americans would support it. But if Johnson admitted publicly that South Vietnam could not survive without a full commitment by the United States, he knew that support would crumble."

Yes the SV government was autocratic, corrupt, incompetent, and this made it harder for the SV to get on board. But saying that's the majority reason is frankly incorrect. The full power of the US military would have been enough to guarantee victory or stalemate.

Further counterpoint. See the Korean War. Deeply unpopular at home. Most people didn't even know where Korea even was or fully understand why we were fighting. It was one of the major reasons why Truman's approval numbers were so low. S. Korean government at the time under Rhee was corrupt as all hell and undemocratic. In fact most of S Korea's history is undemocratic. S Korean Army units a total disaster for the most part. Yet S Korea still stands independent largely because we never faltered in giving them the military support they needed.

Also Iraq in 2003-2008 was less about winning over the people of Iraq and a lot more to do with other issues such as the refusal to utilize former Ba'ath party members and generals in the formation of the new government. Arguably the worst screw up was the unilateral exit of the US from Iraq under Obama which lead to the chaos we have to deal with now.

You're arguing "if the US political climate was totally different, the US may have been able to win." Of course if we posit a totally different reality we can have a different outcome.

Under that logic we may as well never study history. Pinpointing critical facts that lead to an outcome can help the planning in the future (for better or worse).

> Pinpointing critical facts that lead to an outcome can help the planning in the future

I agree. The critical fact in this instance is that the vast majority of Americans were willing to put up with the war in Vietnam as long as it didn't grow. Speculating about an alternative America where this wasn't the case requires us to make up many, many facts, that would significantly reduce the believability about any conclusions we draw.

That's why historians discourage speculation - because it reduces the legitimacy of the field and the value of its conclusions.

> Under that logic we may as well never study history

I would love to understand why you think my statement implies this.

I think it's particularly interesting given that I have a degree in history, with a specialization in US National Security Policy in the 20th century, so I don't think I generally give people the impression that "we may as well never study history," especially the history of the Vietnam War. In general, the reviews I receive are quite to the contrary.

Perhaps my statement was overly broad. However I'd argue that thought experiments are a useful way to reflect on history. They are of course uncertain - but provide a framework.

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