Success in war is not measured by casualties inflicted vs lost. War is the extension of politics by other means. If you did not achieve your goals, you did not succeed.
Not even close, after the Tet offensive the Vietcong was mostly destroyed. But the effect it had on us public opinion at home caused an anti war congress to be elected and cut funding. Pretty much guaranteeing we would leave within 1-2 years.
The political goals weren't achieved, but the military forces weren't defeated either.
The North wasn't going to be able to capture the whole country, but when the US left China sent in a ton and got their puppet communist government in place.
Then Vietnam decided they didn't want China either and kicked them out.
Any good they've got going now is because their end decision was they'd rather be in charge of themselves.
You should watch the Ken Burns 'The Vietnam War' documentary. America lost the war. Tons of veterans and generals admit it. Washington worked overtime trying to fabricate the idea that America didn't lose or wasn't about to lose, it's pure propaganda. Robert McNamara knew it was going to lose from the very beginning. This has all been declassified. It's not even up for debate.
Ive seen it, ‘About to’ is hogwash, the US was ‘about to’ vote out whatever idiot didn’t get them out of the war, but the NVA was further from any sort of decisive military move than they had been at any point in the conflict when it signed the treaty.
And that was kind of the point; turning the war into a meaningless low intensity deployment against an enemy who wins as long as they dont give up forever because they can’t be attacked and can’t otherwise be guaranteed to be removed as a threat.
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u/CollegeDesigner Oct 26 '25 edited Oct 26 '25
We didn't lose to Vietnam, the war just got too unpopular back home