Towards a more nuanced understanding of the Vietnam War

Following the U.S. withdrawal from Saigon in 1975, many attributed the military’s defeat in Vietnam to public opinion turning against the war and politicians refusing to send more money and troops. Whilst these were two elements that made winning the war harder for the U.S., they downplay the struggle of the Viet Cong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese Army’s (NVA) leadership, as well as the U.S. alienating their allies.  

After the expulsion of French colonial rule in 1955, Vietnam was split along the 17^th Parallel into a communist North and a U.S.-backed South. Whilst Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the North, his Vice Prime Minister and Chief of the Army, Vo Nguyen Giap, would be vital to the Vietnamese victory against the U.S. forces. Giap was an experienced revolutionary, responsible for beating the French at Bein Dien Phu in 1954 showing the entire colonised world that oppressed peoples could defeat Western powers. Giap introduced reforms that made the NVA a tactical fighting force that could defend the newly independent country. He standardised weaponry and ammunition in the infantry, sent prospective pilots to China for training, created a new naval force, and introduced new firing ranges for troops to relentlessly practice their marksmanship. These new reforms were vital for the North Vietnamese to prepare for the coming guerrilla campaign against the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) and the U.S. 

In 1959, Giap established three tactical groups, numbered 559, 759, and 959, to transport equipment and guerrillas into the South. These groups moved by land and sea, laying the foundation for the ‘Ho Chi Minh Trail’, originally small paths through the jungles of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to move ammunition and men into South Vietnam. By the early 1960s, the term ‘trail’ became obsolete; the trail now had paved roads, petrol stations, air raid shelters, and even recreation stops for drivers moving trucks and tanks southward. This logistical showstopper was vital to keeping the Viet Cong’s guerrilla war armed and reinforced against the U.S.  

Giap’s crowning achievement was his planning of the 1968 Tet Offensive. This offensive whilst not achieving its goal of toppling the Southern government, it did shock the U.S. in its scale and timing. Over 100 cities and towns were held by the Viet Cong for several weeks. For months leading up to the offensive, Giap was able to trick the U.S. military into moving thousands of marines to Khe Sanh, a strategically insignificant outpost, leaving major cities under-defended. This offensive was arguably the most famous of the entire war, leading to a huge sway in U.S. public opinion against the war.  

In 1973, the U.S. Congress ended all military action in Vietnam, making a token statement to protect South Vietnam in the case of Northern aggression. The North Vietnamese Politburo had quickly realised that without the U.S., South Vietnam was incapable of defending itself against the communist guerrillas. Just two years later, the NVA was able to lead the final offensive into the South at lightning speed, shocking the North Vietnamese Politburo. ARVN, after decades of U.S. training and support, failed to put up even a token resistance to the advancing NVA, choosing to abandon their positions and move towards Saigon. Perhaps ARVN failed to fight back effectively against the NVA due to the U.S.’ insistence on using conventional tactics, switching to counterinsurgency too late in the war to be effective. The fighting effectiveness of ARVN was so poor that resistance to the NVA was futile, exemplified by reports of a lost NVA tank commander, asking an ARVN unit for directions. Within only a few months of fighting, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.  

Popular understanding of the Vietnam war often focuses on just U.S. involvement, but other Western powers also played a role.  Successive British governments were able to avoid sending troops to Vietnam, much to the annoyance of the U.S., which threatened to stop backing the Pound in retaliation. Whilst British troops were never deployed, British bombs were eagerly sold to both the U.S. and Australia. The British government knew that sending troops to Vietnam would tank their popularity and risk losing the next general election. This is what happened to the National Party of New Zealand, which sent a token force of 500 to appease the U.S. and Australia, only to quickly bring them back under a Labour government after 187 were wounded and 35 killed. The U.S.’s desperation to share the burden of troop deployments in Vietnam was alienating allies across Europe and Asia. The whole world was aware of how deadly this conflict was and its unpopularity among the U.S. public.  

The Vietnam War has, for a long time, been studied from a U.S. perspective, downplaying not only other Western powers who were marginally involved but even the tactical prowess of the NVA and Viet Cong. America’s military ego has left people wondering how a global superpower lost to “rice farmers,” when they were facing a highly organised guerrilla army, led by career generals. In the words of William J. Duiker; “the Communists had done better with less.” When studying conflict between Western and non-Western powers, it is vital to understand the non-Western perspective to avoid inserting our own prejudices. 

Bibliography

Currey, Cecil B., Victory at Any Cost, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005). 

Duiker, William J., The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1981).  

Krepinevich, Andrew F., The Army and Vietnam, (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1986). 

Nugent, Nicholas, Vietnam: The Second Revolution, (Brighton: Print Publishing, 1996). 

Parker, Alastair, ‘International Aspects of the Vietnam War’, in The Vietnam War, ed. by Peter Lowe, (London: Macmillan Press LTD, 1998).