
Who Threw Westmoreland Under the Bus? - smacktoward
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/opinion/westmoreland-vietnam-war-troops.html
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Analemma_
This is a load of crap. It's part of an entire genre of "Vietnam revisionism"
that has been circulating around right-wing circles at low intensity since the
late 70's. It's usually centered around the idea that we were _just_ about to
win in Vietnam, with just a couple more months or a couple more thousand
troops, and that it was the cowardly liberals who snatched defeat from the
jaws of victory.

The whole idea could only exist with years of distance from the war itself,
once people have forgotten what the actual situation was like. None of them
remember that Vietnam was what Afghanistan is today: we don't even know what
"winning" looks like, never mind have anything close to a coherent or
realistic plan about how to do it, and everyone knows it.

As for the specific faults with this editorial, it's right there in the
opening paragraph: "He considered the Liberation Front and the North
Vietnamese on the ropes, and headed for defeat." The author doesn't even
acknowledge the possibility that Westmoreland was simply wrong; no, it must
have been those schemers in Washington.

~~~
spikels
While I agree with some of your points much of what you say is unnecessarily
simplistic and partisan. As John Prados writes “what actually happened was
more complex.” This article is about the details of what actually happened not
revisiting political arguments from the 1960s and 1970s.

John Prados is no “Vietnam revisionist” or right-winger. If you read his main
book on Vietnam War, “Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975”,
you will learn that he was actually an anti-war activist during the war. He
later became one of our top military historians and has written several books
on the Vietnam war. Prados is particularly known for his advocacy for openness
in government records. This article draws from once secret documents that
Prados helped uncover and declassify.

Lastly it is almost universally acknowledged that the Tet Offensive was
_militarily_ a disaster for the NVA/Viet Cong and huge win for ARVN/US forces.
This is a common refrain in the most histories of the war and this NYTimes
series, Vietnam ‘67. The political debates about the war are separate matters.

~~~
wahern

      universally acknowledged that the Tet Offensive was militarily a disaster
    

Does it really make sense to try to distinguish _military_ success from the
political consequences? The notion that those things are gainfully
distinguishable seems horribly flawed and can be found at the root of our
foreign policy _and_ military blunders.

It's sort of like talking about how technology A is better than technology B
without giving any consideration to market viability, path dependency, etc.
Someone who appreciates and emphasizes the latter will almost always see
greater success than someone who focuses on the "best" technology. What's
worse is when someone bitterly complains about how their startup failed even
though they had the better technology. Not only did they fail in the market,
but they don't even understand _why_ they failed, which is that realistically
there's no objective "better" technology independent from market dynamics.
Likewise, there can exist no objective military "success" if the political
consequences result in the campaign ultimately crumbling.

Another way to put it is that given the American strategic posture, the only
to have seen success in the Tet Offensive would have been to have been more
prepared and taken many fewer casualties such that the public would have never
wavered in its support. That may seem an unfair benchmark, but war isn't fair.
If you're going to win a war, you have to understand how wars are won. You not
only go to war with the army you have instead of the army you wish you had,
you go to war with the public support you have, not the public support you
wish you had. If the public is fickle, you better make sure you account for
that. Otherwise you'll fail.

