Why did America lose the Vietnam War? Because the Vietnamese were experienced, were fighting on home ground, used guerrilla tactics in the jungle, were dedicated, had a lot of foreign support, the Americans employed unpopular tactics, and there was a lack of support for the war in America. Plus many other reasons.
The Vietnam War doesn’t really have an official start date. The American Department of Defense takes November 1st 1955 as the earliest date a soldier’s death in Vietnam would qualify them to be on the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. However, the American fought Vietnam War is the continuation of a war that started in the Second World War. Vietnam had been a French colony since the middle of the 19th century. During World War 2, the area was occupied by the Japanese. The Allies (America, China, and the USSR) gave support to the Vietnamese resistance movement, led by Ho Chi Minh. The resistance received weapons and they used guerilla tactics to fight the Japanese. When Japan was defeated, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnam to be a communist republic.
After World War 2, France decided to retake all of their colonies and they started fighting in Vietnam. They had American support because Vietnam had become a communist country and the US had vowed to fight communism. China and the USSR decided to support a fellow communist country and they supplied Vietnam with weapons and money. Similar to the war in Korea, the country became divided into North and South. There was talk of American troops entering Vietnam, but President Eisenhower, probably using his experience from World War 2, didn’t want to get pulled into a land war in Asia. In 1954, France lost and gave independence to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
Throughout the 1950s, the North attacks the South using guerilla tactics. Many US troops are sent in as advisors. The thinking in the US is that if Vietnam falls to communism, then all of the surrounding countries will also become communist. However, the US is not heavily involved in Vietnam yet, other than with advisors and financial support. That changes when JFK becomes president. In the first few years of Kennedy’s presidency, he is responsible for the failed Bay of Pigs attack, he has to deal with the Cuban missile crisis, and he has to stand by while the Berlin Wall is built. He came to power on a stand of fighting communism, and he is not doing a good job of that. He sees Vietnam as a place where he can stop communism. He escalates the war. With hindsight, this was obviously a mistake. After leading the Allies through World War 2, then rebuilding Japan and Europe, followed by the Korean War, the US had accumulated a lot of political capital and were viewed favorably around the world. This was all wasted on Vietnam. As well as this, by the end of the war, 58,281 US troops had died and over 300,000 were wounded. Altogether, almost 3 million people died in the war.
So, why did America lose? They were the military powerhouse of the world. They had successfully led the Allies through World War 2. They had not managed to win in Korea, but they had not technically lost. Their military was staggering and their technology overwhelming. There should have been no way for the technologically inferior North Vietnamese to win, yet they did. Why?
One of the main reasons is that the the North Vietnamese were very experienced in the type of war they would fight. Most of Vietnam is rainforest, with thick vegetation. It was not possible to move through easily and troops needed to cut their paths. It was difficult to get vehicles through and to supply troops. The North Vietnamese had used this to their advantage against the Japanese in World War 2. They mastered guerilla warfare. There was no way they would win a straight on battle with the Japanese, so they hid in the forests, emerged to fight, and then disappeared again. They did the same thing with the French. The French realized that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable and they left. The French warned America that it was an unwinnable war. And the North Vietnamese used the same guerilla tactics against American troops. They had been perfecting their style of fighting for decades.
Another reason was their dedication. The American troops were fighting because they had to and to protect each other. The North Vietnamese troops were fighting for their freedom and they were incredibly dedicated. They were willing to sacrifice anything to win, even their own people. They used fear tactics to make the people living in the rainforests side with them against the Americans. They were also very willing to die in pursuit of their goal. This can be seen by the number of dead. There were 850,000 North Vietnamese soldiers killed against 360,000 South Vietnamese and US soldiers. It is very difficult to fight an army that are willing to die because they will push themselves further. The US found this when they fought Japanese soldiers in Okinawa.
The North Vietnamese had a lot of support from the USSR and China as well. Both countries supplied Vietnam with billions of dollars of aid and weapons. Without this, North Vietnam would have been unable to continue the war.
A very big reason was the unpopularity of the war back in America. The war was unpopular even before US troops went in, but JFK thought he would be more unpopular if he didn’t go in, so he ignored the criticism. Throughout the course of the war, opposition increased, and protests grew. As more American soldiers died, and the amount of money spent grew, people didn’t know why the war was being fought. Most US presidents after JFK probably didn’t either, but they didn’t want to be the president who “lost in Vietnam”, so they continued the fight.
There was no support for the war at home and by 1970, the troops were not willing to fight either. Cases of desertion and refusal to carry out orders grew. President Nixon had no choice and started to withdraw troops. As more and more US troops were pulled out, North Vietnam began to move into South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese leaders said they had been betrayed. There was nothing they could do though. On the 29th and 30th of April, 1975, the US evacuated the last of its people from Saigon and abandoned the country. And this is what I learned today.
Photo by Hugo Heimendinger: https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-and-yellow-flag-close-up-photography-2973304/
Sources
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-timeline
https://www.vietnamwar50th.com/assets/1/7/When_Did_the_Vietnam_War_Start_for_the_United_States.pdf
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z342mp3/revision/4
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/26/what-went-wrong-in-vietnam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/wars-the-united-states-didn-t-win.html