In this column, two journalists write about their opposing viewpoints on controversial issues. This month, Phoenix will be making the argument for why South Vietnam could have won the Vietnam War, and Audrey will be making an argument in opposition.
The Vietnam War, as most wars are, was a result of decades and decades of complicated geopolitics that end in disaster. But this war was like no other. It was the testing grounds of many of the military technology, tactics, and doctrine that we still use to this day. It was the first of many American intervention wars in which the cutting edge military is put up against the most difficult type of enemy any country could face-- an enemy with an endless supply of manpower. That enemy is what is called an insurgency. As defined by the CIA, an insurgency or insurgent group is a political-military force that uses irregular warfare to gain control of a particular area. More specific objectives depend on the insurgent group, but that is the basic idea.
As to how insurgencies relate to the Vietnam War, the insurgent group known as the Northern Liberation Front (NLF or Việt Cộng) was one of the main fighting forces of communism in the region. The Northern Liberation Front was formed in an effort to bring an end to the French colonial rule that had been dictating the Vietnamese as far back as 1887. According to the History Channel, Ho Chi Minh founded the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930. This was the first organized appearance of communism in Southeast Asia. In May of 1941, as World War 2 raged on, Ho Chi Minh established the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Việt Minh). Also during WW2, Japan annexed the Southeast Asian territories that were once French Indochina. Later on, Japan would declare them as free and independent countries. Imperial Japan was defeated at the end of World War Two and France wanted their colonial claim back. In a political play to both maintain total freedom and gain the support of the United States, Ho Chi Minh made his own Declaration of Independence for Vietnam. The attempt failed. What ensued next was the First Indochina War, which lasted from 1947 to 1954, resulting in a Việt Minh victory. In the same year that the war ended, the Geneva Accords set up North and South Vietnam. The Geneva Accords also demanded democratic elections every two years under a united government, but this did not end up happening. The North and South Vietnamese continued their attempt to establish a united Vietnam.
This is the basis of the Vietnam War: a war of unification between two governments that believe in complete opposite ideologies. The North Vietnamese are backed by communist forces of the world, like the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. The South Vietnamese are backed by democratic forces like the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Australia. The question that stands is whether or not South Vietnam had the ability to win the Vietnam War.
Argued by: Sir Phoenix C. Robinson
Argued by: Audrey Roetling
With some of the most minor changes, South Vietnam could have won the Vietnam War-- perhaps even more easily than North Vietnam did. From 1955 to the fall of Saigon in 1975, South Vietnam made various decisions in poor taste that resulted in defeat. Most, if not all, of these decisions could have been reversed in a way that is beneficial to South Vietnam.
According to the Pritzker Military Museum and Library, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)’s biggest issue was leadership: “American training further enhanced ARVN support. Despite this support, ARVN troops were often poorly led… In all, ARVN troops fought effectively when well-led, but tragically never seemed to have good commanders.” If South Vietnam’s army was able to have good, effective commanders, then it is likely that they would have won the war. Seeing as U.S. forces were already aiding with military assistance, America very well could have lent a few of their commanders or establish an Officer School where ARVN officers could train. If either one of these moves had been made, it is likely that the war would have taken a very different direction.
However, bad commanders were not the only circumventable issue that South Vietnam possessed. The management of many domestic aspects in governance was conducted poorly. For example, the JFK Presidential Library states that “the suppression of Buddhists in South Vietnam… did little to ease tensions [in South Vietnam].” This is certainly true, as a majority of the population adhered to Buddhism. The choice to suppress Buddhists was made with little to no actual reasoning and thus could have been avoided entirely. If there had been someone who was able to advise the President against such an act, then maybe South Vietnam would not have been so oppressive towards its largest religious group. Doing so could have offered far more willing soldiers to the South Vietnamese Army and, potentially, the good commander that ARVN had been looking for.
Arguably, the biggest mistake was the slowing down of the war after the Tet Offensive. As the Office of the Historian retells it, “While both sides had sustained a large sum of casualties after the offensive, the NLF had been almost completely wiped out.” While there were undeniable casualties sustained by ARVN, it is more than likely that an aggressive counteroffensive shortly after the Tet Offensive would have shocked and paralyzed the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). This would result in a South Vietnamese victory.
Yes, there were undeniably many issues that South Vietnam faced. However, it is important to note that these issues were, in one way or another, able to be avoided or at least dampened. The loss of the Vietnam War is a result of a compilation of mistakes made by democratic forces. It is not the result of fighting against an impossible enemy. It is important to note that similar mistakes were made almost fifty years later, during the War on Terror, but that is a whole new argument.
South Vietnam did not win the Vietnam War because they could not win the Vietnam War. Even with the $168 billion the United States gave the South in weapons, training, supplies, and machinery, hoping to prevent communism, neither the United States nor South Vietnam had the zeal it took to prevent North Vietnam.
South Vietnam also had a corrupt government. Ngo Dinh Diem was the United States' choice as a leader of Vietnam due to his strong anti-communist views; however, he was not necessarily the choice of the South Vietnamese people. In an ironic election to establish a republic, the United States assisted in rigging an election so that Diem would receive 98% of the votes (a suspiciously high number for an election rig, but corruption has no limits). Office of the Historian , "Given the high rate of illiteracy, the hundreds of tiny villages without communication facilities... it is difficult to believe that nearly 98% of the eligible population actually cast votes". Then, Diem, the newly found dictator, started to persecute the Buddhists of a country that was primarily Buddhist, favoring the Catholic minority. Before the war, a communist group, the Vietminh, wanted Ho Chi Minh as a leader and others support Ngo Dinh Diem; however, much of the South was very unhappy under DIeh's rule. Eventually, war broke out between the North and the South. Diem’s army lacked morale; most did not want to fight for him, and some even wanted the North to win. There was even a communist group in South Vietnam active in opposition to Ngo Dinh Diem, according to BBC , "From 1958 onwards, the South came under increasing attacks from communists in South Vietnam itself. They were called the National Liberation Front (NLF)" . In 1963, when Diem was overthrown, the government only became even more unstable. Now, many of the soldiers of South Vietnam were loyal and fighting for survival, but were poorly trained, supplied, and under poor leadership-- whereas the Vietcong of North Vietnam was stronger and had a more organized leadership.
North Vietnam was determined to win and was more unified on a shared goal: to reunify Vietnam as a communist nation. Political propaganda fostered this unity by motivating even poor villagers to oppose the United States and South Vietnam. According to the Army Heritage Center Foundation, the North Vietnamese's clear and established plan included: “cripple South Vietnam’s morale, destroy their will to fight, and incite the people to rise up against their government. At the same time, they wanted to weaken American trust in the South Vietnamese government and discredit U.S. claims of progress.” Support from communist allies such as the Soviet Union and China contributed resources, but their $1.1 billion in aid paled in comparison to the $168 billion given by the U.S. However, this disparity shows that money was less critical than morale, training, and leadership. North Vietnam’s effective guerrilla warfare further enabled its forces to outlast South Vietnam and the United States, which lacked the willpower for a prolonged and seemingly hopeless land war.
The United States drained money on a cause that was not even fully supported by the people and soldiers. At first, the soldiers could not keep up with the guerrilla warfare of the South, but after a win at the Tet Offensive for South Vietnam and the United States, the U.S. realized how large the scale of the attacks had to be for a victory, demonstrating the strength of North Vietnam. Also, after the brutal battle of the Tet Offensive, the U.S. citizens fighting and watching the war from home stopped supporting the war, ultimately leaving the United States to withdraw and wonder why they were ever fighting. According to The Atlantic: “More than 58,000 Americans and as many as 3 million Vietnamese had died in the conflict. America’s illusions of invincibility had been shattered, its moral confidence shaken." The American people lost the will to fight in the Vietnam War and lost trust in the government that drafted its own citizens for another nation.
North Vietnam was unified for support of the war under a shared ideology of communism with the Soviet Union and China. South Vietnam was divided under corrupt leadership, and Americans were dying for a cause they did not believe in. The Vietnam War showed that war is not always about economics, allies, and the size of the military, but sometimes comes down to belief in a cause, unity, direction, and strategy, as demonstrated by the victory of North Vietnam.
