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Originally Posted by Botnst
I would have preferred a kill ratio of 10M:1. Or better, not a single American lost in action and mountains of enemy dead. But that's just me.
ROE are usually not a military concern but a political one. The ROE for the military begins with Geneva Conventions and is extended by whatever politician believes expedient.
See, soldiers like to win wars by defeating the enemy. Politicians think was a useful tool for negotiating.
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Wars are won. Oh boy. And why do we want to win wars, boys and girls?
Turning Vietnam into a giant combo graveyard/parking lot would have been very unlikely to yield any good fruit for our nation.
Reminds me of Eisenhower said the Joint Chiefs in '54 IIRC when they were arguing for a pre-emptive nuke strike on RED China because the French were worried that China was going to enter the fight in Vietnam.
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Then the desperate French told the Americans they were sure that China was about to enter the fight. In a meeting with the Joint Chiefs, Eisenhower told them that if the U.S. launched a preventive nuclear war against China, it would also have to simultaneously launch one against the Soviet Union. Looking directly at Admiral Radford, a supporter of preventive nuclear war, Eisenhower asked the group to suppose that it were possible to destroy Russia. "I want you to carry this question home with you. Gain such a victory, and what do you do with it? Here would be a great area from the Elbe to Vladivostok, torn up and destroyed, without government, without its communications, just an area of starvation and disaster. I ask you what would the civilized world do about it? I repeat, there is no victory except through our imaginations."
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This Week in History, January 13-19, 1953: President Eisenhower and Nuclear Policy: Toe to Toe with the Utopians
Vietnam's population in 1960 was around 35m, in 1970 45m so I guess the estimated 1 to 3 million we killed didn't make a big dent. Let's assume FTSOA that we had killed 20m or 30m. This is what might have been needed to "win" over there as most indications have it that 70 to 80% of the nation supported Ho ahead of any western nation trying to pick up where the French left off.
But you have to wonder what the world response to such a thing would have been. This in a nation that absolutely could not have traveled the 8 or 9 thousand miles needed to attack us.
But lessee, if we embark on a war for any reason, anywhere we HAVE to win cuz winning ain't everything, it's the ONLY thing godddammmit.