Quote:
Originally Posted by cmac2012
Victory was victory in WW2 because the aggressors were bruised and damaged sufficiently such that they withdrew. Where were the Vietnamese going to withdraw to? Let's go FTSOA with a Vn population of 40m. How many killed would be victory? What industrial sites were there to be destroyed? If their main industry is ag., I reckon we could have amped up Agent Orange dispersal to 30, 40, and 50% of the nation to shut down their economy.
I dunno man, the word 'victory' doesn't seem to fit whatever we would have to have done to get them to say Uncle (Sam). And, if we had to leave forces in place forever to sustain that victory, would start to seem more like loss than a win.
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Victory from a strictly military standpoint in Vietnam was obtainable, it would have probably taken a couple dozen nuclear warheads.
But as bot said which you don't seem to be following compelling the enemy to bend to your will from a military and political standpoint are very different. In every war since WW2 the US has had the power to force any enemy to submit or to simple exterminate them. But from a political sense do we really want to do such horrible things? The answer is no hence limited wars that don't end well.
We did it in WW2 BTW. We literally destroyed the post war Japanese society. Which started with the Meiji period and lead to imperialism was literally obliterated with our conventional and later nuclear bombing.