>Hey, you know how like pretty much every war ever was about gaining ground and strategic points? And then forcing the enemy into a position where they logistically couldnt fight anymore so they would have to give in to our demands?
>Well we are going to reinvent the wheel and do away with that approach to war. Just focus instead on killing as many enemies as you can. Even if you take a hill or something, just retreat from it after. That way, the enemy will go back there and we can kill even more of them
Seriously, what the F U C K where they thinking? Where they really this dumb or was it part of some conspiracy by the military industrial complex to just prolong a war for whatever economic reasons?
>>923336
>Seriously, what the F U C K where they thinking?
Honestly I have no fucking clue. The Vietnam War was the biggest clusterfuck imaginable, I guess they thought that they were fighting against an ideology rather than a country, and therefore the only way to win was to kill everyone with the ideology?
"For them, the war was about heavy bombers dropping thousands of tons of ordnance a day on nothing. You could see planes being loaded with bombs, taking off, and dropping the bombs at the end of the runway, just to land again, so they could fill the papers on their bogus missions, rinse and repeat, all the while we were getting pounded in the jungle..."
-some retired marine
>>923336
>>Hey, you know how like pretty much every war ever was about gaining ground and strategic points?
Actually warfare post-middle ages was mostly about destroying the enemy's field army.
>was it part of some conspiracy by the military industrial complex to just prolong a war
Well that the war was started like every post ww2 conflict the US has started, but even so there was no strategy that could have won in vietnam. Obviously "bomb and kill them until they like us" is retarded.
>>923465
*thats why
It wasn't a war it was a "police action." The American justification for the war depended on the idea that the Vietnamese in general were not the enemy, they were just being attacked by foreign-supported communist guerillas that the "real" Vietnamese needed help keeping under control.
>>923465
>there was no strategy that could have won in vietnam
this is bullshit.
>>923473
enlighten us
>>923473
Let me guess...nazi fantasies of putting them in gas chambers or some such. Much like Iraq and Afghanistan, they didnt want Americans pushing them around in their own country taking about democracy while at the same time propping up a corrupt dictatorship. They would never listen to anything that Americans would say when they can clearly see its all pure bullshit.
>>923493
>they didnt want Americans pushing them around in their own country taking about democracy while at the same time propping up a corrupt dictatorship
literally every war of conquest ever was like this so I dont get this meme of OMG ITS IMPOSSIBLE!
And you just bomb the fuck out of the north until they agree to a truce and agree to stop trying to invade the south, then you just build up the south. Just like we did in Korea and how the fucking Vietnam war ended, until a year later when the democrats decided to stop supplying the south, giving the Russian back north to just steamroll in
>>923508
The ordinary Vietnamese people could see they were better off with the communists that the southern government
>>923336
Are you retarded? Everyone knows it was to stop the spread of communism without provoking a nuclear war with China. Believing that a revolution in Vietnam would trigger a chain reaction throughout Southeast Asia, the US attempted to prevent a communist takeover through attrition. While this was a terrible strategy, it also seemed like the only way to stop the creep of Mao's power.
>>923516
>The ordinary Vietnamese people could see they were better off with the communists that the southern government
[citation needed]
Also, this has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
>>923508
>And you just bomb the fuck out of the north until they agree to a truce and agree to stop trying to invade the south
>Just like we did in Korea
Please, keep your pseudo-patriotic chest thumping out of this place
The Korean war ended when Chinks crossed the border in full force and the same shit would happened in Vietnam if North was getting assfucked.
>>923531
The Chinks came out in full force when the US began to push up against their border.
That wouldn't happen if the US just decided to bomb the north into submission.
>>923531
>keep your pseudo-patriotic chest thumping out of this place
I was describing exactly what led to the paris peace accords you stupid faggot. Nixon just ordered bombers to fly over the north and bomb them into oblivion until they agreed to a peace
keep you cliche oikophobic liberal meme history out of this place
>>923528
>[citation needed]
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem
>is catholic
>obvious former french stooge which is a smack in the face to the patriotic vietnamese
>bans buddism (main religion of the fucking country)
>puts his friends into high places and pretty much robs the population to enrich himself
>gets killed and is followed by a military junta, how democratic and completely in sync with american values
Vs.
>the communists
>vietnamese patriots
>dont need some foreign faggots to come in and fight for them
>Also, this has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
Only because you are too dumb to realise that the Southern government never had a chance when the vast majority of Vietnamese could see that it was such a piece of shit they would be better off with the communists. How are you going to bomb facts back to the stoneage? "bombing the fuck" out of some mud was never going to work, besides Korea and Vietnam were totally different, it didnt work in Korea and was much less likely to work in Vietnam.
>>923559
>muh libruls
>>923562
nice counter argument. stay butthurt retard
>>923524
Yeah but the US still failed miserably and they left with their tails between their legs. Of course that was the point of the war, the point of OP's post was to ask why the fuck the yanks implemented such a terrible war strategy
>>923560
Though almost all of that apart from the southern ruler being Catholic can be said for the Korean war as well.
>>923560
>>dont need some foreign faggots to come in and fight for them
lel
Also the EXACT same thing happened in Korea. And you are obviously romanticizing the communist north.
>"bombing the fuck" out of some mud was never going to work
except for that it did
>>923462
>like "pretty much" every war
>gives an example of one time period of outliers
thanks for your contribution
>>923572
>"nice counter argument. stay butthurt retard"
>is just shitting out /pol/ buzzwords at everybody until they hopefully go away and stop making him look like trailer trash
>>923590
you posted "muh liberals" and are now posting "YOURE JUST /POL/!"
Stop shitposting because you lost an argument on a topic you know nothing about
>>923594
[citation needed]
>>923559
>Nixon just ordered bombers to fly over the north and bomb them into oblivion until they agreed to a peace
that bombardment didn't do shit for THREE FUCKING YEARS and the armistice was there to save face for everyone involved
It's called forgotten war for a reason.
>>923627
It kept bomb making companies in work though
>>923627
>that bombardment didn't do shit
yeah right
Johnson started bombing the north in 68 and then promised to stop it if the north agreed to come to the barginning table which they did
then Nixon did the same thing a few years later, and he promised to start bombing them again if the North ever tried to invade the south again, and they only invaded after Nixon was out of office.
Dont pretend like getting bombed isnt devastating
>>923336
to make it simple, they were improving
the US Army was equipped to fight the conventional war, with set battle lines fighting against soldiers in uniforms with armored tanks and air support.
the North Vietnamese/Viet Cong threw all that out the window and refused to give the US their conventional war, hiding in the jungles and wearing everyday civilian clothes to infiltrate cities with sappers.
The US couldn't effectively fight an enemy that wasn't clearly defending a front line or in a formation, so they just adopted "Kill them all until there's not enough bodies to fill their ranks" and they'll give up once they run out of guerrilla fighters.
Backlash to this was that killing everything indiscriminately didn't win the hearts and minds of the locals, who resented the bombings enough to join the Viet Cong/NVA ranks, so they could always have enough bodies to keep the war effort going, after that, all the NVA had to do was stall until the American public was sick and tired of war, and the South Vietnamese became sick and tired of getting bombs dropped on them every few hours.
