To this day, many people have such an opinion when talking about the US military
"The armies of capitalist countries, after suffering huge casualties, will back down at the negotiating table for fear of incurring more casualties"
Whether this view is correct or not is debatable, but in the Viet Nam War, the North Vietnamese leadership, convinced of this, waged a losing campaign
In this battle, they threw almost all the chips but failed to win anything they wanted on the battlefield
However, after the defeat, the United States, who were supposed to enjoy victory, showed fear and eventually began to consider withdrawing from Viet Nam
The Tet Offensive was a real turning point in the Viet Nam War, but the battle that took place in early 1968 did not change anything, it only made the United States understand that it was meaningless to dwell on North Viet Nam
It's unbearable
Last time, I said that after the United States deliberately created the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the contradictions between China and the United States intensified unprecedentedly, and the two countries almost came to the point of fighting each other
However, after China showed its determination to fight to the end, the United States, who did not want to make another "Korean War"-style mistake, finally decided to accept that China would not allow it to cross the 17th parallel
However, not crossing the 17th parallel did not mean that United States had to withdraw from the Viet Nam, and after 1965, United States people who had figured out China's bottom line began to avoid direct interference between China and the Soviet Union
In just two years, more than 500,000 U.S. troops were sent to this small place thousands of miles away from the United States mainland
You must know that in the Gulf War, which flattened the entire Iraq in the future, the total number of US troops was only 690,000, and it stands to reason that more than 500,000 US troops could take North Vietnam, which was less than half the area of Iraq
However, in the early days of the Viet Nam War, United States's biggest problem was that under the bottom line set by China, there was no war goal that could be accomplished
Beginning in 1965, the U.S. military took over all defense of South Vietnam, but the growing U.S. military had to accomplish either a small North Vietnamese offensive on the border or a North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam and guerrilla forces cultivated in South Vietnam
In fact, in almost every battle in the early days of the Viet Nam War, the U.S. military played a good exchange ratio and won the battle
However, the result of not being able to cut the grass and eradicate the roots was, on the one hand, the North Vietnamese guerrillas were like weeds, cutting one stubble after another; On the other hand, there are frequent clashes and harassments, which have accumulated an extremely terrifying total number of casualties for the US military
Since 1966, the average monthly number of US military casualties in Viet Nam has been maintained at more than 500 for a long time, and with the number of wounded, thousands United States of soldiers have to be lost in the Viet Nam dense forest every month
In just two years, the cumulative number of casualties of the US military in Viet Nam has exceeded 100,000, and the key is that there is no end in sight to such casualties
However, the Johnson government had already placed too much leverage in Viet Nam, and despite the heavy losses of the American army, North Vietnam did not see any chance of winning the war
So in the face of huge losses, the Johnson administration began to act as an ostrich, and on the one hand, they trumpeted in United States that the sacrifice of American troops in South Vietnam had shed the blood of North Vietnam
On the other hand, it began to send allied troops, including the Korean army, to Viet Nam so that they could bear the losses caused by guerrilla warfare instead of the American army
But these small means could not change the reality of the continuous bloodshed of the US military in Viet Nam, and Johnson could not do anything about it, and in this clueless moment, it was their opponent, North Vietnam, who finally helped the United States make a choice
Decisive scenario
In fact, at a time when the United States had no clue, North Vietnam, which was opposite them, was also dull about the current situation of the war in Viet Nam
Although North Vietnam has been proclaiming that it is the duty of every Viet Nam to unify their country in the south for the past decade, these slogans have awakened the enthusiasm of Viet Nam to unify their country
However, in the face of the swarming US troops, North Vietnam, which was on the inferior side in terms of equipment, never saw any hope of defeating United States head-on
In fact, North Vietnam faced a bigger problem than many people thought, and on the border between North and South Vietnam, the U.S. military was not only superior to North Vietnam in terms of equipment, but also because of the Johnson government's investment at any cost
From 1966 to 1968, the North Vietnamese were similarly far fewer troops than their American counterparts
The double inferiority of equipment and numbers was the fundamental reason why the North Vietnamese insisted on guerrilla tactics, but although the guerrilla tactics brought a large number of casualties to the American army, the small fights with no prospect also made the North Vietnamese feel demoralized
However, the North Vietnamese leadership, who had long been aware of this, were not idle, and as early as 1964, they realized that United States could be fully involved
I was ready to plan a "decisive plan" that would end the war, which was not complicated, and the core of it was the North Vietnamese's firm belief that the people were in our hearts
As long as the whole army of North Vietnam moves south, then the people of South Vietnam will eat pot pulp to meet the north, and this battle will not only be a "general attack", but also a "general uprising"
From 1964 to 1967, the North Vietnamese leadership had been revising their "decisive plan," and the North Vietnamese had set themselves quite bold goals
Including the annihilation of 150,000 U.S. troops, 300,000 South Vietnamese puppet troops, the liberation of 8 million South Vietnamese people, and at least the capture of many important cities such as Dong He and Quang Tri
After the plan was finalized, North Vietnam set its sights on the next United States election, because by the end of 1968, the next election would be held in the United States
If the United States can be severely damaged in the implementation of the "decisive plan", the candidate who opposes the war in Viet Nam will have a good chance of winning and eventually withdrawing from Viet Nam
With this in mind, the North Vietnamese leadership, already fed up with the status quo, finalized the battle plan at the end of 1967 and launched the so-called "Tet Offensive" in early 1968 on the New Year of Viet Nam
Spring Festival Offensive
In fact, North Vietnam's battle plan is correct for one thing, and that is that the situation in the Viet Nam war will profoundly affect the outcome of the United States election
From this point of view, no matter what the outcome of the Spring Festival offensive is, as long as North Vietnam makes a big enough trouble, then it will definitely scare those United States masters thousands of miles away
In January 1968, however, North Vietnam mobilized 550,000 troops from the North and all Viet Cong guerrillas in South Vietnam to fight the United States and the puppet government on multiple fronts
But the form of the war was not to concentrate North Vietnamese forces on the offensive, but to disperse all parts into small groups and infiltrate South Vietnamese cities, trying to lead the South Vietnamese people into a general uprising by means of internal explosions
For the North, the crux of the matter was whether the South Vietnamese people would rise up, but unfortunately, the South Vietnamese people, who had already been devastated by the war, were now resigned to fate, and they did not want to cooperate with the South Vietnamese and United States, and they had little interest in the liberation of North Vietnam
Eventually, the "Tet Offensive", in which hundreds of thousands of troops infiltrated more than 100 towns in South Vietnam, became more than 100 plays like this:
A handful of North Vietnamese troops infiltrated a town, and their coupons provoked a counterattack by the American forces, who eventually dispersed the North Vietnamese forces with their superior firepower, but also completely destroyed the city
Taking the Hue Campaign, the largest of the Tet Offensive, for example, the old Viet Nam capital in the central part of Viet Nam naturally became an important target for North Vietnamese military operations
But for such an important city, the North Vietnamese sent only a division of 12,000 men
The North Vietnamese operation was very smooth at first, and they quickly occupied most of the city of Hue, but it was not only thousands of American troops who heard about it, but also 20,000 South Vietnamese puppet troops who followed the American army
The general uprising in the city, which only existed in the imagination of the North Vietnamese, did not appear, and the American and South Vietnamese puppet armies on the opposite side, with their superior forces and powerful firepower, caused half of the casualties of the North Vietnamese army in less than a month, and successfully drove them away from Hue
However, although the U.S. military won the Battle of Hue, the sudden war left the ancient capital of Hue in ruins, and nearly 10,000 South Vietnamese civilians were innocently killed in the war alone
It would have been nice if this had only existed in Hue, but it had been repeated hundreds of times throughout South Vietnam
It is not only North Vietnam, which lost the battle, but also the United States, which cannot find the goal of the war, cannot find the meaning of the war, and suffers losses
When information about conflicts like the Battle of Hue snowflakes reached the United States, the Americans discovered that not only were their troops dying, but that the South Vietnamese people of the "free world" were left with ruined cities after the battle
And there is evidence that Viet Cong guerrillas in the south were heavily involved in the operation, which in turn means that even if the United States ventured into northern Viet Nam at great risk, they would be plagued by law and order warfare for a long time
After the end of the Tet offensive in North Vietnam, the first to break the defense was the United States who could not see the prospect of war
In March 1968, when North Vietnam suspended its Tet offensive due to heavy casualties, it was not the bad news that United States concentrated its forces on a full-scale counterattack
Rather, it was United States President Lyndon · Johnson's "instrument of surrender," in which he announced the rejection of the decision to continue sending more troops to Viet Nam, partially stopped the bombing of North Vietnam, and dropped the most important news that Lyndon · Johnson would no longer participate in this year's United States election
After Lyndon · Johnson announced that he would not run for election, his vice president, Humphrey, could only duck the shelf, announcing that he would represent the Democratic Party less than six months before the election
The outcome of the election was naturally expected, and the Democratic Party, which offended most of the United States in the Viet Nam War, won only 191 electoral votes, losing to the Republican Party of United States led by Nixon
And after Nixon won the election, he also knew very well that the election victory was not because of his charisma, but because the previous administration made huge mistakes in the Viet Nam War
If he wants to be re-elected, he must solve the thorny problem of the Viet Nam War
After thinking about it, Nixon found that the fundamental reason why United States could not withdraw from the Viet Nam battlefield was not that the American army could not defeat the North Vietnamese army, but that United States no matter what he wanted to do in Viet Nam, he could not bypass China behind the Viet Nam."