On January 15, 1973, the US Army and its allies ceased military operations in Vietnam. The peacefulness of the American military was explained by the fact that after four years of negotiations in Paris, the participants in the armed conflict reached a certain agreement. A few days later, on January 27, a peace treaty was signed. According to the agreements reached, American troops, having lost 58 thousand people killed since 1965, left South Vietnam. Until now, historians, military men and politicians cannot unequivocally answer the question: "How did the Americans lose the war if they did not lose a single battle?"
We present several expert opinions on this matter.
1. Hellish disco in the jungle. This is what American soldiers and officers called the Vietnam War. Despite the overwhelming superiority in weapons and forces (the number of the US military contingent in Vietnam in 1968 was 540 thousand people), they failed to defeat the partisans. Even carpet bombing, during which American aviation dropped 6.7 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, could not "drive the Vietnamese into the Stone Age." At the same time, the losses of the US army and its allies were constantly growing. During the war years, the Americans lost 58 thousand people in the jungle killed, 2300 missing and over 150 thousand wounded. At the same time, the list of official losses did not include Puerto Ricans, who were hired by the American army to obtain United States citizenship. Despite some successful military operations, President Richard Nixon realized that there would be no final victory.
2. Demoralization of the US Army. Desertion during the Vietnamese campaign was quite widespread. Suffice it to recall that the famous American heavyweight boxer Cassius Clay converted to Islam at the peak of his career and took the name Mohammed Ali in order not to serve in the American army. For this act, he was stripped of all titles and suspended from participation in the competition for more than three years. After the war, President Gerald Ford in 1974 offered a pardon to all draft evaders and deserters. More than 27 thousand people have surrendered. Later, in 1977, the next head of the White House, Jimmy Carter, pardoned those who fled the United States so as not to be called up.
3. "We knew that your stocks of bombs and missiles would be depleted before the morale of our soldiers"- the former Vietcong Bei Cao told the American historian and veteran of the war in Indochina David Hackworth. He also added: "Yes, we were weaker materially, but our morale and will were stronger than yours. Our war was just, and yours was not. Your foot soldiers knew this, as did the American people." This position is shared by historian Philip Davidson, who wrote: “Throughout the war, the United States gave little thought to the political, economic and psychological consequences of its military operations. No one paid attention to the death of civilians, unnecessary destruction, and yet both produced negative political effect ".
4. People's war. Most of the Vietnamese were on the side of the guerrillas. They provided them with food, intelligence information, recruits and workers. In his writings, David Hackworth quotes Mao Zedong's dictum that "the people are to the guerrillas what water is to fish: remove the water and the fish will die." "The factor that welded and cemented the communists from the very beginning was their strategy of the revolutionary liberation war. Without this strategy, the victory of the communists would have been impossible. things are irrelevant to the problem, "wrote another American historian, Philip Davidson.
5. Professionals versus amateurs. The soldiers and officers of the Vietnamese army were much better prepared for the war in the jungle than the Americans, as they fought for the liberation of Indochina since the Second World War. First, their adversary was Japan, then France, then the United States. “While in Mai Hiepa, I also met with Colonels Li Lam and Dang Viet Mei. They served as battalion commanders for almost 15 years,” recalls David Hackworth. “The average American battalion or brigade commander served in Vietnam for one six-month period. and Mei were like the coaches of professional football teams playing in the finals every season for the super prize, while the American commanders were like pink-cheeked math teachers, replaced by our professional coaches sacrificed to careerism. Our "players" risked their lives to become generals commanding battalions in Vietnam for six months and America lost."
6. Antiwar protests and sentiments of American society. America was shaken by thousands of protests against the Vietnam War. A new movement, the hippie, emerged from the youth protesting against this war. The movement culminated in the so-called "March to the Pentagon", when up to 100,000 anti-war youths gathered in Washington in October 1967, as well as protests during the August 1968 convention of the US Democratic Party in Chicago. Suffice it to recall that John Lennon, who opposed the war, wrote the song "Give the World a Chance." Drug addiction, suicide, and desertion have spread among the military. Veterans were persecuted by the "Vietnamese Syndrome", which caused thousands of former soldiers and officers to commit suicide. In such conditions, it was pointless to continue the war.
7. Help from China and the USSR. Moreover, if the comrades from the Celestial Empire provided mainly economic aid and manpower, the Soviet Union provided Vietnam with its most advanced weapons. So, according to rough estimates, the assistance of the USSR is estimated at 8-15 billion dollars, and the financial costs of the United States, based on modern estimates, exceeded a trillion US dollars. In addition to weapons, the Soviet Union sent military specialists to Vietnam. From July 1965 to the end of 1974, about 6, 5 thousand officers and generals, as well as more than 4, 5 thousand soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces took part in hostilities. In addition, the training of Vietnamese military personnel has begun in military schools and academies of the USSR - this is more than 10 thousand people.
