U.S. Strategy and Leadership
Who is General William Westmoreland?
He was the U.S. general in charge of American military operations in Vietnam during the height of escalation.
Who is Ho Chi Minh?
North Vietnam’s leader who unified the communist cause and inspired both North and South Vietnamese communists.
What was the impact of the Tet offensive on US President Lyndon B Johnson?
Caused President Lyndon B Johnson to lose credibility and decline to run for reelection.
What key element did Westmoreland fail to encompass?
Westmoreland’s strategy emphasized large-scale battles and failed to secure the support of the south Vietnamese population?
When and how did Lyndon B Johnson take office?
Lyndon Johnson, had taken office in November 1963 following Kennedy’s assassination.
What is the “war of attrition”?
This overall U.S. strategy focused on inflicting heavy casualties through superior firepower and attrition.
"Essential to any pacification campaign is destruction or at least nullification of the well armed main force troop formation"
What is the Viet Cong?
The organization that served as the main communist insurgent force in South Vietnam.
What is the Tet Offensive?
1968 event that saw coordinated communist attacks across South Vietnam during a holiday ceasefire.
In coordinated attacks, some 84,000 insurgents and PAVN troops struck thirty-six of the forty-four provincial capitals, the U.S. embassy in Saigon, and the six largest cities in South Vietnam
What aspect of war did US bombing campaigns fail to achieve?
Failed to break North Vietnamese will or capacity to fight
JFKs opinions on sending troops?
“It’s like taking a drink,” he told one adviser. “The effect wears off, and you have to take another.” Kennedy also questioned the wisdom of sending U.S. soldiers into an extraordinarily complex conflict that few Americans understood.
What is the significance the phrase Death count by US politicians?
This measure was used to gauge U.S. success but proved misleading because it did not account for political or strategic realities. It focused mainly on how many enemies were killed.
What is guerrilla warfare?
North Vietnam’s strategy from 1965–1968 emphasized political resilience and avoiding major defeats while pursuing this kind of warfare.
What were the psychological and political impacts of Tet offensive?
Although a military failure for the North, the Tet Offensive succeeded on having both political and psychological effects in the United States.
How did the US measure success in vietnam?
Enemy casualties versus political stability and success?
Who took office on January 21 1961?
John F Kennedy
What are “search and destroy” operations?
Westmoreland relied heavily on this type of operation, emphasizing search and destroy missions rather than holding territory.
What is a war of attrition and exhaustion?
The North Vietnamese combined military and political means to erode U.S. public support—this strategy aimed to “win by not losing.”
"a conflict of strategic political attrition in which, according to [the enemy's] equation, victory equals time plus pressure.”
What were the effects in the strategic or political dimension?
At the tactical level, U.S. forces inflicted heavy casualties on communist forces yet lost in this dimension.
One province official noted that years of hard work were “destroyed in thirty minutes of [Communist] military action.” Other U.S. district advisors reported a “loss of momentum” in pacification and a security situation that had “deteriorated badly.”
What is the “credibility gap”?
The gap between government reports and the realities of the war that eroded U.S. public trust.
How many troops were streamed into South Vietnam in 1965?
Westmoreland placed the 1st Cavalry Division near An Khe in western Binh Dinh province in the Central Highlands. With more than 400 aircraft and nearly 16,000 personnel, the unit highlighted the Army’s innovative concept of air mobility
What is the belief that North Vietnam’s morale could be broken through casualties?
Westmoreland’s strategy depended on this assumption about the enemy’s willingness to fight despite losses.
What is the Ho Chi Minh Trail?
Logistical network supplied the Viet Cong through Laos and Cambodia.
What did the Tet offensive demonstrate to the US public about US success?
The Tet Offensive demonstrated that this assumption about U.S. progress in Vietnam was false.
What was a problem with counterinsurgency?
The inability to distinguish combatants from civilians was a major flaw
When was the Tet Offensive?
Shortly after midnight on 30 January 1968, Vietcong and PAVN forces opened the second phase of Le Duan’s plan with a nationwide assault on South Vietnam during its most sacred holidays: Tet.