The U.S. struggles against the Communist in Vietnam

1. Now think about the overall picture - how the strengths and weaknesses work together.

a) Were the armies finely balanced or was the balance strongly weighted to one side or the other?
The balance was strongly weighted to the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong's soldiers were fearless, compared to the US's troops that were living in fear of ambushes because of the guerilla tactics being used by the Viet Cong. The US had superior weaponry but the Viet Cong used the territory against them so that they were not able to utilize them. They would hide in the jungles and set booby traps.

b) Which quality was most important in determining who won the war? Was one feature so important that being ahead in that area meant that other advantages or disadvantages did not matter?
The Guerilla Tactics was the most important quality in determining who won the war. This is because the Guerilla Tactics were very effective against the US army. The supplies and weaponsy did not matter for the Viet Cong because they were able to use their territory and other things against the US, and make it so that their superior weapons were useless. The US had developed new technology like the agent orange and napalm which were toxic weapons. These did not work well against the Viet Cong and actually caused support of the US army to drop. There was also lots of media going around of the Viet Cong burning and it was not good for the US war effort. But the guns and better technology of the US were nullified by the Guerilla tactics of the Viet Cong.


2. Now write up your answer. Use this structure:

a. The weaknesses of the US were that their tactics of search and destroy, which caused them to lose much support from the vietnamese people, and their bomibng tactics did not do much damage to the communists, and the soldiers had become fearful of the Viet Cong's soldiers because of their use of Guerilla tactics and things such as land mines and booby traps, which made the soldiers live in constant fear. The search and destroy tactics were not effective because although they did kill some soldiers, they caused more trouble by inexperienced soldiers walking into booby traps and mines and they sometimes ended up killing innocent civilians. Because of the civilian losses the population rallied behind the Viet Cong instead of the US. The guerilla tactics of the Viet Cong were much more effective than the Search and Destroy tactics of the US because they didnt cause many problems. The bombing tactics done by the US did no real damage to the Communists at all, it only slowed them down. This was a waste of time, and the soldiers loosing their morale because of the Viet Congs tactics made them not fight as well as they could have and were trained to do, which caused the Us to loose the war.

b. The Communists strengths were that they were very motivated and their soldiers were committed to the cause. They refused to give in showing their strengths compared to those of the US army. They never gave up, even after the US's bombing raids on the Communists military and industry, they were still able to continue operating their supply lines. They were able to still launch raids after the many air raids on north vietnam as well.

c. The U.S. forces had some success. When the US launched bombing raids on the North Vietnamese targets they did manage to damage the Vietnamese's war effort and disrupt the supply lines, and it also enabled the USA to strike at Communist forces after it reduced the ground forces. Finally from 1970 to 1972 heavy bombing campaigns against Hanoi and the port of Haiphong forced the North Vietnamese to begin negotiating with the US.

d.There were major failures as well like the My Lai Massacre. In March of 1968 a unit of Young America soldiers started a search and destroy mission having been told that in the My Lai area there had been Viet Cong head quarters, and 200 Viet Cong guerrillas. The soldiers had been ordered to destroy all of the civilian structures being used by the Viet Cong. They were under the impression that they had been ordered to kill everyone in the villages. Between 300-400 civilians were killed, they were mostly women, children, and old men. In this search and destroy mission no viet cong were actually found or killed. Life Magazine published photographs of the massacre at My Lai. The revelations at My Lai shocked the American public and it was the clearest evidence that the war had gone wrong. The massacre at My Lai cost the US army much trouble with the public support for the war, as well as many innocent civilian lives.

e. The Viet Cong big successes were their guerrilla tactics because they gave the US army a tough resistance and increased their chances of winning the Vietnam War. They did not wear any uniform, they did not have any known headquarters or base camps, they were hard to tell apart from the innocent civilians in the villages, and when they would attack they would retreat back into the jungle which gave the us soldiers much trouble. They wore down the US's army and morale, and this was why it was a major success of the Viet Cong.

f. They also suffered from defeat like the Tet Offensive of 1968. The Viet Cong attacked over 100 cities and other military targets. The US forces had to fight to regain control room by room.The Viet Cong had hoped that the South Vietnam would step up and help them but they ended up not. The Viet Cong lost around 10,000 experienced fighters at this.

h. The key strength of the Viet Cong army was the Guerilla tactics because without them this war probably would had been a lot easier for the US army. The Guerilla Tactics made the soldiers of the US army very frustrated, which caused a lack of morale in the army. This weakened the soldiers as well. The guerrilla tactics caused so much frustration and it made the fighters of the Viet Cong very difficult to find, and therefore harder to kill. Another strength of the Viet Cong was their soldiers who refused to quit, and this was a major reason why they did not lose.