Assessment of United States' Performance in the Vietnam War

Assessment of United States' Performance in the Vietnam War

The quote is saying that the USA should have won the Vietnam War

because they had better weapons and better trained soldiers than the

Vietcong. This can be split into 2 parts: ‘America should have won’

and, ‘America had better weapons and training than the Vietcong’. I

agree with the first part because America should have won the Vietnam

War as they are very powerful. I disagree with the second part because

the Vietcong ha supplies from Russia and China which were good weapons

and they were extremely well trained, but in guerrilla warfare. It

does NOT mean they were less advanced.

The USA was not automatically going to win. They underestimated the

enemy greatly which caused problems. They were also seen as the

foreigner by the Vietnamese peasants. The people did not want them in

their country and many supported the Vietcong. They were often killed

if suspected to be Vietcong supporters which just turned the peasants

against the USA more. The USA tried to win the support of the peasants

by offering medical help, farming advice and assistance with

technology. This policy was known as ‘winning the hearts and minds’,

but it could not compete with the simple tactics of the Vietcong. They

had code of code of conduct which won peasant support. It was very

simple.

Vietminh Code of Conduct

1. Be polite

2. Be fair

3. Return anything borrowed

4. Pay for anything damaged

5. Do not bully

6. Do not damage crops

7. Do not flirt with women

8. Do not ill-treat prisoners

This was better than the American’s ‘winning the heart and m...

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...an American Author in 1983. It lists all the equipment

that the American soldiers had. ‘Helicopter…tank and armoured

cars…mortars, machine guns, grenade and rocket launchers…M16…air to

surface missiles…bombs of every shape and size…napalm bombs…cluster

bombs…chemical weapons.’ Now the Vietcong may have mad decent weapons,

but they had nothing of the American’s standards which therefore makes

them a less advanced army.

To conclude, I feel the American’s should have really won the war but

there were factors brought into play they did not expect. They did not

expect to lose the support of their own people and not have the

support of the Vietnamese peasants which were major contributions to

them not winning the war. The Vietcong had slightly less advanced

weaponry but not by much and the soldiers were impeccably trained.