Why The Americans Lost The Vietnam War Dbq Essay

The assertion that the Americans lost the Vietnam War because they failed to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese is incorrect. This can proven by examining other aspects of the war such as military tactics , political relationships, finances and other contributing factors.
There are, however, opposing perspectives which believe that the Vietnamese people were the core factor of the war and should have been America’s main focus as they would make their job easier as they were the ones that were in the army, at school, at home and at the voting booths deciding the future of Vietnam .
America’s success was determined by several factors of which none could be solely liable for their loss. A picture shows an American soldier burning down a hut during a search and destroy mission

“The Americans had realised from an early stage that the war could only be won by winning the support of the South Vietnamese peasants” ( Source A) which as previously proven they were incapable of.
The counter however, believes that all the aspects of American success in the Vietnam war were all rooted back to the very people that inhabited it and that democracy would have spread as it became known and loved.
The US government was unable to subdue the forces of nationalism, not only through their military tactics but through social relations. In essence this dispute is not about whether or not the Americans would have succeeded if had they had the support of the Vietnamese but rather how the support of the Vietnamese would not have affected it as much because the Vietnamese struggle was for general independence and how other aspects would have still had an equally as important