Saigon 50 Years Later: The U.S. Was Defeated, Despite Revision Attempts

April 30th will mark 50 years since the fall of Saigon. The images of U.S. helicopters taking off from the Embassy in Saigon and North Vietnamese tanks smashing through the gates of the Presidential Palace are all images now synonymous with American failure, at least from an American point of view.

Recently on social media, some notable personalities began debating on if the United States actually “lost” the Vietnam War, but instead simply gave up on a war they could've won easily had they wanted to. This kind of commentary is normal for anyone who has ever lost anything. When your favorite sports team loses, it is because the other side cheated or the refs were biased. If someone beats you at a video game, it is because you are tired. 

This is the same with the United States when it comes to Vietnam, much like German military officers after World War 2 tried rewriting history. Many narratives about how the U.S. simply didn’t lose but just decided to not win, that the politicians in Washington D.C. tied the hands of the military, the U.S. never went to a full war footing, the U.S. could have destroyed North Vietnam had they really tried, etc. 

All of this of course doesn’t take into account why the U.S. went into Vietnam and what the original goals were. 

"It Was A Police Action, Not a War"

The U.S. was involved militarily in Vietnam from March of 1965, when they began Operation Rolling Thunder, the strategic bombing campaign of North Vietnam, joined by combat troops on the ground who would begin fighting in earnest by November, until January of 1973.

During this time, it is estimated that the United States dropped over 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, mostly in the north. To compare, between 1941-1945, the U.S. and British dropped a combined 3 million tons of bombs on Germany and a little over 190 thousand tons of bombs on Japan. 

Vietnam, in fact, became at that time the most bombed country ever and one of the most to this day. North Vietnam, where the bombing was concentrated, was 4 times smaller than Germany was in 1939. The U.S. also had the advantage in the air the entire bombing campaign in Vietnam and were not having to contend with a peer air force like they did with the German Luftwaffe. 

"The Big Bomb"

Until 1968, the U.S. had a contingency plan to strike North Vietnam with nuclear weapons. Striking Hanoi and the Port of Haiphong were in fact seriously considered to be hit, but ultimately the order was never given. One talking point that gets brought up is that the U.S. could have brought North Vietnam to their knees but chose not to, and therefore, the U.S. didn’t employ its full arsenal. 

The problem with this point is that if the U.S. had used nuclear weapons on North Vietnam, the Soviet Union would likely have retaliated with their own nukes in some capacity. The U.S. never used nukes because the Soviet Union had nukes. China had also recently developed nuclear weapons as well by 1967. The only time the U.S. used nukes was when nobody else had one.

"Didn't fight fully on the ground"

The last point that usually gets brought up is that the U.S. didn’t fully mobilize its military capacity and didn’t invade North Vietnam to add to the “didn’t really fight” narrative. At its peak in 1969, the U.S. had nearly 550,00 troops in South Vietnam. South Vietnam, like the north, is a quarter of the size of Germany in 1939 and France. A more comparable campaign to World War 2 would be Italy, a narrow country along the sea just like Vietnam, in April of 1945, Allied forces had an estimated 500,000 - 600,000 troops on the front line in Italy. 

After the Tet Offensive in 1968, the Administration of Lyndon B. Johnson briefly considered launching a ground invasion of North Vietnam, this was decided against because of fears of Chinese intervention. Just 18 years prior in 1950, during the Korean War as U.S. troops were reaching the border with of China, Chinese troops intervened, pushed the U.S.troops back to the 38th parallel and fought toe to toe with the U.S. for 2 and a half years, being a main reason North Korea exists today. Something that many people forget today.

The U.S. clearly remembered this and decided against it. Had the U.S. invaded North Vietnam, they would have become engaged with the Chinese army as well, and a stalemate would be the possible outcome they could hope for. 

Ultimate Goals

Lastly, it is important to note what the goals of the U.S. were when they first began fighting Vietnam in 1965, it was to prevent the spread of communism in SouthEast Asia. Ten years later, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos all fell to the communists. While the spread of communism in the region may not have been seen as detrimental in 1975 as it would have in 1965, largely due to the establishment of relations between the U.S. and China in 1971, it was still the goal of why the U.S. was there. 

In conclusion, yes the U.S. did lose the Vietnam War, not because of a lack of will, or lack of trying, or out of touch politicians. They dropped more bombs on a poverty stricken country than all of World War 2 and Korea combined in an area the size of the State of Florida. They were fighting on the ground in an area that was 4 times smaller than Germany was during World War 2. They lost because they couldn’t win, the goal of containing communism in the former French Indo-China failed. Saigon is called Ho Chi Minh City today for a reason, and it is because the U.S. couldn’t prevent the flag of the Viet Cong from getting raised there 50 years ago.