What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
The total death toll in Vietnam is estimated to be over 4 million, all parties included. When compared with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which exacted a toll of perhaps a half million if long term disease is factored in, what would have been the result had LBJ ordered a nuclear strike on Hanoi? Would such action have irked Russia into retaliatory behavior? Would the net loss have been reduced? I know-it's hypothetical, just wondering what you students of history and war have to say on the matter.
Re: What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
I can't imagine LBJ could get Congress to authorize a nuclear strike, and if it happened, God only knows what the Kremlin would have done. WWIII almost happened in 1962 with much less provocation.
Re: What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
Vietnam was a mess before we got involved. I'm not sure that bombing Hanoi would have stopped the communists, I am not sure the communists were not the slightly better people in this case. The propped up government that we supported was nothing we should have been supporting. It was far from a Western style democracy.
Nuking Hanoi or even fire bombing it like we did to Dresden would have caused the Soviets to respond in kind and escalate the war. I just don't see anyway around that. It would likely have turned the Cold War into a Hot one, possibly a Very Hot one.
If you want to change history, go back to just after WWII when we were the only Nuclear power. Take a page from one of Patton's ideas. Partially rearm the German and use them with the Armies of the US & UK and other allies with nuclear bombs in support to crush the Soviets almost immediately. We had the Air superiority and the Nukes, we would have won despite the Soviets having the Tank and numbers advantage.
Of course the US would have had to be willing to hit them hard and fast. If you did not wipe out their factories and major cities in the first year, the West would probably have lost far too much. We would have had to be willing to Nuke millions of people over ideology. I don't think too many politicians or even generals would have had the stomach to order such. It would have been an interesting world though, basically an English speaking hegemony over the entire world in the end. China would have fallen quick without Soviet support and Korea and Vietnam would never have happened.
Re: What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
For a more cheerful what-if, it would have been nice if Ho Chi Minh had been listened to at the Versaille peace talks.
Re: What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
Too early. It took the dismantling of Empire after War 2 to really set things moving. Uncle Ho should have been involved in making French Indo-China a free state in 1946, rather than it reverting to French control. Heck, in hindsight, the French should have been stripped of all of their overseas possessions after the war. Would have prevented all sorts of problems.
Re: What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
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Originally posted by silenus
Too early. It took the dismantling of Empire after War 2 to really set things moving. Uncle Ho should have been involved in making French Indo-China a free state in 1946, rather than it reverting to French control. Heck, in hindsight, the French should have been stripped of all of their overseas possessions after the war. Would have prevented all sorts of problems.
That is true, damn the French. Did any other European country leave behind more screwed up colonies?
Re: What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
Belgium maybe. But it was only the one. France screwed things up on multiple continents.
Re: What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
The VC seemed to have adopted the "hide and endure" tactic through much of the war. At best, nuking Hanoi might have taken out their upper echelons and left the army with little direction and less cohesion, and that in turn might have led to the open fighting gradually grinding to a minimum, but I doubt it would have ever caused a Japan-style surrender.
Sort of on-topic, I'm in the middle of James Dunnigan's How To Make War, and one incident he mentions in a few places as a worst-case example of the tendency for improved communications to encourage micromanagement was when the President of the United States was giving direct orders from Washington to a platoon in the field in Vietnam. Does anyone know any details of when and why this happened?
Re: What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
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Originally posted by silenus
Belgium maybe.
Probably worth listing Portugal as well. Definitely worse than average as colonial exploiters go and they clung tenaciously to their African colonies until the 1970's, well beyond the French. Their Indian possessions were only repossessed by India by force and of course they kept Macau until 1999.
Re: What if the US had adopted a different tack in Vietnam?
I wonder if there is a direct correlation between size of "Mother Country/Empire" and ease of divestiture? Or between size and degree of exploitation? I'm sure books have been written on this.
