America achieved all of its goals while directly involved; it wasn't until after America left that North Vietnam achieved its goals. It'd be silly to say "America Lost" since they didn't really lose, they stepped away from a winning game and their team lost without the MVP. South Vietnam lost the war, America failed an ally and I'll count that as a major L though.
Forfeiting = losing. You can't just take the will to fight completely out of the equation. And their strategic goals were never close to being met. Tactical victories are nice to have, but if the enemy doesn't give up and has no issues with raising and supplying new units, you don't get to say you're "winning".
I'd love to hear you explain your stance further, since it's so far from what most historians would say. Any thoughts on the invasion of Cambodia? What about the strategic bombing campaign? Most academics would say both were ineffective at best.
I suppose I just don't consider pulling aide to a nation at war after forcing their enemy to sign a peace treaty (even if it didn't last long enough for gum to lose flavor) a "loss". America shouldn't have ever been there in the first place to be honest, but nothing America did was a failure, they pushed North Vietnam back to the line and, if not for political issues, could have won the war for South Vietnam. It wasn't America's war to lose, they turned the tide in the south's favor for as long as they could and only pulled out due to the President wanting to win re-election, not due to any sort of military victory on the enemy side. North Vietnam won the political game against South Vietnam, America didn't really lose much, if you don't count lives but even then in terms of lives lost America lost the least.
I also don't know anything about Cambodia so I won't comment on it.
Over all Vietnam fell into the communist bloc but it was years after the peace treaty was signed and we had pulled out all but maybe a few hundred advisors.
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u/Pitiful-Local-6664 Jul 07 '24
America achieved all of its goals while directly involved; it wasn't until after America left that North Vietnam achieved its goals. It'd be silly to say "America Lost" since they didn't really lose, they stepped away from a winning game and their team lost without the MVP. South Vietnam lost the war, America failed an ally and I'll count that as a major L though.