The US Actually Did Not Lose the Vietnam War
In contrast to popular belief, the US actually never lost in the Vietnam War. In fact, the US actually managed to bring North Vietnam into its knee, so Hanoi inevitably had to sign the Paris Peace Accord in 1973 and had to agree to its terms — which benefits the US. With the signing of the Paris Peace Accord, the US officially left the Vietnam War without further involvement. So from this point on, technically, the US is not the participant anymore and cannot be counted as one regardless of the outcome. Even though South Vietnam eventually lost the war after Saigon was captured by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) in 1975, the reason why the US was actively involved in the war — to prevent the domino effect that will make South East Asia taken over by the Communists — never happened. So, we can come to the conclusion that the US actually won its war against North Vietnam.
Then, what are the factors that made North Vietnam turns into its knee?
- The Presence of the Advance Wild Weasels (1966–1973): When the Hunter becomes the Hunted.
Wild Weasel is a code name given by the United States Armed Forces, specifically the US Air Force, to an aircraft of any type, equipped with anti-radiation missiles and tasked with the SEAD (Suppression of the Enemy Air Defenses) missions. Before the advent of the more advance Wild Weasels aircraft, Soviet-supplied long-range SAM (Surface-to-air Missiles) operated by the NVA was a frightening specter for US combat aircraft — especially tactical fighter-bomber — operating in the North Vietnamese airspace. SAM operators can easily detect and destroy US aircraft with little to no warning. Without any real countermeasure against the SAM sites, US aircraft was left vulnerable with a high rate of loss.
In 1966, the F-105G “Wild Weasel III” aircraft were sent into combat as a real solution. Carrying long-range Anti-radiation Missiles — missiles that follow radar emission to detect and destroy the radar itself — such as AGM-45 Shrikes and AGM-78 Standard ARM, the Wild Weasels devoured the SAM sites with ease. After several successful SEAD missions, the North Vietnamese SAM is no longer a huge threat from this point because the operators were too afraid to turn on their radar because of the presence of the Wild Weasels and their Anti-radiation Missiles. With the absence of long-range SAMs, North Vietnamese had a hard time stopping the bombing of its vital sites from US tactical fighter-bombers and had to rely only on its own fighter jets.
2. Operation Bolo (1967): Turning Point of the Air War Above Vietnam
From the beginning of the air war above Vietnam, Soviet-built MiG (Mikoyan-Gurevich) fighters rule over the skies of Vietnam. Vietnamese People’s Air Force (VPAF) fielded multiple MiG models during the war, such as MiG-15 Fagot, MiG-17 Fresco, and MiG-21 Fishbed. Fishbed fighter is an agile aircraft with deadly armament that can outmaneuver and shoot down US aircraft with ease. This situation is also made worse by the absence of capable missiles in US inventory. Although SAM is no longer a huge threat from 1966, the presence of Fishbeds in North Vietnamese airspace still disrupted US bombing missions. In order to make the situation better for the US aircraft, then-Colonel Robin Olds devised a plan to eliminate the threat and created Operation Bolo in 1967.
Operation Bolo was an operation to trap the Vietnamese Fishbeds into a kill zone where the US F-4 Phantoms fighters will destroy the Fishbeds with a surprise attack. During Operation Rolling Thunder (1965–1968), US fighter-bombers and bombers flew bombing missions with the same route, the same altitude, the same speed, and the same formation every day. This allows the North Vietnamese Fishbeds to easily predict where and when the bombers will reach their kill zone. Colonel Robin Olds meant to use these same bombing habits to fool the North Vietnamese. He ordered the Phantoms to disguised themselves as bombers using predictable routes, formation, speed, and altitude previously used by US bombers on bombing missions. On the operation day, North Vietnamese Fishbed pilots, which were still expecting sluggish US bombers — that won’t offer much resistance and can be easily shot down — were caught by surprise when they actually met the Phantoms. Both fighters engaged in a huge dogfight, but with the advantage of a surprise attack, the Phantoms managed to shut down one-third of the total of the MiG fighters in the North Vietnamese inventory. The Operation led to the US success in erasing the MiG fighters from the top list of enemy threats and also brought more success to US bombing missions in order to destroy vital enemy sites.
3. Tet Offensive (1968): The Destruction of Viet Cong
Viet Cong was a mass political organization in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the US and South Vietnam in the Vietnam War. It had both its guerrilla fighting force and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Viet Cong or VC is famous for its guerrilla warfare tactics that are known to the public as a mere farmer that can defeat the US military with modern equipment. But actually, that is not the case.
In 1968, VC launched a massive offensive called the Tet Offensive in order to destroy the US and South Vietnamese military key points in South Vietnam. The offensive was countrywide and well-coordinated; eventually, more than 80,000 PAVN/VC troops struck more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of the six autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district towns, and the southern capital. The offensive was the largest military operation conducted by either side up to that point in the war. Hanoi had launched the offensive in the belief that it would trigger a popular uprising leading to the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Although the initial attacks stunned the allies, causing them to lose control of several cities temporarily, they quickly regrouped, beat back the attacks, and inflicted heavy casualties on PAVN/VC forces at about 75,000 communist soldiers were killed or wounded. The popular uprising anticipated by Hanoi never happened. This prompted a cleaning up of VC operation and recruitment centers in South Vietnam that had been built up for over a decade by the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). With heavy casualties and destroyed bases, VC is now not an effective fighting force anymore, and from this point on, it would never again be more than an adjunct to the PAVN.
4. The Easter Offensive (1972): The Destruction of PAVN Main Fighting Force
The Easter Offensive was a military campaign in the form of a large-scale conventional invasion conducted by North Vietnam against South Vietnam. The campaign can be divided into three phases: April was a month of PAVN advances; May became a period of equilibrium; in June and July, the South Vietnamese forces counter-attacked, culminating in the recapture of Quảng Trị City in September. On all three fronts, initial North Vietnamese successes were hampered by high casualties, inept tactics, and the increasing application of U.S. and South Vietnamese air power. According to The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, during the Offensive, PAVN suffered over 100,000 dead. The ARVN suffered 39,587 dead in the same period, while American military deaths that year were 759, per U.S. military records. For the PAVN, the offensive was very costly. General Tran Van Tra, writing about the offensive ten years after the fact, stated: “Our troops were exhausted and their units in disarray. We had not been able to make up losses. We were short of manpower as well as food and ammunition”. With the majority of PAVN destroyed, including all of its armored units, further hostilities with the U.S. Military and ARVN will make the situation worse for North Vietnam. This eventually became one of the key factors that made North Vietnam agree to sit down at the negotiation table.
5. Operation Linebacker I & II (1972): The Effective Destruction of North Vietnam Infrastructure
Operation Linebacker was an air interdiction campaign conducted by United States Air Force (USAF), United States Navy (USN), and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) against targets in North Vietnam. Linebacker I would have four objectives: to isolate North Vietnam from its outside sources of supply by destroying railroad bridges and rolling stock in and around Hanoi and northeastward toward the Chinese frontier; the targeting of primary storage areas and marshaling yards; to destroy storage and transshipment points; and finally, to eliminate (or at least damage) the North’s air defense system. Operation Linebacker began with large-scale bombing operations against North Vietnam by tactical fighter aircraft of the Seventh Air Force and Task Force 77. By the end of the campaign, US aircraft had destroyed 13 bridges along the rail lines running from Hanoi to the Chinese border. Another four were destroyed between the capital and port of Haiphong, including the notorious Thanh Hóa Bridge. Several more bridges were brought down along the rail line leading to the south toward the DMZ. Targets were then switched to petroleum and oil storage and transportation networks and North Vietnamese airfields. There was an immediate impact on the battlefield in South Vietnam. Shelling by PAVN artillery dropped off by one-half between 9 May and 1 June of that year. The stalled offensive in the south and the devastation in North Vietnam had helped to convince Hanoi to return to the bargaining table by early August.
Operation Linebacker I was followed by Operation Linebacker II after Hanoi refused to be involved further in Paris Peace Talks. President Richard Nixon launched Linebacker II to put more pressure on North Vietnam and make Hanoi agree to terms favorable to the U.S. Linebacker II was to be a maximum effort bombing campaign to destroy major target complexes in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas, which B-52s could only accomplish. It saw the largest heavy bomber strikes launched by the U.S. Air Force since the end of World War II. Linebacker II was a modified extension of the Operation Linebacker bombings conducted from May to October when the new campaign’s emphasis shifted to attacks by B-52s rather than smaller tactical fighter aircraft.
Linebacker II is different from all of the previous bombing campaigns. If the preceding bombing campaign had several restrictions applied to the pilots that made them unable to launch the operation effectively, Linebacker II had not had that kind of limitation. The pilots were free to choose the target that was previously considered sensitive. They were also free to decide how they would carry out the mission. In addition to this, the presence of highly advanced technology in the U.S. aircraft, such as electronic countermeasure (ECM) device that can confuse enemy radar and radar warning receiver (RWR) that can detect radar emission if the aircraft targeted by enemy radar, made the operation easy for the pilots. Because of this, the effectiveness of the bombing campaign increased dramatically, and more North Vietnamese vital infrastructure was destroyed.
During Operation Linebacker II, a total of 741 B-52 sorties were dispatched to bomb North Vietnam; 729 completed their missions. B-52s dropped a total of 15,237 tons of ordnance on 18 industrial and 14 military targets (including eight SAM sites), while fighter-bombers added another 5,000 tons of bombs to the tally. The raids inflicted severe damage to North Vietnam’s infrastructure. The Air Force estimated the bombs caused 500 rail interdictions, destroyed 372 pieces of rolling stock and three million gallons of petroleum products, and eliminated 80 percent of North Vietnam’s electrical power production capability. Logistical imports into North Vietnam, assessed by U.S. intelligence at 160,000 tons per month when the operation began, had dropped by January 1973 to 30,000 tons per month.
