Failings of the US armed forces
The US leaders supported the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. He was unpopular, persecuted the Buddhist population and promoted his own friends into government. This meant the USA was fighting to support a leader most South Vietnamese people didn鈥檛 want.
Other failings the USA made during the war included:
- Their search-and-destroy tactics were ineffective.
- Tactics such as the use of A petroleum jelly used in flamethrowers or fire bombs that burns a victim at high temperatures. The fires it causes are very difficult to put out., Chemicals used to kill leaves on trees and plants. and assassination programmes (eg Operation Phoenix) fuelled the anti-war movement back home.
- The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was a weak force that struggled when fighting their own campaigns, meaning that Vietnamisation was unlikely to work.
Problems for the US armed forces
One problem facing the US armed forces was the financial cost of their involvement in the war. The North hoped to drain the US government of funds so that the USA would eventually give up. In the end, this is partly what happened. The war cost the USA around $167 billion in total.
Another issue was distance. US troops were fighting far from home, in a country less developed than their own. As a result, the armed forces had to spend time building up a modern infrastructure with roads, generators and facilities for the soldiers.
Additionally, Vietnam was a challenging environment for the troops, who had to fight in unfamiliar jungle landscapes. Similarly, the air force struggled to organise bombing raids in heavy cloud cover.
Failure to win hearts and minds
To win the war, the USA needed to win the support of the South Vietnamese peasants. This would prevent the peasants from supporting the A guerrilla force in South Vietnam who fought the Americans during the Vietnam War. and make it difficult for the North to win. However, the US approach to the war made this difficult as:
- search-and-destroy tactics ruined whole villages
- Agent Orange made it impossible to farm land
- the Strategic Hamlet Program created poor living conditions
As a consequence, there were very large numbers of A person living outside their own homeland as a result of war, famine or persecution. in Vietnam. These people were more likely to support the communists than the US troops.
The armed forces tried to address this situation with An attempt by US troops in South Vietnam to gain support from peasant villagers. programmes, such as building schools and training villagers. However, these were poorly funded and little trust was built up. Such actions failed to make up for the problems the USA had created for the South Vietnamese peasants.