I feel like racism definitely played a part on America’s side too. Just assumed that they couldn’t possibly be strategically intelligent because their houses aren’t white picket fence nonsense.
Comment on Get ya every time
TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Feel like this is really belittling to the VC and PAVN, the Ho Chi Minh trail is rightfully known as one of the greatest achievements of military engineering in the 20th century.
The North Vietnamese military didn’t win because America was just that incompetent, they had arguably a couple of the best generals in modern history. I mean they defended against the armies of France, America, cambodia and China within a couple decades.
Stamets@lemmy.world 4 days ago
MuskyMelon@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Definitely and continues to this day beyond the battlefields
rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 3 days ago
It shows how insidious propaganda is when you can’t even avoid perpetuating it when you’re trying to boost the people it’s against.
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 4 days ago
If Vietnam had the PR machine of America, Võ Nguyên Giáp would be heralded as one of the greatest military minds of all time. Instead he is begrudgingly accepted as a good strategist who probably beat 3 of the biggest, most powerful militaries in the world with villagers.
The West doesn’t want to admit that a lawyer who was untrained in military doctrine and strategy beat France then the USA then Cambodia then China in a long 40 year fight. To Americans, the Vietnam was a gruesome 20 years. To Vietnam that was the second chapter of a 50 year period where someone tried to conquer them.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Yeah, Giáp is undeniably one of the greatest minds in modern military history. Not only did he defeat some of the most powerful militaries in the world, he did so in strategically different positions.
I can’t think of another commander who excelled against an occupying force as an insurgent, was successful in counter insurgency, and defeated a better armed opponent in a head to head battle.
You’re totally right, if America had a general as successful everything in the US military would be named after them, we’d never hear the end of it.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Extra exhausting when you hear some chest beating 2A loving conservative insist that Vietnam/Afghanistan proves police states can’t ever work in America.
There’s simply no conceptualization of what domestic resistance takes or who you need to win in a protracted insurgency.
We’ve just got a bunch of keyboard commanders who think your League of Legends rank would make you a modern day Rambo.