Quote:
Originally Posted by StefanG
I will never claim to know everything but how Korea was a military and political success and how Vietnam was won militarily is something I really would love to learn.
cause looking at the end results i can see nothing of that
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South Korea was invaded by North Korea. Our military goal as well as political goal was to push them back to the 38th Parallel which is where the country was split into at the end of WWII, by agreement between the Soviet Union and the US. Our military removed them from South Korea and General MacArthur, exceeding his authority, drove past the 38th all the way to the Chinese border, which brought the Chinese into the conflict. General MacArthur was relieved of his command and our military was ordered to return back to the 38th Parallel and to hold there, which they did in both instances thus our military goal as well as political goal was met.
In Vietnam our military goal and political goal was to hold South Vietnam from being overrun by the North. The military held the South until it was ordered to withdraw from Vietnam in '73 which it did, thus it was a military success, but the South was lost by the Vietnamese military in '75 thus the political goal was not met.
Even then the South Vietnamese military would probably have prevailed as President Nixon had promised that if the battle began to go South he would bomb Hanoi into submission, which is what he did to bring the north to the peace table in the first place. Eleven days of 24/7 bombing by our B-52's, hitting targets that were forbidden before, is what brought the North to the peace table in '73 allowing all US forces to withdraw. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on ones point of view, the Congress would not allow funding to the President to keep his promise and proceed to bomb Hanoi again thus the South Vietnamese Army could not hold against the invasion of the NVA who were supplied by and supported by the Russians, as well as some Russian military.