1. What do you think would happen if America had bombed Vietnam the way the military officials planned to? What things would be different?
The American military were at a great disadvantage when it entered the war against North Viet Nam and the Viet Cong: the North Vietnamese and their southern counterparts had been at war against the French during and after World War II. The Viet Cong had dug in and established ground under Ho Chi Min. During and immediately after the war when a vacuum of power existed after the fall of Japan and French troops were still interred, the Viet Cong were viewed as liberators from foreign powers. By the time the U.S. was involved enough in Viet Nam to actively engage in combat, the Viet Cong had infiltrated the south and created a network of underground tunnels, spies and supply lines from the north. General Curtis LeMay, known for his bombing strategies against Japan in World War II, the Berlin Airlift and for powering up SAC to be a front line command center for nuclear war, believed in total strategic bombing (like Sherman’s total war). LeMay argued that the U.S. should be bombing North Vietnamese cities, harbors and other strategic targets and that merely severing the supply lines to the South wasn’t enough to win the war. Because of the political opposition to widening the war in Viet Nam, President Johnson settled for a scaled back offensive. Operation Rolling Thunder, a strategy of bombing that gradually increased intensity, began in February 1965. In the aftermath of the carpet bombing of German and Japanese cities and Hiroshima, Americans began to view this type of total war against civilians with revulsion. While still in its infancy, the idea that strategic bombing should be precise with a view to reducing civilian casualties was being tested. With the tension between these two viewpoints, Johnson took the conservative approach (to appease the public and out of fear of Chinese direct involvement) in the hope that Operation Rolling Thunder would demoralize the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. Quite the opposite occurred. They viewed the United States as not having the determination to win and dug in deeper. This was a different kind of war that did not respond to conventional tactics. Perhaps precision bombing that destroyed the supply lines from Soviet Russia and China would have been effective, but the United States did not have that kind of technology at the time. Therefore aggressive bombing would have created a large amount of damage. It could have shortened the war, but it could also have brought the world to the brink of World War III.
2. Do you believe that if the United States would have bombed Vietnam more aggressively it would have turned into another World War with China, and the Soviet Union?
With the split between China and the Soviet Union that began in 1956, North Vietnam began to drift to the Soviet camp because the PRC pushed Ho Chi Min to accept division of the country. Both the Soviets and the PRC supplied North Vietnam and the Viet Cong with war materiel and competed with each other for the ideological leadership of communism. Khrushchev believed that it was possible to peacefully coexist with the West while Chairman Mao Zedong’s attitude was more belligerent. The United States entered the fray under Kennedy with the supposition that the fall of “democratic” South Vietnam would usher in the “domino theory effect,” and that all of Southeast Asia would fall to communism. But Mao Zedong viewed the United States as a “paper tiger” that would blow away in the wind by overextending itself. To this Khrushchev reportedly replied, “but the paper tiger has nuclear teeth.” In this political climate, all three countries were practicing brinksmanship. How far could the U.S. go in North Vietnam before the Chinese or the Soviets for that matter, jumped in? Since Nixon’s bombing in 1972 didn’t trigger the war, is it possible that in 1965 that Johnson could have accomplished the same goal without causing China or the Soviets to intercede? Probably not. The difference is that in 1965 the United States had not recognized the PRC and would not until Nixon’s historic visit in 1971. Would the Soviets and China have set aside their differences to defend North Vietnam? Probably not. But the Chinese were very aggressive and this was a bluff that Johnson did not want to call. In addition, losing the political ground gained with the Soviets was something the United States couldn’t afford to do with the delicate three-way balance of superpowers at the time.
3. In the second paragraph Admiral Grant Sharp stated, "Our airpower did not fail us; it was the decision makers." What did he mean by this?
Admiral Sharp was an outspoken critic of the way the administration conducted the war. He charged Defense Secretary Robert McNamara of consistently disregarding the advice of his military advisors and “[giving] the enemy plenty of time to cope with our every move.” Sharp was an advocate of decisive offensive airstrikes and believed that holding back gave the enemy more time to regroup and retrench. There was a real distinction between the scenarios of the bombing of North Vietnam as opposed to ground invasion. If the United States initiated a ground invasion, China would have become involved on the ground as it had in Korea. However, China did not appear ready to engage when bombing occurred. Sharpe’s criticisms of United States policy makers was that by restricting bombing, the Viet Cong continued to receive supplies and reinforcements, thus putting American soldiers at more risk. With sustained air support and cutting off supply lines, in Sharp’s opinion, the war would have been shortened, thus saving the lives of American soldiers and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.
4. Even though the US heavily bombed Vietnam, why was it difficult for American forces to subdue the Vietcong? Why, ultimately, did bombing fail to bring victory for the US?
Bombing an enemy is difficult if you have no discreet targets. The Vietcong were heavily entrenched in the jungle and hidden in villages and tunnels. Intelligence about their whereabouts had to be completely accurate in to order to effectively root them out. However, with heavy bombing and the use of chemical warfare (napalm), the number of civilian casualties through bombing was certain to be extremely high. The civilians were poor villagers who had endured war for decades. If pro-South Vietnam villagers were bombed and killed by “friendly fire”, surely their loyalty would be undermined and the chances that they would aid and harbor Viet Cong fighters increased. Targets that can be readily identified, like industrial areas, ports, harbors, cities, were basically off-limits for bombing. Air strikes became more of a support for ground troops than effective measures in and of themselves. The only way the Viet Cong could have been subdued by bombing would have been to destroy the civilians that the United States was supposedly there to help. This is something the American public would not stand for. The Vietnam War was really a shadow war between the communist superpowers and the United States and neither would back down for fear of losing face with their allies nor engage in total war: the result was a bloody stalemate. In addition, the Viet Cong would not back down in South Vietnam and used civilians to cloak their activities. This was not an industrialized country where the conventional bombing tactics used on Germany and Japan that destroyed their infrastructure would be equally effective. In the heart of Vietnamese jungle, in the shadows where the war was fought, there was no infrastructure. Only the Ho Chi Min trail and apparently, bombing that was not enough. The Viet Cong were being supplied by the North Vietnamese government, the Chinese and the Soviets. Only by attacking the real source of their support could the bombing have been effective against the Viet Cong. And that act, indeed would have risked World War III.
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