In 1962, USA started moving peasants from villages into areas under the control of South Vietnamese army. This was known as a programme of Strategic Hamlet. This policy ultimately failed, since a lot of peasants were not willing to move, so South Vietnamese army had to use force. This increased the hostility of the peasants towards the Ngo Dinh Diem government. The peasants were also angry at the fact that they had to travel long distances to reach their rice fields, others were concerned that this is going against their religion as they believed that they have to live where their ancestors were buried. Kennedy became worried when he was told that despite the Strategic Hamlet policy, the membership of National Liberation Front, which was a powerful resistance organization created by Ho Chi Minh in 1960, has grown to over 17 000- a 300% increase in two years, and that they now controlled one fifth of the villages in South Vietnam.
After the “Gulf of Tonkin resolution” Johnson gained the power to use military force in Vietnam, the bombing raids in North Vietnam started.
The first step, Operation Rolling Thunder - February 1965 was a restricted but massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam. This was followed by the introduction of 50,000 U.S. ground combat forces. Yet, this operation failed as it did not destroy the Ho Chi Minh trail, which was the North Vietnamese supply route going through Laos and Cambodia to South Vietnam. The U.S. strategy was based on inflicting huge losses on the Viet Cong. The U.S. did not attempt to hold on to capture territory. Instead, they used chemical defoliants such as Agent Orange to destroy the forest. The South Vietnamese intensified their attack - in Operation Phoenix in 1967 they used arrests, imprisonment and assassination. In 1968 Johnson did not go for re-election.
However, the American involvement did not help them to defeat the North Vietnamese and Vietcong, and they ultimately failed. The first mistake in the Vietnam War was the United States’ fear driven reasons for going there in the first place. When the French exited Vietnam by 1954, the U.S. was quick to step in to begin taking control of South Vietnam. As an excuse to justify American intervention in Vietnam, President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the Domino Theory. This theory explained that if South Vietnam fell to communism, this would result in all of Southeast Asia doing the same. As we know now, the Domino Theory turned out to be false and inaccurate. The U.S. government also feared that the eventual spread of communism could potentially lead to the United States and influence Americans. USA thought that if they help South Vietnamese, it would help to defeat communist North Vietnam. They chose Ngo Dinh Diem to be president of South Vietnam. However, choosing Diem as the ruler was one of the biggest mistakes made. His religious persecution against Buddhists, who were the majority of civilians, quickly alienated the population. A devout Catholic, Diem’s self-righteous outlook caused him to do more harm than good. His destruction of several ancestral graves of Buddhist enemies, for example, ignited the flame for mistrust in the government and only furthered the Vietnamese view of Americans as selfish imperialists. If Diem had only made his regime more popular and compassionate, he might have not have been executed and overthrown along with his brother in November 1963, just three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated.
Even though US army was well equipped, had large army and a lot of financial support, they used the wrong tactics for a fight in jungle. US used simple warfare, which could not defeat the guerilla tactics that Viet Cong used. The main of guerilla tactics was to “retreat when enemy attacks, raid when enemy camps, attack when the enemy is tired, pursue when enemy retreats.” US simply weren’t prepared to fight these tactics, as it was an unfamiliar thing for them.
The areal bombings weren’t affective as well. Operation Rolling Thunder was a proof of that, since it was ineffective and did not destroy the Ho Chi Minh trail, which was the main supply route for Vietnamese. The other US methods, like “Search and destroy” or the use of “Agent Orange” chemicals were proved to be useless as well, since it not only took lives of South Vietnamese people, but also made US very unpopular within the peasants of South Vietnam.
The publicity surrounding the My Lai massacre proved to be an important turning point in American public opinion. It showed the deterioration in the behaviour of US troops and undermined the moral argument about the need to save Vietnam from communism. This showed that USA failed to win the hearts and minds of South Vietnamese people.
The other reason, that led USA to failure in Vietnam, was that Vietcong had short and effective supply routes, whilst US had a long supply routes, therefore resources like weapons and other supplies had to travel a long distance to reach Vietnam. The most famous supply route was the Ho Chi Minh trail, that USA didn’t not successfully stopped from working. The route linked China and North Vietnam; this provided supplies for all country and a quick repair of equipment.
The reason that led Vietcong to victory was that they had what to fight for, when US troops weren’t sure about the reasons for being involved in this war. North Vietnamese were passionate about finishing the war and uniting their country, rather than just wining it. Vietcong felt that by fighting for communism they are doing a noble thing, therefore they were ready to sacrifice their lives for their country. This was not the case in American front. As the war continued US troops started to doubt more about the need to be involved in Vietnam and cared more about their own survival rather than the fight itself. North Vietnamese were more experienced than young US troops, who lacked the moral. They were looking for ways to escape the difficulties of the war; therefore drugs became a huge problem within US soldiers.
Later on, the war became also a media war, and this was not an advantage for USA as people saw the horrors of the war on TV. The government did not stop the showing of images of the war to the people USA, yet this led to the creation of anti-war movements. A lot of people started to doubt the tactics of US in Vietnam. As more dead bodies came back to US, people stopped believing that US has a chance to win this war. People were worried, that it’s not worth sacrificing so much for a small, unknown country like Vietnam. The soldiers that came back from Vietnam felt guilty about the damage they did and the number of people they had to kill. US government was under the pressure from people, yet couldn’t do anything to stop the war quickly. It failed to further keep the reasons for US intervention justified.
The US involvement in Vietnam grew between 1961 and 1968 through military involvement and the increasing number of troops that were sent to Vietnam. Despite the technology and size of army that US had, they lost the war for a number of reasons. US was using wrong tactics, soldiers were not prepared to fight in the jungle, supply routes were too long and eventually there was a strong opposition to war in USA. US troops fought against an enemy that simply refused to lose.