Why was the USA unable to defeat communism in south East Asia in the years 1965-73?

for booby traps. A large number of civilians lost their lives as a result of this operation. Despite dropping more tonnage of high explosives on Vietnam than the whole of world war 2, the Americans could not stop the movement of troops or supplies to the south along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Already it was a failure for the US. After 1969, there were deep questions about the efficiency of US troops. There was a serious drugs problem, desertion rates were high and morale was low. Another tactic that was used was search and destroy. It was developed by Westmorland and was aimed to descend on villages and destroy any Vietcong found. The trouble with this was that innocent villagers were mistaken for Vietcong and killed. Civilian casualties were extremely high.All this proved the tactics used by the USA to be inefficient and led to the growing opposition within south Vietnam but most importantly in the USA.Growing opposition played an important role in the USA being unable to defeat communism. Hearts and minds were considered a very important aspect and without support the position of the US was much weakened and further questioned. The war in Vietnam was the first time a war was shown and accessed through the media to the public in the United States. Media played an important role in escalating opposition within the united states. Being able to watch the events of the war meant that the Americans saw the gruesome tactics that were being used by US troops and the amount of innocent civilians that were being killed mercilessly, for example in the Mai Lai Massacre where women, children and the elderly were shot by US troops which went into the village and met no resistance. This led to a lot of demonstrations. A student demonstration against the Vietnam war on the 4th of may 1970 at Kent state university is one that turned a lot of hearts away from the war. Four students were shot by an Ohio national guard and nine were wounded leaving one paralyzed. The event triggered a nationwide student strike that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close.  Not only were there public protests, but some members of the congress were against further involvement in Vietnam and were opposed to Nixon’s ideas. This also played an important role because without support from congress, Nixon’s position was much weakened. Without them it was going to be difficult for him to continue funding the war.Years following the tet offensive also further increased opposition within the USA and it was a period of a turning point in the war. The Tet offensive was widespread attacks launched on the cities of south Vietnam and against the US embassy on the 30th January 1968 by the communists. The objective of this was to lure the US troops into the more remote areas of Vietnam while at the same time causing maximum disruption in the cities and urban centres. The Tet offensive had a big effect on the US being unable to defeat communism. Although it proved to be a tactical defeat for the communists, they achieved an enormous political and psychological victory. Confidence of civilians in the ability of US troops and the ARVN to protect them was severely shaken, Johnson’s popularity fell and the way in which US media portrayed US troops led to many Americans to realise that the war in south Vietnam was far more serious than expected and caused distrust within the USA. All this made it incredibly hard for the USA to defeat communism. The USA seems to have underestimated the power of the Vietcong. Although the Vietcong were not as technologically advanced as the US, they had tactical advantage.The Vietcong were the military branch of the national liberation front. For arms, ammunition and special equipment, the Vietcong depended on the Ho Chi Minh trail. The Vietcong unlike the US were fighting a guerrilla war with principles saying they were to retreat when enemy attacks, raid when the enemy camps, attack when the enemy tires and pursue when the enemy retreats. This as well as having the advantage of fighting in a place where they were geographically comfortable, it gave them better advantage against the US making it more difficult for them to be defeated.Also very importantly, the US seemed to be very unlucky in the leadership that they had in south Vietnam. These leaders had great potential but always seemed to be unpopular with the Vietnamese people. The Americans were looking for puppet rulers and almost on all accounts, the rulers selected were not willing to be ‘puppets’, they had minds of their own. Firstly there was Diem who died in 1963 after a coup. He was not willing to be seen or treated as a puppet. He constantly rejected their advice and made decisions that upset the South Vietnamese people for example he favoured the catholic minority and oppressed the Buddhist majority. Then came Theiu in 1965. Thieu abused his powers by using the military to harass people who opposed him. Although He strongly favoured the increase of military actions against the Communists and supported any US action, corruption was widespread throughout his government and it excited little enthusiasm. Clearly the leadership within south Vietnam was not as strong as that of the north, there was no unity among the leadership and this can be seen with the coups (diem was assassinated by his own people) and also the leadership failed to win the hearts of the Vietnamese people. They were very unpopular and this was very dangerous because it left the civilians vulnerable to communists who offered them what their leaders could not.Having looked at some of the very important factors .that may have led to the defeat of the US to communism such as poor leadership, ineffective tactics, opposition and the Tet offensive, the US simply did not want to win as much as the north Vietnamese. The US may have won in terms of numbers of their own soldiers dead which was much less than any other country that was involved and it may have had better advantage over its opponents in terms of weapons and machinery (air power), however, politically and psychologically it was a great defeat. The north Vietnamese were more tactful and more determined to win this war, they were fighting for a cause which was understood and supported by the majority of the Vietnamese and as a result, their resilience led to their victory.