Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay
We actually could have won both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Gen. MacArthur was already into mainland China when Eisenhower pulled him out and pulled back. The key there was that China had just gone through a revolution and was not in a position yet where they could effectively bring their military to bear. Korea was very winnable, but American leaders yielded to other voices instead of finishing the job.
We would have won also in Vietnam, but after the Tet Offensive (which actually destroyed the Viet Cong as an effective force in Southern Vietnam) leading men in the United States like Walter Cronkite told America that the war was lost. Between that and politicians forcing the military to retreat after securing an area caused the war to be lost at home before we ever actually were beaten on the field.
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We "could have" does not count. China had just went through the second world war also and had endured horrible things against the Japanese for 12 years. We had just lost hundreds of thousands of men also in the war.
Tho we had the much more modern army after 3 years we saw no way to win against China except to begin nuking them. Seeing what nukes did to Japan helped the Chinese come to the table. It would not work today because we know China has hundreds if not thousands of nukes themselves.
They dont need super spohisicated systems to deliver them. We did if with high flying airplanes. They have a large submarine fleet also that can come right to our coasts and deliver them quite easily if they decided to.
Our politicians today have far less will to fight a total war than in those days. The Korean War cost us many times the KIA from both of the wars we have fought in the past decade and neither have we prospered anything of value in them.
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