Vo Nguyen Giap, cold war warrior, passed away

[Jorge_Stanbury]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/vietnamese-mil ... 57923.html

[desicat]

I'm sure President Obama will send Sec State John Kerry to the funeral.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

why not? Vietnam is now a friend and business partner

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: desicat

I'm sure President Obama will send Sec State John Kerry to the funeral.

A first rate soldier. One of the best that the century has produced. You should leave your political cheese out of it. This is a history forum where the admiration for great soldiers is and always has been prime. I for one would go to his funeral.

[kaleun]

He was a great tactician and an even better strategist.

[desicat]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: desicat

I'm sure President Obama will send Sec State John Kerry to the funeral.

A first rate soldier. One of the best that the century has produced. You should leave your political cheese out of it. This is a history forum where the admiration for great soldiers is and always has been prime. I for one would go to his funeral.

This type of funeral would not rate the President or Vice President, official protocol would dictate that the Secretary of State would be the appropriate level of US representation.

If you feel that the comment was political in a negative way then look to your own heart. A negative comment could have mentioned Jane Fonda attending the funeral.

As to him being a great strategist his primary foe seemed to disagree: "In a 1998 interview, William Westmoreland criticized the battlefield prowess of Giáp. "Of course, he [Giap] was a formidable adversary," Westmoreland told correspondent W. Thomas Smith, Jr. "Let me also say that Giap was trained in small-unit, guerrilla tactics, but he persisted in waging a big-unit war with terrible losses to his own men. By his own admission, by early 1969, I think, he had lost, what, a half million soldiers? He reported this. Now such a disregard for human life may make a formidable adversary, but it does not make a military genius. An American commander losing men like that would hardly have lasted more than a few weeks."

Westmoreland seemed to rate him more of a callous butcher than a military genius.

As for attending his funeral, as a Retired Navy pilot I would respectfully decline.

Edit - swapped "retired" in the place of "former".

[desicat]

ORIGINAL: kaleun

He was a great tactician and an even better strategist.

I find this quite curious. The North Vietnamese lost almost every tactical engagement post US involvement in Vietnam, and on the operational level they were routinely crushed in detail. The vastly over rated Tet Offensive was a crushing tactical and operational defeat that saw the almost total destruction of the Viet Kong.

Giap took credit afterwards for the "political" victory that historians claim followed, and for ridding the NVA of their troublesome Viet Kong "partners".

A clear study of the War shows that the US and the ARVN won the war through 1972 and had Congress supported them through treaty South Vietnam could possibly exist still today.

The Strategic victory is somewhat of a draw depending on how one scores the Cold War. South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were indeed lost, but everything from Thailand south remained free. I guess it depends if one believed in the Domino theory or not.

[kaleun]

That's why I say he was a great strategist. He lost, and knew he would, all tactical engagements with his enemy. Even what is often called one of his victories (Dien Ben Phu) was strategically a defeat when you add up the numbers.

What made him a great warrior was that he did not measure his enemy by his own standards and he knew that if he could just inflict enough losses and outlast him, he would win in the end. And that he did versus the French and also versus the US.

He could not have wasted men like he did had he been fighting for a minimally representative government of course, but he did win in the end.I agree that the US and the ARVN controlled South Vietnam when the US pulled out but the will to fight had been sapped from the US and thus she did not support South Vietnam when the final battle occurred.

[desicat]

What made him a great warrior was that he did not measure his enemy by his own standards and he knew that if he could just inflict enough losses and outlast him, he would win in the end. And that he did versus the French and also versus the US.

This is an interesting subject that has actually been discussed at length in the War Colleges. The Viet Mein knew they could outlast the Colonial French by bleeding them, but they also thought they could defeat them in the field. This was proven out over time.

This led the now NVA and Viet Kong to believe the same thing in the early 60's when taking on the ARVN and US troops. Of course they didn't foresee the technological leap provided by helicopters and mobile infantry, nor mobile US fire bases that could rain down destruction 24/7. A study of NVA documents doesn't show a strategic shift to "breaking the American will to fight" until after the disaster at Tet. The Russians and NVA were shocked at how the total NVA/Viet Kong defeat during Tet was portrayed on US TV and in the print media.

Nixon crushed their pursuit of the "War Weariness" strategy with Rolling Thunder and drove the NVA to the peace table. It was only after Nixon resigned and Congress telegraphed their defeatism that the NVA took out the ARVN in 1975. Timely US air support could have been provided by Naval assets in 1975 that would have blunted the NVA armored offensive that eventually meant the end for South Vietnam and Saigon.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

The U.S. could simply not be defeated conventionally, that was a fact.
So, the main objectives of the NVA (and Giap) was to first weaken and afterwards destroy the South Vietnamese government/ military.

All those costly offensives launched by the North had the effect of slowly eroding the confidence of the Vietnamese people in that already feeble, corrupt, military-junta dictatorship (I won't call South Vietnam a "free" country).

Terrible losses are a given if you challenge a super power military. Afganistan's Soviet invasion was similar in that sense. I don't see Giap's fault on that, he was fighting "total war" against foreign invaders, manpower was the only thing he had in abundance.

[desicat]

So, the main objectives of the NVA (and Giap) was to first weaken and afterwards destroy the South Vietnamese government/ military.

Actually this was something that the Viet Kong was relatively successful at. Prior to Tet the Viet Kong had control of large swaths of South Vietnam including most of the Mekong Delta. After Tet the haggard Viet Kong survivors had great animosity for their NVA "brothers" betrayal leading to an almost total break between any cooperation between North and South. This also coincided with successful US pacification and protection operations that really put some starch in loyalty to the South Vietnamese leadership (mostly the local ARVN commanders).

Post Tet saw the South's government and military actually gaining in popularity.

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: desicat

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: desicat

I'm sure President Obama will send Sec State John Kerry to the funeral.

A first rate soldier. One of the best that the century has produced. You should leave your political cheese out of it. This is a history forum where the admiration for great soldiers is and always has been prime. I for one would go to his funeral.

This type of funeral would not rate the President or Vice President, official protocol would dictate that the Secretary of State would be the appropriate level of US representation.

If you feel that the comment was political in a negative way then look to your own heart. A negative comment could have mentioned Jane Fonda attending the funeral.

As to him being a great strategist his primary foe seemed to disagree: "In a 1998 interview, William Westmoreland criticized the battlefield prowess of Giáp. "Of course, he [Giap] was a formidable adversary," Westmoreland told correspondent W. Thomas Smith, Jr. "Let me also say that Giap was trained in small-unit, guerrilla tactics, but he persisted in waging a big-unit war with terrible losses to his own men. By his own admission, by early 1969, I think, he had lost, what, a half million soldiers? He reported this. Now such a disregard for human life may make a formidable adversary, but it does not make a military genius. An American commander losing men like that would hardly have lasted more than a few weeks."

Westmoreland seemed to rate him more of a callous butcher than a military genius.

As for attending his funeral, as a Retired Navy pilot I would respectfully decline.

Edit - swapped "retired" in the place of "former".

Jane Fonda is going to the funeral?!?!?!

Regards,
Feltan

P.S. Kidding aside, you don't have to have a political ax to grind not to like this guy. I know people that were killed because of his decisions -- and that kind of transcends conventional politics.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: desicat

So, the main objectives of the NVA (and Giap) was to first weaken and afterwards destroy the South Vietnamese government/ military.

Actually this was something that the Viet Kong was relatively successful at. Prior to Tet the Viet Kong had control of large swaths of South Vietnam including most of the Mekong Delta. After Tet the haggard Viet Kong survivors had great animosity for their NVA "brothers" betrayal leading to an almost total break between any cooperation between North and South. This also coincided with successful US pacification and protection operations that really put some starch in loyalty to the South Vietnamese leadership (mostly the local ARVN commanders).

Post Tet saw the South's government and military actually gaining in popularity.

Giap died in a free Vietnam. The rest is just old men wool-gathering.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: desicat

ORIGINAL: kaleun

He was a great tactician and an even better strategist.

I find this quite curious. The North Vietnamese lost almost every tactical engagement post US involvement in Vietnam, and on the operational level they were routinely crushed in detail. The vastly over rated Tet Offensive was a crushing tactical and operational defeat that saw the almost total destruction of the Viet Kong.

Giap took credit afterwards for the "political" victory that historians claim followed, and for ridding the NVA of their troublesome Viet Kong "partners".

Well, the OP´s link suggests Gian opposed the Tet Offensive:

Giap had been largely credited with devising the 1968 Tet Offensive, a series of surprise attacks on U.S. strongholds in the south by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces during lunar new year celebrations. Newer research, however, suggests that Giap had opposed the attacks, and his family has confirmed he was out of the country when they began.

ORIGINAL: desicat
A clear study of the War shows that the US and the ARVN won the war through 1972 and had Congress supported them through treaty South Vietnam could possibly exist still today.

From the same link:

Historian Stanley Karnow, who interviewed Giap in Hanoi in 1990, quoted him as saying: "We were not strong enough to drive out a half-million American troops, but that wasn't our aim. Our intention was to break the will of the American government to continue the war."

Independent on whether the above is intention reconstruction with 20/20 hindsight or really was a directive governing the developement of strategies & tactics used against US and ROK forces, this is exactly what happend, no?



Personally I think he was a good enough general. He became great because he commanded an army willing to take unbelievable losses and accept an extreme ammount of atrocities for a higher cause, and a population that either supported such sacrifices or did not know about them, and faught against an opponent who was not equally dedicated. Similar tactics had already failed when employed by the Japanese against the Allies after the US war machine had switched into full gear.

In Vietnam was, contrary to WWII, a war far away about something only few understood. It was not a war about the survival of western democracy, or freedom. Thats why Gian succeeded and the US failed.

[JeffroK]

He deserves the respect of his enemies, just as many laud the efforts of Rommel, Yamamoto or Guderian.

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron
... In Vietnam was, contrary to WWII, a war far away about something only few understood. It was not a war about the survival of western democracy, or freedom. Thats why Gian succeeded and the US failed.

LoBaron,

After the war, a large number of Vietnamese refugees came to the US. I got to know several, and one with whom I worked is among those that I call my friends.

They would take great exception to your statement that the war was not about western democracy or freedom. South Vietnam was taken over by a communist regime that was as violent and mean to the population as any stories or history that you will read about Genghis Khan and the Mongol hordes. The atrocities were really quite unbelievable, and have (as most periods of atrocities do) faded with time for most people who prefer to remain unaware.

Giap's passing is not worth commemorating. He was the architect of much suffering. Being effective at slaughtering your own people and subjugating others is not what I would choose to commemorate nor activities that invoke historical fondness and admiration.

Regards,
Feltan

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

He deserves the respect of his enemies, just as many laud the efforts of Rommel, Yamamoto or Guderian.

Jeff,

I will have to disagree. I do not respect a number of former enemies. No one lionizes Himmler for example. Stalin is not viewed with undue gratuity by history, and even the Chinese are having second thoughts about Mao's legacy and are actively sanitizing their own history. In my opinion, Giap is not in the category of a Rommel, Yamamoto or Guderian -- military men of skill, rather he is a pseudo-military man who used force to implement a political agenda.

Regards,
Feltan

[Terminus]

War -n: the use of force to implement a political agenda.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Feltan

ORIGINAL: LoBaron
... In Vietnam was, contrary to WWII, a war far away about something only few understood. It was not a war about the survival of western democracy, or freedom. Thats why Gian succeeded and the US failed.

LoBaron,

After the war, a large number of Vietnamese refugees came to the US. I got to know several, and one with whom I worked is among those that I call my friends.

They would take great exception to your statement that the war was not about western democracy or freedom. South Vietnam was taken over by a communist regime that was as violent and mean to the population as any stories or history that you will read about Genghis Khan and the Mongol hordes. The atrocities were really quite unbelievable, and have (as most periods of atrocities do) faded with time for most people who prefer to remain unaware.

Feltan, important was what it meant to the US public, because that had an impact on how much the US would be able to invest into the defense of ROK. This is what I am referring to.

I never denied that it was a matter of pure survival for the ROK, not that it changed a thing.

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

War -n: the use of force to implement a political agenda.

T,

I do not disagree. However, I hope you acknowledge that there is a difference between practitioners of the military art (the aforementioned Rommel, Yamamoto, Guderian, etc.), and those that are basically thugs who use brute force to implement political change.

Regards,
Feltan