Provocative title, heh?
Quickly before ar15.com goes black again, I found another site I gotta share. It’ll take about 20-25 minutes of reading time, but it will be time will spent. I promise you that will enjoy or your money back. This piece deals with McNamara’s book, and why this guy still  sucks. It’s a criticism on the strategy of the Vie Nam War, but it has a lot of relevance for our situation today. It was written before G.W. Bush was elected, so when you get to the comments about Clinton, have some tissues ready because you’re going to spit all over the monitor laughing. Here’s the link:[url]http://zolatimes.com/V3.34/vietnam8.html[/url]
If anybody is having trouble with the link, post here, and I’ll e-mail you a copy. I downloaded it because I was having trouble with the link.

ok  I'm off,  I hope this is entertaining

Seems interesting, and I have time to kill...

Oh my God...both Grin and rifleman went there, and never returned. I suspect foul play. Or maybe, UFOs. I'll notify the authorities. Everybody else, just hang tight.

I haven't visited the link yet, but I'll have to say:

It's damn hard to win a war while not invading the offending country (North Vietnam). Bombing and "black" cross border ops just don't cut it. Had we (or, rather, LBJ) had the balls to invade North Vietnam we could have won. But the ultimate risk was nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Heard on the news the other day that it was found that Nixon wanted to nuke North Viet Nam but was talked out of it by Kissinger.

Everywhere that USGI went, he kicked ass. Even Tet....
We didnt lose the war, we (the troops) were told to walk away from it, by the leadership.
Apparently the politicos had made enough money, killed enough population(on both sides), and stimulated the economy to call a halt. I have read an account where LBJ's most trusted advisor came into his office one day and said to call it off, that it was all a mistake. And then this great advisor turned around and walked out. LBJ was finished...

[b]The Viet Nam War wasn't easy to lose. Not only massive incompetence, but also dedicated, exquisitely sadistic, subversive genius was required to do it.[/b]

This sums it up.

I think the analysis is accurate about warfare in general, but flawed in regard to Vietnam.  The single reason that we didn't invade was USSR.  There have even been some recently declassified encounters we had with the Soviet sub fleet during Vietnam.   USSR involvement and the beginning of WWIII was a very real threat.  

Interesting supposition, Magic. Do you have any links or references? Considering that there were and are and will be run ins with Soviet, and now Russian, subs, I wonder what could have made run ins any different. Other things to consider were that many of the Migs being flown across the Yalu during the Korean Conflict were flown by Soviet Pilots with many having been shot down and killed, and this didn't lead to a general war between us and them. Plus the fact that The USSR and the PRC had a small scale border War in 1969, China wouldn't have wanted the Soviets on a War footing any where near them (that Socialist Brotherhood thing only goes so far.) I must have information [:l]

In fact, Soviet pilots flew in the Vietnam war, and some Soviet ground troops were also engaged.

In Korea, we had a significant nuclear edge over the Soviets. During Vietnam, we didn't. In Korea, the Chinese got involved when we invaded the North. We really didn't know how the Soviets and Chinese would have reacted had we invaded North Vietnam. The Korean experience was hardly reassuring

DonS, neither of your points support my counter-thesis. I know you can do better[:D].
The Kennedy Admin. brought about the 1,000 Missile system around 1962-63. By 1967, the program was complete. We had a significant submarine launched capability (all of these compares back then, not the 1970s), and a large number of gravity bombs and a large amount of bombers of all types that were nuclear capable. It's my contention that at this time in History, the US lead the Soviets, significantly.
As for the entry of the Chinese into Korea, after the Inchon Landing, it was just a matter of time before the Chinese were going to enter. I know how everybody likes to say that China needed a buffer state, etc. If that is true, China could've either announced a cessation for a return to the 1945 border, or simply have stopped their drive at the 38th Parrallel instead of continue to drive into Seoul.
What say you?

We didn't lose. we left

The U.S. could have overwhelmingly won that war in a couple of months but the politicians wouldn't let that happen.

They owed their butts to the defense industry and to stay in office you had to buy weapons, you need a war to justify buying weapons.

In other words the Troops fighting it were continuously restrained and set up for failure by politicians who got juicy checks from Defense industries.