Strategies used by the opposing sides in the Second Indochina War (1965-1973)

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Evaluate the effectiveness of the Strategies used by the opposing sides in the Second Indochina War (1965-1973). Why was it inevitable that the South (USA and Republic of Vietnam) would be defeated?It was inevitable that the USA and the Republic of Vietnam would be defeated in the Second Indochina war of 1965-1973 because of the effective strategies used by the North, with the use of Guerrilla warfare and the Ho Chin Minh trail. The south was defeated because their tactics like using conventional ground warfare and air warfare and their Pacification Campaigns were totally inappropriate for the war in Vietnam.

The goal of the USA and South Vietnam was to preserve South Vietnamese independence by defeating the Viet Cong (VC) and North…show more content…
It extended for 1500 km from NV, south along the border of Laos and terminated at the frontier of SV and Cambodia in a region called the “Iron Triangle”. From here, the Trial went underground into the Cu Chi tunnel network and connected up with the storm water drains and sewer pipes of Saigon. Binh Trams (staging depots) provided shelter, infirmaries, and storage areas and weapons assembly points. But its main purpose was to infiltrate soldier, weapons and supplies into SV.

The US and SV were very disadvantaged. They had difficulty with the languages of the different races, where as the VC had no language problems. They also had difficulty in actually recognising the enemy, as the guerrillas dressed like civilians.

“You could never tell who was the enemy was … therefore you treated everyone with suspicion”- Thomas Giltner, US Soldier “Contested Spaces”The foreign US soldiers had no knowledge of the geography of Vietnam (jungles, mountains, rainforests, and climate) but the VC did, and used it to their advantage. The US, by engaging in massive firepower, killing many non-combatants, destroyed the US credibility in the minds of the people. The VC sympathised with the people’s hardships and this was effective as they won the people over. The VC had extensive knowledge of guerrilla warfare, it was their war, and the US fought tractional conventional warfare which did have some effected, but eventually the US ran out of will. The military operations were
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