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Vietnam War USA Strategies - Coggle Diagram
Vietnam War USA Strategies
Strategies to Fight the Vietnam War (USA)
Bombing
● The USA stepped up its military presence in South Vietnam by increasing the number of troops deployed in Vietnam from 23,300 at the end of 1964 to 184,300 at the end of 1965.
● On 7 February 1965 the USA launched operation Rolling Thunder which lasted till 1972.
● Rolling Thunder involved extensive bombing raids on military and industrial targets in North Vietnam, transportation networks and ports to damage and disrupt North Vietnam's supply routes as well as towns and cities in North and South Vietnam.
● To some extent bombing was effective.
o Damaged North Vietnam's war effort and it disrupted supply routes.
o Enabled the USA to strike at Communist forces even when it was reducing US ground forces in Vietnam after 1969.
o From 1970 to 1972, intense bombing campaigns against Hanoi (North Vietnam's capital) and the port of Haiphong forced the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table.
● However, US air power could not defeat the Communists - it could only slow them down as the Viet Cong continued to operate its supply lines.
● Even after major air raids on North Vietnam in 1972, the Communists were still able to launch a major assault on the South.
Use of Chemical Weapons
● The USA then changed their strategy to using chemical weapons and search-and-destroy raids as the war progressed.
● The US developed a powerful chemical weapon called Agent Orange – a sort of highly toxic 'weedkiller'.
o It was used to destroy the jungle where the Viet Cong hid.
o The Americans used 82 million litres of Agent Orange to spray thousands of square kilometres of jungle.
● Napalm was another widely-used chemical weapon.
o It destroyed jungles where guerrillas might hide.
o It also burned through skin to the bone.
o Many civilians and soldiers were also killed by these chemical weapons.
Search and destroy
● The US commander General Westmoreland developed a policy of search and destroy.
● He established secure and heavily defended US bases in the south of the country and near to the coasts.
● From here, US and South Vietnamese forces launched search-and-destroy raids from helicopters.
● They would descend on a village and destroy any Viet Cong forces they found.
● Soldiers had to send back reports of body counts.
● Search-and-destroy missions did kill Viet Cong soldiers, but there were problems:
o The raids were often based on inadequate information.
o Inexperienced US troops often walked into traps.
o Innocent villages were mistaken for Viet Cong strongholds.
o Civilian casualties were extremely high in these raids. For every Viet Cong weapon captured by search-and-destroy, there was a body count of six. Many of these were innocent civilians.
o Search-and-destroy tactics made the US and South Vietnamese forces very unpopular with the peasants. It pushed them towards supporting the Viet Cong.