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Article: Vietnam 1945 to 1975: communism on display.
- Article from:
- Parameters
- Article date:
- September 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 U.S. Army War College. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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What makes the Vietnam War so complex is the fact that it could have been prosecuted in a number of ways that might have achieved greater success--a guerrilla war using only the South Vietnamese forces, a guerrilla war using the South Vietnamese and American forces, or as a guerrilla and main force war--but it was not. One of the overarching conclusions of this review essay is the fact that the American military never received a set of clear political objectives from its civilian leadership on how to conduct the war. President Lyndon B. Johnson was a dreadful Commander-in-Chief who lacked any semblance of a political strategy for winning the war. This fact, along with ...