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7/13/2025, 8:15:17 PM
>>63964294
>But according to our metrics we're winning the war! We've plugged the numbers into the UNIVAC and it told us we already killed 110% of the PAVN/VC, and we're on track to kill 500% of North Vietnam by 1980! Numbers don't lie!
Unironically, that was true. The objectives for the war was to stop the invasion from the north, an insurgency in the South, and to get the South Vietnamese people supporting their government. Fighting the unconventional war against the insurgency was the hardest thing the American forces faced and when the entire insurgency decided to rise up all at once and play their hand they got killed. That insurgency also managed to do a bunch of killings which got the South Vietnamese people on board with the government for once. Your two hardest objectives during the war pretty much right then was completed. Fighting a conventional war coming in from the North was the easy task.
What lost us the war was Walter Cronkite telling the American people that the war was unwinnable right as the enemy decided to get themselves all killed.
I'm not saying that McNamara was right, and him and the top military brass being too focused on the numbers game hurt the war, but in this instance the numbers were right.
>But according to our metrics we're winning the war! We've plugged the numbers into the UNIVAC and it told us we already killed 110% of the PAVN/VC, and we're on track to kill 500% of North Vietnam by 1980! Numbers don't lie!
Unironically, that was true. The objectives for the war was to stop the invasion from the north, an insurgency in the South, and to get the South Vietnamese people supporting their government. Fighting the unconventional war against the insurgency was the hardest thing the American forces faced and when the entire insurgency decided to rise up all at once and play their hand they got killed. That insurgency also managed to do a bunch of killings which got the South Vietnamese people on board with the government for once. Your two hardest objectives during the war pretty much right then was completed. Fighting a conventional war coming in from the North was the easy task.
What lost us the war was Walter Cronkite telling the American people that the war was unwinnable right as the enemy decided to get themselves all killed.
I'm not saying that McNamara was right, and him and the top military brass being too focused on the numbers game hurt the war, but in this instance the numbers were right.
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