WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600 Imagine you are Ho Chi Minh during World War 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:05.740 II. You're leading this revolutionary group, 00:00:05.960 --> 00:00:08.039 the Viet Minh. Yeah. And you're fighting against 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:10.259 the occupying Japanese forces in the jungles 00:00:10.259 --> 00:00:13.500 of Southeast Asia. Right. And your biggest ally, 00:00:14.339 --> 00:00:16.480 the country that is actually supplying you with 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:19.960 weapons and training and strategic support, is 00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:22.100 the United States. Yeah. Operating through the 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:25.079 OSS, which was basically the precursor to the 00:00:25.079 --> 00:00:27.969 CIA. Exactly. But then... you know, fast forward 00:00:27.969 --> 00:00:31.250 a couple of decades, and that exact same alliance 00:00:31.250 --> 00:00:35.250 turns into one of the most brutal, complicated, 00:00:35.630 --> 00:00:38.630 and just devastating proxy wars in human history. 00:00:38.780 --> 00:00:41.700 It really is one of the most profound geopolitical 00:00:41.700 --> 00:00:44.020 whiplashes of the 20th century. I mean, you go 00:00:44.020 --> 00:00:46.240 from a collaborative effort for national independence 00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:49.299 directly into this meat grinder of a conflict 00:00:49.299 --> 00:00:51.500 that totally reshaped the modern world. And that 00:00:51.500 --> 00:00:54.000 is exactly why we are here today. Welcome to 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:55.600 this deep dive. If you're listening right now, 00:00:55.600 --> 00:00:58.500 I know you. You're someone who is intensely curious. 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:00.299 You want to cut through the noise, right? Yeah, 00:01:00.299 --> 00:01:03.280 the noise, the Hollywood movies, the decades 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:04.920 of political rhetoric. You want to get to the 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:08.459 actual core of the Vietnam War. So today, we 00:01:08.459 --> 00:01:11.420 are pulling from a really detailed, incredibly 00:01:11.420 --> 00:01:15.400 comprehensive, historical overview to understand 00:01:15.400 --> 00:01:17.739 the actual mechanics of this conflict. We're 00:01:17.739 --> 00:01:20.950 looking way beyond just... Dates on a calendar. 00:01:21.129 --> 00:01:23.629 We really want to understand how a localized 00:01:23.629 --> 00:01:27.870 anti -colonial struggle morphed into this Massive 00:01:27.870 --> 00:01:31.349 Cold War proxy war will be mapping out the miscalculations 00:01:31.349 --> 00:01:34.530 The realities of asymmetric warfare and the staggering 00:01:34.530 --> 00:01:36.890 human cost and we're doing it impartially giving 00:01:36.890 --> 00:01:39.750 you a full 360 degree view. So help me trace 00:01:39.750 --> 00:01:41.790 this back I think most people you know, they 00:01:41.790 --> 00:01:44.010 picture the 1960s when they think of the Vietnam 00:01:44.010 --> 00:01:46.590 War But based on our source material the seeds 00:01:46.590 --> 00:01:48.920 were planted way earlier. What happened? And 00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:51.620 after that World War II alliance with the U .S., 00:01:51.620 --> 00:01:53.299 why the sudden reversal? Well, it really comes 00:01:53.299 --> 00:01:55.400 down to the shifting priorities of the post -World 00:01:55.400 --> 00:01:58.079 War II world. Before the war, Vietnam was part 00:01:58.079 --> 00:02:00.560 of French Indokaina. It was a French colony. 00:02:00.920 --> 00:02:04.540 And after Japan surrendered in 1945, Ho Chi Minh 00:02:04.540 --> 00:02:07.280 basically declared independence. But the French 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:08.800 essentially stepped in and said, well, we'll 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:10.639 be taking our colony back. Thank you very much. 00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:13.840 Wow. Where was the U .S. in all this? They had 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:16.240 just backed Ho Chi Minh. Right, but suddenly 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:19.280 the United States needed a strong France to help 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:22.240 rebuild a shattered Europe. They needed a buffer 00:02:22.240 --> 00:02:26.030 against the Soviet Union. The U .S. quietly backs 00:02:26.030 --> 00:02:28.449 away from Vietnamese independence and just allows 00:02:28.449 --> 00:02:31.289 the French to return. Which kicks off a brutal, 00:02:31.610 --> 00:02:33.870 nearly decade -long conflict known as the first 00:02:33.870 --> 00:02:36.389 Indochina War, right? Correct. The French fight 00:02:36.389 --> 00:02:39.789 the Viet Minh until 1954. And that's when the 00:02:39.789 --> 00:02:41.870 French suffer a catastrophic military defeat 00:02:41.870 --> 00:02:44.370 at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Oh, right. Yeah, 00:02:44.370 --> 00:02:47.110 they are entirely forced out of the region. And 00:02:47.110 --> 00:02:49.750 this massive power vacuum leads directly to the 00:02:49.750 --> 00:02:52.490 1954 Geneva Conference. Where the global powers 00:02:52.490 --> 00:02:55.800 step in. Exactly. decide to temporarily partition 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:58.460 Vietnam right down the middle at the 17th parallel. 00:02:58.919 --> 00:03:01.300 So you end up with the communist north led by 00:03:01.300 --> 00:03:04.000 Ho Chi Minh and a western backed regime in the 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:06.740 south. OK, let's unpack this because this partition 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:10.039 is fascinating. It really is. The Geneva Accords 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:13.500 promised that there would be unified democratic 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:17.099 elections in 1956 to bring the two halves of 00:03:17.099 --> 00:03:20.120 the country back together. But I look at this 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:23.949 situation like. neighborhood association. A neighborhood 00:03:23.949 --> 00:03:26.229 association. Yeah, like imagine the US is the 00:03:26.229 --> 00:03:30.189 head of the HOA and they believe that if one 00:03:30.189 --> 00:03:33.169 house on the block catches fire, the fire being 00:03:33.169 --> 00:03:35.490 communism, in this case the wind will inevitably 00:03:35.490 --> 00:03:37.569 blow the flames and the whole neighborhood will 00:03:37.569 --> 00:03:40.330 burn down. I see where you're going. Right. So 00:03:40.330 --> 00:03:42.729 they decide they have to fireproof the house 00:03:43.390 --> 00:03:46.229 in South Vietnam, completely regardless of what 00:03:46.229 --> 00:03:48.789 the homeowner actually wants. But if elections 00:03:48.789 --> 00:03:51.569 were promised, why did the US and the South completely 00:03:51.569 --> 00:03:53.810 ignore that promise and just refuse to hold the 00:03:53.810 --> 00:03:56.530 vote? What's fascinating here is that the United 00:03:56.530 --> 00:03:58.669 States and South Vietnam actually refused to 00:03:58.669 --> 00:04:00.569 sign the Geneva Accords in the first place. Wait, 00:04:00.569 --> 00:04:03.030 really? They didn't even sign it? No, they didn't. 00:04:03.210 --> 00:04:04.930 And the reason they didn't want those elections 00:04:04.930 --> 00:04:07.750 in 1956 is brutally simple. They knew they would 00:04:07.750 --> 00:04:10.659 lose. Yeah, President Dwight D. Eisenhower even 00:04:10.659 --> 00:04:12.900 admitted in his writings that if elections had 00:04:12.900 --> 00:04:16.279 been held, probably 80 % of the population would 00:04:16.279 --> 00:04:18.519 have voted for the communist Ochi Min over the 00:04:18.519 --> 00:04:20.779 Western -backed leadership in the South. Hold 00:04:20.779 --> 00:04:25.579 on. 80%. If Washington knew that, how did they 00:04:25.579 --> 00:04:28.699 possibly justify installing a separate government 00:04:28.699 --> 00:04:31.459 in the South? By leaning entirely into the exact 00:04:31.459 --> 00:04:34.100 analogy you just used, the domino theory. I mean, 00:04:34.100 --> 00:04:36.740 in the 1950s, the Red Scare is peaking in America. 00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:39.139 Right. The Soviets have the bomb. Exactly. The 00:04:39.139 --> 00:04:41.360 Soviet Union has nuclear weapons. China has fallen 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:43.959 to communism. The Korean War just ended in a 00:04:43.959 --> 00:04:47.420 stalemate. Washington policymakers were absolutely 00:04:47.420 --> 00:04:50.720 gripped by the fear that if Vietnam fell, Laos, 00:04:51.040 --> 00:04:53.779 Cambodia, Thailand, and maybe even India would 00:04:53.779 --> 00:04:56.319 topple like dominoes. So containing communism 00:04:56.319 --> 00:04:59.629 just becomes the absolute overriding geopolitical 00:04:59.629 --> 00:05:02.649 imperative. Yes, it completely superseded any 00:05:02.649 --> 00:05:05.350 local desires for democratic elections. So the 00:05:05.350 --> 00:05:07.750 U .S. decides to build a bulwark. They throw 00:05:07.750 --> 00:05:09.649 their financial and military weight behind a 00:05:09.649 --> 00:05:12.589 man named Mingo Dien Diem to lead South Vietnam. 00:05:12.730 --> 00:05:15.029 Yeah, Diem. But the source material paints a 00:05:15.029 --> 00:05:17.430 pretty grim picture of his leadership. I mean, 00:05:17.610 --> 00:05:19.709 how does his rule actually set the stage for 00:05:19.709 --> 00:05:22.870 the insurgency? Well. Diem was fiercely anti 00:05:22.870 --> 00:05:25.930 -communist, which Washington obviously loved, 00:05:26.189 --> 00:05:28.870 but he was incredibly unpopular at home. He was 00:05:28.870 --> 00:05:30.949 an autocrat. He was part of the Catholic minority, 00:05:30.990 --> 00:05:33.529 right? Yeah, he was. He heavily favored them 00:05:33.529 --> 00:05:35.930 and actively alienated the Buddhist majority. 00:05:36.670 --> 00:05:39.750 Plus, he reversed vital land reforms. He returned 00:05:39.750 --> 00:05:43.149 property to wealthy landlords, which just infuriated 00:05:43.149 --> 00:05:45.149 the peasant farmers. So he essentially hands 00:05:45.149 --> 00:05:47.769 the North a perfect recruitment tool. Exactly. 00:05:48.329 --> 00:05:50.370 The resentment in the South grows so intense. 00:05:50.350 --> 00:05:53.889 that by 1960, North Vietnam formally supports 00:05:53.889 --> 00:05:56.329 the creation of the Viet Cong. To unite all those 00:05:56.329 --> 00:05:58.689 anti -government insurgents in the South. Right, 00:05:58.750 --> 00:06:01.050 and they begin funneling weapons and fighters 00:06:01.050 --> 00:06:03.629 down what becomes known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 00:06:04.490 --> 00:06:08.589 Then the instability really peaks in 1963. Diem 00:06:08.589 --> 00:06:10.930 violently suppresses Buddhist monks and civilians 00:06:10.930 --> 00:06:13.430 who were simply protesting a ban on flying their 00:06:13.430 --> 00:06:15.990 religious flags on Vaisak, which is the Buddha's 00:06:15.990 --> 00:06:17.990 birthday. Oh, those are the horrifying images 00:06:17.990 --> 00:06:20.519 of protests that shocked the entire world. Yeah, 00:06:20.519 --> 00:06:23.300 they were everywhere. And it leads to a U .S.-backed 00:06:23.300 --> 00:06:26.180 military coup, where Diem is assassinated. I 00:06:26.180 --> 00:06:28.379 would imagine Washington thought removing him 00:06:28.379 --> 00:06:30.879 would stabilize the region, right? That was the 00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:34.079 hope, but it achieved the exact opposite. South 00:06:34.079 --> 00:06:36.860 Vietnam just plunged into total political chaos. 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:39.699 You had a revolving door of military generals 00:06:39.699 --> 00:06:42.100 overthrowing each other in Saigon. Just constant 00:06:42.100 --> 00:06:44.519 coup. Yeah. The U .S. watches this and realizes 00:06:44.519 --> 00:06:46.160 the South Vietnamese government is on the verge 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:48.480 of total collapse. The Viet Cong are winning. 00:06:48.779 --> 00:06:51.439 Washington knows they have to intervene directly, 00:06:51.740 --> 00:06:54.300 but they need a reason. Which brings us to a 00:06:54.300 --> 00:06:57.920 massive turning point in 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:00.560 incident. Our source material details this pretty 00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:03.420 heavily. What exactly was reported to the American 00:07:03.420 --> 00:07:05.839 public and what actually happened? Well, in August 00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:08.759 1964, the U .S. government reported that an American 00:07:08.759 --> 00:07:12.040 destroyer, the USS Maddox, was attacked by North 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:14.660 Vietnamese torpedo boats while on patrol. OK. 00:07:15.180 --> 00:07:17.560 Then they claimed a second, unprovoked attack 00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:20.339 happened two days later on August 4th. Right. 00:07:20.540 --> 00:07:23.029 And that second attack is the crucial one. Because 00:07:23.029 --> 00:07:25.410 that's what gives President Lyndon B. Johnson 00:07:25.410 --> 00:07:27.550 the justification to go to Congress. Exactly. 00:07:27.750 --> 00:07:30.250 Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 00:07:30.610 --> 00:07:32.990 basically handing Johnson a blank check to deploy 00:07:32.990 --> 00:07:36.089 military force in Southeast Asia without ever 00:07:36.089 --> 00:07:40.329 officially declaring war. But what do the declassified 00:07:40.329 --> 00:07:44.250 documents say about that August 4th attack? This 00:07:44.250 --> 00:07:47.269 is where the history is just jarring. Declassified 00:07:47.269 --> 00:07:49.850 documents, including an NSA publication released 00:07:49.850 --> 00:07:52.800 in 2005, confirmed that the second attack on 00:07:52.800 --> 00:07:55.399 August 4th simply never happened. Never happened 00:07:55.399 --> 00:07:58.139 at all? No. There were no North Vietnamese boats 00:07:58.139 --> 00:08:00.600 there that night. It was likely a misreading 00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:03.240 of sonar blips in bad weather, compounded by 00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:05.480 a confirmation bias from a military establishment 00:08:05.480 --> 00:08:07.920 that was already looking for a reason to escalate. 00:08:08.100 --> 00:08:10.699 A phantom attack becomes the catalyst for a decade 00:08:10.699 --> 00:08:13.899 of massive escalation. And when we say escalation, 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:17.149 I mean the numbers are staggering. By 1969, we're 00:08:17.149 --> 00:08:19.310 looking at over half a million US troops deployed 00:08:19.310 --> 00:08:22.110 to Vietnam. Over 500 ,000, yeah. But the way 00:08:22.110 --> 00:08:24.230 this war was fought is what I really want to 00:08:24.230 --> 00:08:26.730 dig into. It seems like there was a profound 00:08:26.730 --> 00:08:29.569 mismatch in military strategy between the two 00:08:29.569 --> 00:08:32.389 sides. There really was. The United States military 00:08:32.389 --> 00:08:34.830 entered Vietnam with a strategy of attrition. 00:08:35.350 --> 00:08:37.429 They believed they could use their overwhelming 00:08:37.429 --> 00:08:40.450 technological and industrial superiority to just 00:08:40.450 --> 00:08:42.990 grind the enemy into submission. Massive air 00:08:42.990 --> 00:08:45.309 supremacy. Yeah, air supremacy, the introduction 00:08:45.309 --> 00:08:49.049 of helicopter cavalry and relentless. Oh, absolutely. 00:08:49.149 --> 00:08:51.149 Like if you're a customer service rep. And your 00:08:51.149 --> 00:08:53.730 boss says, your only metric for getting a bonus 00:08:53.730 --> 00:08:56.429 is the number of calls completed per hour. You're 00:08:56.429 --> 00:08:58.190 going to rush people off the phone. You'll hang 00:08:58.190 --> 00:09:00.210 up on them. They'll game the system. Exactly. 00:09:00.289 --> 00:09:02.250 Hit your metric. Your spreadsheet looks great. 00:09:02.549 --> 00:09:06.289 But the customers are furious. The actual objective 00:09:06.289 --> 00:09:09.090 customer satisfaction is destroyed by the metric 00:09:09.090 --> 00:09:12.909 itself. So I have to push back here. If the US 00:09:12.909 --> 00:09:16.289 had such overwhelming firepower, how did a metric 00:09:16.289 --> 00:09:18.990 like body counts actually lead them further away 00:09:18.990 --> 00:09:22.190 from victory? That is the fatal flaw of fighting 00:09:22.190 --> 00:09:24.809 a war of attrition against a deeply entrenched 00:09:24.809 --> 00:09:28.279 insurgency. When a unit's success, a commander's 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:30.700 promotion, and a soldier's leave are heavily 00:09:30.700 --> 00:09:32.799 tied to how many enemy combatants they kill, 00:09:33.279 --> 00:09:36.080 it heavily incentivizes false reporting. And 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:38.480 worse, it blurs the line between combatant and 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:41.639 civilian. It incentivized viewing almost any 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:44.580 dead Vietnamese body in a combat zone as a dead 00:09:44.580 --> 00:09:47.279 Viet Cong fighter. Which is horrifying. It is. 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:49.899 You end up alienating the very civilian population 00:09:49.899 --> 00:09:52.179 you are supposed to be protecting, driving more 00:09:52.179 --> 00:09:54.350 of them to support the insurgency. And while 00:09:54.350 --> 00:09:57.690 the US is staring at these body count spreadsheets, 00:09:58.149 --> 00:10:01.769 the Viet Cong and the PAVN are playing an entirely 00:10:01.769 --> 00:10:04.009 different game, aren't they? Completely different. 00:10:04.289 --> 00:10:06.669 They knew they could not survive a pitched head 00:10:06.669 --> 00:10:09.509 -to -head battle with American firepower. So 00:10:09.509 --> 00:10:12.259 they used the terrain. Right, the tunnels. Yeah. 00:10:12.500 --> 00:10:15.980 They built massive, complex underground tunnel 00:10:15.980 --> 00:10:19.179 networks to survive the bombing. They moved supplies 00:10:19.179 --> 00:10:21.580 through the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which wasn't some 00:10:21.580 --> 00:10:24.240 paved highway the U .S. could easily bomb. It 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:27.559 was a vast shifting web of hidden dirt paths 00:10:27.559 --> 00:10:29.679 and jungle canopy routes that stretched through 00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:32.690 neighboring Laos and Cambodia. There's a statistic 00:10:32.690 --> 00:10:34.690 in the source material that absolutely blew my 00:10:34.690 --> 00:10:37.610 mind. Despite the half a million U .S. troops, 00:10:37.889 --> 00:10:40.490 all the helicopters, the napalm who actually 00:10:40.490 --> 00:10:42.330 controlled the pace of the fighting. The communist 00:10:42.330 --> 00:10:44.750 forces. The data shows that the Vietcom and the 00:10:44.750 --> 00:10:47.629 PAVN initiated 90 percent of the large firefights. 00:10:47.809 --> 00:10:49.889 90 percent. Yes. They decided when to engage 00:10:49.889 --> 00:10:52.289 and they decided when to melt back into the jungle. 00:10:52.870 --> 00:10:54.929 This meant they could control their own casualty 00:10:54.929 --> 00:10:56.669 rates to a large degree. So they were fighting 00:10:56.669 --> 00:10:59.539 on their own terms. Exactly. They were willing 00:10:59.539 --> 00:11:03.240 to absorb massive losses because their goal wasn't 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:05.799 military dominance. Their goal was outlasting 00:11:05.799 --> 00:11:08.720 the political will of the United States. Here's 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:10.919 where it gets really interesting. You have the 00:11:10.919 --> 00:11:13.620 top U .S. commander, General William Westmoreland, 00:11:13.980 --> 00:11:16.960 standing in front of cameras in late 1967 telling 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:19.799 the American public that the end is coming into 00:11:19.799 --> 00:11:20.940 view. Will it light at the end of the tunnel? 00:11:21.149 --> 00:11:23.730 Right. He's looking at the body count metrics 00:11:23.730 --> 00:11:26.690 and concluding the enemy is exhausted. It's like 00:11:26.690 --> 00:11:29.889 a startup faking its financial success for years, 00:11:30.269 --> 00:11:33.169 showing investors these glowing, manipulated 00:11:33.169 --> 00:11:35.690 charts, insisting profitability is right around 00:11:35.690 --> 00:11:38.490 the corner. Yeah. But eventually, a massive, 00:11:38.730 --> 00:11:41.149 highly public audit happens and it reveals the 00:11:41.149 --> 00:11:43.129 company is actually completely broke. And in 00:11:43.129 --> 00:11:45.809 this war, that devastating audit was the Tet 00:11:45.809 --> 00:11:48.669 Offensive. So walk us through Tet. What happened 00:11:48.669 --> 00:11:52.840 in January 1968? Well, during the Lunar New Year 00:11:52.840 --> 00:11:55.220 holiday of Tet, a time when a traditional truce 00:11:55.220 --> 00:11:57.700 was usually observed, the communist forces launched 00:11:57.700 --> 00:11:59.840 an unprecedented surprise attack. Out of nowhere. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.000 Over 85 ,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.500 struck simultaneously across South Vietnam. They 00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:10.600 attacked over a hundred cities, towns, and major 00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:13.539 military bases. Wow. They even managed to breach 00:12:13.539 --> 00:12:16.159 the walls of the heavily fortified U .S. Embassy 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:19.440 in Saigon, fighting a chaotic gun battle right 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:22.139 on the embassy grounds. The scale of the violence 00:12:22.139 --> 00:12:25.830 was catastrophic. And you know, to ensure we're 00:12:25.830 --> 00:12:27.809 looking at this impartially as our source material 00:12:27.809 --> 00:12:30.590 dictates, the destruction and atrocities during 00:12:30.590 --> 00:12:33.129 Tet were horrific on both sides. Absolutely. 00:12:33.350 --> 00:12:35.950 In the ancient city of Hu, U .S. and South Vietnamese 00:12:35.950 --> 00:12:38.590 forces had to use massive overwhelming firepower 00:12:38.590 --> 00:12:41.309 to retake the city. That left 80 % of the urban 00:12:41.309 --> 00:12:44.250 area in absolute... rubble -strewn ruin. Yeah, 00:12:44.429 --> 00:12:46.490 the physical destruction was immense. Meanwhile, 00:12:46.509 --> 00:12:48.350 during the nearly month -long period that the 00:12:48.350 --> 00:12:51.210 Viet Cong occupied Hu, they systematically rounded 00:12:51.210 --> 00:12:54.830 up and summarily executed an estimated 2 ,800 00:12:54.830 --> 00:12:57.450 unarmed civilians. Teachers, government clerps, 00:12:57.649 --> 00:13:00.129 religious figures, anyone they deemed a collaborator. 00:13:00.289 --> 00:13:03.769 The human toll was a bloodbath. But here is the 00:13:03.769 --> 00:13:07.070 grand paradox of the Tet Offensive. Militarily 00:13:07.070 --> 00:13:09.710 speaking, it was a massive, crushing defeat for 00:13:09.710 --> 00:13:12.679 the North. Wait, really? Yeah. They failed to 00:13:12.679 --> 00:13:14.980 hold any major cities. They suffered enormous 00:13:14.980 --> 00:13:17.320 casualties, losing tens of thousands of their 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:19.860 most experienced guerrilla fighters. And the 00:13:19.860 --> 00:13:22.179 general civilian uprising they hoped to spark 00:13:22.179 --> 00:13:25.440 among the South Vietnamese population never materialized 00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:28.120 at all. So I have to ask the most glaring question 00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:31.580 of this entire deep dive. Militarily, Tet was 00:13:31.580 --> 00:13:34.200 a disaster for the North. They lost troops. They 00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:37.240 lost ground. They sparked no uprising. So how 00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:39.940 in the world did a devastating military defeat 00:13:39.940 --> 00:13:42.639 become their greatest strategic victory? If we 00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:45.080 connect this to the bigger picture, it all comes 00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:47.179 down to a concept called the credibility gap. 00:13:47.360 --> 00:13:49.720 The credibility gap. Yeah. For years, the American 00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:51.740 public was told the war was going well, the enemy 00:13:51.740 --> 00:13:55.039 was isolated and victory was imminent. And suddenly 00:13:55.039 --> 00:13:56.899 they are watching the evening news in their living 00:13:56.899 --> 00:13:59.580 rooms and they see chaotic, bloody street to 00:13:59.580 --> 00:14:01.200 street fighting in cities that were supposed 00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:03.940 to be completely secure. They see their own embassy 00:14:03.940 --> 00:14:07.009 under attack. Exactly. The sheer scale of the 00:14:07.009 --> 00:14:10.070 offensive visually proves that the enemy is nowhere 00:14:10.070 --> 00:14:12.929 near defeat. Right. The Tet Offensive destroyed 00:14:12.929 --> 00:14:16.029 the narrative. It did. It created a massive credibility 00:14:16.029 --> 00:14:18.110 gap between what the government was claiming 00:14:18.110 --> 00:14:20.029 and what the public could see with their own 00:14:20.029 --> 00:14:23.149 eyes. It triggered a profound shift in public 00:14:23.149 --> 00:14:26.879 opinion. Anti -war protests just exploded. And 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:29.220 it essentially ended Johnson's presidency. It 00:14:29.220 --> 00:14:32.299 did. His approval ratings plummeted so far that 00:14:32.299 --> 00:14:34.240 he shocked the nation by announcing he would 00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:36.840 not seek reelection. It broke the political will 00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:39.480 to continue escalating. But reading the source 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:41.220 material, it didn't just break the public's will. 00:14:41.679 --> 00:14:44.039 It completely broke the morale of the U .S. troops 00:14:44.039 --> 00:14:46.340 on the ground. Oh, without a doubt. Once the 00:14:46.340 --> 00:14:48.399 political mandate shifted from winning to getting 00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:51.340 out, nobody wanted to be the last soldier to 00:14:51.340 --> 00:14:53.080 die for a cause the country had already given 00:14:53.080 --> 00:14:55.580 up on. The breakdown in military discipline in 00:14:55.580 --> 00:14:58.080 the later years of the war is sobering. You see 00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:00.820 a rise in fragging, where disillusioned soldiers 00:15:00.820 --> 00:15:03.080 would attempt to assassinate their own overly 00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:06.179 aggressive commanding officers, usually by rolling 00:15:06.179 --> 00:15:09.000 a fragmentation grenade into their tent. That 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.360 is just chilling. It is. You also see units sandbagging 00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:16.200 patrols, essentially going out into the jungle, 00:15:16.460 --> 00:15:19.360 hiding and radioing in false coordinates to avoid 00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:21.940 making any contact with the enemy. And the coping 00:15:21.940 --> 00:15:25.620 mechanisms. The text notes that drug use skyrocketed. 00:15:26.039 --> 00:15:28.480 At one point, 30 % of U .S. troops were regularly 00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:31.639 using marijuana. Yeah, and highly pure, easily 00:15:31.639 --> 00:15:34.500 accessible heroin became a rampant problem. Which 00:15:34.500 --> 00:15:37.139 forces the hand of the next administration. When 00:15:37.139 --> 00:15:39.200 Richard Nixon becomes president, the U .S. strategy 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:42.120 fundamentally shifts. The goal is no longer military 00:15:42.120 --> 00:15:45.100 victory. The goal is securing an exit. Yes. Nixon 00:15:45.100 --> 00:15:47.850 introduces a policy called Vietnamization. What 00:15:47.850 --> 00:15:50.210 was the actual mechanism of that strategy? Well, 00:15:50.450 --> 00:15:53.389 the concept was to slowly withdraw American combat 00:15:53.389 --> 00:15:55.750 troops while simultaneously pouring training, 00:15:56.009 --> 00:15:57.950 equipment and money into the South Vietnamese 00:15:57.950 --> 00:16:01.850 military, the ARVN or Army of the Republic of 00:16:01.850 --> 00:16:04.230 Vietnam. OK. The idea was to build them up so 00:16:04.230 --> 00:16:05.950 they could take over the defense of their own 00:16:05.950 --> 00:16:08.370 country. But the source text shows that while 00:16:08.370 --> 00:16:10.730 Nixon is withdrawing troops on the ground, he 00:16:10.730 --> 00:16:13.149 is drastically expanding the war from the air. 00:16:13.340 --> 00:16:17.179 He does. To buy time for Vietnamization and to 00:16:17.179 --> 00:16:20.100 disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Nixon authorizes 00:16:20.100 --> 00:16:23.059 massive secret bombing campaigns in neighboring 00:16:23.059 --> 00:16:26.039 Cambodia and Laos. Right, the secret bombings. 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:28.820 The sheer tonnage of explosives dropped is difficult 00:16:28.820 --> 00:16:31.500 to comprehend. The U .S. dropped roughly two 00:16:31.500 --> 00:16:35.580 million tons of bombs on Laos alone. Two million 00:16:35.580 --> 00:16:37.659 tons. To put that in perspective, that is nearly 00:16:37.659 --> 00:16:40.460 a ton of explosives for every single man, woman 00:16:40.460 --> 00:16:43.070 and child living in Laos at the time. It made 00:16:43.070 --> 00:16:45.629 Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita 00:16:45.629 --> 00:16:48.149 in human history. So what does this all mean? 00:16:48.769 --> 00:16:50.769 When we look back at the reality on the ground. 00:16:50.919 --> 00:16:53.919 The South Vietnamese military was heavily dependent 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:56.639 on U .S. logistics, maintenance crews and air 00:16:56.639 --> 00:16:58.779 support. Extremely dependent. If the U .S. knew 00:16:58.779 --> 00:17:01.000 the ARVN was fundamentally unprepared to hold 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:03.240 off the North alone, was Vietnamization just 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:05.519 a geopolitical smokescreen? Was it just a way 00:17:05.519 --> 00:17:07.779 to save face while running for the exits? That 00:17:07.779 --> 00:17:09.960 is the harsh reality that historians continue 00:17:09.960 --> 00:17:12.980 to analyze. Vietnamization was in many ways an 00:17:12.980 --> 00:17:15.480 attempt to manage a severe domestic political 00:17:15.480 --> 00:17:17.579 crisis back in the United States. The protests. 00:17:17.759 --> 00:17:20.269 Right. The American public was demanding an end 00:17:20.269 --> 00:17:23.769 to the draft and the casualties. U .S. leadership 00:17:23.769 --> 00:17:25.690 needed a narrative that allowed them to bring 00:17:25.690 --> 00:17:27.869 the troops home without formally admitting they 00:17:27.869 --> 00:17:30.950 had lost the war. Militarily. But as a viable 00:17:30.950 --> 00:17:33.289 long -term military strategy for the survival 00:17:33.289 --> 00:17:36.349 of South Vietnam, it was deeply flawed. Once 00:17:36.349 --> 00:17:38.549 the U .S. logistics and air power were removed, 00:17:38.950 --> 00:17:41.569 the South Vietnamese troops were stretched impossibly 00:17:41.569 --> 00:17:44.410 thin across vast borders. And we see the result 00:17:44.410 --> 00:17:48.150 of that in the final timeline. In 1973, the peace 00:17:48.150 --> 00:17:50.910 accords are signed and the last U .S. combat 00:17:50.910 --> 00:17:53.910 troops withdraw. But the war between the North 00:17:53.910 --> 00:17:56.880 and South just keeps raging. It does. The South 00:17:56.880 --> 00:17:59.980 Vietnamese economy crashes, and in 1975, the 00:17:59.980 --> 00:18:02.220 North launches a massive conventional spring 00:18:02.220 --> 00:18:04.839 offensive. The South Vietnamese military collapses 00:18:04.839 --> 00:18:08.619 with shocking speed. It culminates in April 1975 00:18:08.619 --> 00:18:11.599 with the fall of Saigon. The images of Operation 00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:13.779 Frequent Wind, which was the largest helicopter 00:18:13.779 --> 00:18:16.920 evacuation in history, are just etched into history. 00:18:17.339 --> 00:18:19.400 You have desperate crowds of South Vietnamese 00:18:19.400 --> 00:18:21.940 citizens, many who had worked with the Americans, 00:18:22.319 --> 00:18:25.039 trying to scale the embassy wall. to flee the 00:18:25.039 --> 00:18:27.740 advancing communist tanks. Which leaves us with 00:18:27.740 --> 00:18:30.240 the enduring scars of this conflict. And it is 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.200 vital that we look at the costs impartially. 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:35.940 based directly on the historical text, because 00:18:35.940 --> 00:18:38.539 the scale of human suffering across the board 00:18:38.539 --> 00:18:41.519 is almost unfathomable. It really is. Depending 00:18:41.519 --> 00:18:44.039 on the demographic estimates, between one and 00:18:44.039 --> 00:18:46.720 three million Vietnamese people died. Alongside 00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:51.039 58 ,220 American service members. And the atrocities 00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:53.980 were horrific on both sides. The text meticulously 00:18:53.980 --> 00:18:56.400 details the Viet Cong's deliberate campaign of 00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:01.099 terror and estimated 36 ,000 murders and 58 ,000 00:19:01.099 --> 00:19:03.700 kidnappings of local officials. teachers and 00:19:03.700 --> 00:19:06.380 civilians, basically to maintain control through 00:19:06.380 --> 00:19:08.940 fear. Right. And on the other side, the text 00:19:08.940 --> 00:19:11.359 outlines severe U .S. and South Vietnamese atrocities. 00:19:11.380 --> 00:19:13.240 You have the Mai Lai massacre where American 00:19:13.240 --> 00:19:15.500 troops murdered hundreds of unarmed men, women 00:19:15.500 --> 00:19:18.500 and children. The CIA's Phoenix program, which 00:19:18.500 --> 00:19:21.319 targeted, tortured and killed tens of thousands 00:19:21.319 --> 00:19:24.829 of suspected Viet Cong operatives. and the establishment 00:19:24.829 --> 00:19:27.650 of free fire zones, which essentially designated 00:19:27.650 --> 00:19:30.349 anyone remaining in a certain area as a valid 00:19:30.349 --> 00:19:32.789 military target. And beyond the human toll, I 00:19:32.789 --> 00:19:35.089 mean, the environmental legacy is staggering. 00:19:35.690 --> 00:19:38.289 To deny the enemy jungle cover, the U .S. military 00:19:38.289 --> 00:19:41.569 sprayed 20 million gallons of toxic defoliants, 00:19:41.890 --> 00:19:44.039 primarily Agent Orange. across the landscape. 00:19:44.380 --> 00:19:47.279 Yeah, that chemical legacy is still causing severe 00:19:47.279 --> 00:19:50.180 birth defects, cancers and ecological devastation 00:19:50.180 --> 00:19:53.079 today. Not to mention the 80 million unexploded 00:19:53.079 --> 00:19:55.920 bombs still buried in the soil of Laos, which 00:19:55.920 --> 00:19:58.819 continue to kill and maim farmers and children 00:19:58.819 --> 00:20:01.380 decades after the bombers flew home. This raises 00:20:01.380 --> 00:20:03.619 a really important question about the long term 00:20:03.619 --> 00:20:06.180 consequences of modern statecraft. I mean, it's 00:20:06.180 --> 00:20:08.559 a profound lesson in how the exit strategy of 00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:11.240 a massive geopolitical undertaking can sometimes 00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:13.279 be more damaging than the undertaking itself. 00:20:13.539 --> 00:20:15.140 Especially if it's completely disconnected from 00:20:15.140 --> 00:20:17.980 reality. Exactly. Especially if that strategy 00:20:17.980 --> 00:20:20.579 is entirely divorced from the realities on the 00:20:20.579 --> 00:20:24.000 ground. When policy is driven by domestic political 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:27.359 needs and metrics rather than ground truth. The 00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:30.039 aftermath is just generational trauma. It is 00:20:30.039 --> 00:20:33.299 incredibly heavy history. But you know it is 00:20:33.299 --> 00:20:35.779 absolutely necessary to examine if we are ever 00:20:35.779 --> 00:20:38.980 going to make sense of how foreign policy insurgency 00:20:38.980 --> 00:20:41.740 and public trust operate. in the world we live 00:20:41.740 --> 00:20:44.220 in today. I want to thank you, the listener, 00:20:44.359 --> 00:20:47.339 for sticking with us on this intense deep dive. 00:20:47.640 --> 00:20:50.119 It's challenging material, for sure. But confronting 00:20:50.119 --> 00:20:52.319 the mechanics of these events honestly is really 00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:54.220 the only way we can actually learn from them. 00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:56.720 Before we go, I want to leave you with one final 00:20:56.720 --> 00:20:58.660 fascinating nugget from our source material that 00:20:58.660 --> 00:21:00.539 we haven't touched on yet. We just talked about 00:21:00.539 --> 00:21:03.019 the bitter legacy of chemical warfare, specifically 00:21:03.019 --> 00:21:05.240 Agent Orange. Right. For a long time, that seemed 00:21:05.240 --> 00:21:08.400 like an unhealable wound. But in 2012, something 00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:11.190 remarkable happened. The United States and Vietnam 00:21:11.190 --> 00:21:14.109 actually began a joint cooperation project to 00:21:14.109 --> 00:21:16.710 clean up the toxic agent orange chemicals at 00:21:16.710 --> 00:21:19.269 the Da Nang International Airport. Working together 00:21:19.269 --> 00:21:21.769 decades after the fighting stopped. Right. Exactly. 00:21:21.950 --> 00:21:24.630 It's a profound thought to mull over. That decades 00:21:24.630 --> 00:21:27.170 after a devastating, incredibly bitter conflict, 00:21:27.829 --> 00:21:29.450 well, former enemies can return to the exact 00:21:29.450 --> 00:21:31.930 same soil. Not to drop bombs, not to measure 00:21:31.930 --> 00:21:33.849 body counts, but to finally try and heal the 00:21:33.849 --> 00:21:36.410 earth together. Keep questioning. Keep exploring. 00:21:36.750 --> 00:21:37.990 We'll catch you on the next conversation.