To the question “Did the American Strategy win the Cold War?”, I chose the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1968 as a suitable example of how the American strategy was developed in a real context.
In 1950 the NSC-68 exposed the strategic concept used at the beginning of the Cold War by US. This report emerged as a response to the communist threat against the democratic and liberal values of the US , as the individual freedom and capitalism, and at the same time the defence against external threat. The document contrasted the US model against the USSR model, and assembled the previous Truman Doctrine , developed in the early years of the Cold War, which exposed that it was necessary confront the communist spread through the word.
A short background …show more content…
His main strategic goal was to stop communist guerrillas and North Vietnamese army attacks and threat. Due to the delicate situation in the country, Westmoreland developed his strategy about three main pillars . The first and most relevant of them was the attrition strategy. This term is used to describe the sustained process of wearing down an opponent so as to force their physical collapse through continuous losses in personnel, equipment and supplies or to wear them down to such an extent that their will to fight collapses . The strength of US troops in Vietnam must have been their firepower superiority. However, the singularities of the field, besides the support that the North Vietnam army and guerrillas were received from the USSR and People’s Republic of China, turned unfeasible the weakening of the North Vietnam military in the short term. General Westmoreland demanded more supplies and troops to overcome the communist enemy. One of the particularities of the Vietnam War was the inefficacy of the aircraft attacks, so it turned required to put troops in the ground. The following pillars of Westmoreland doctrine were pacification and training of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Nevertheless, both of them were put aside because the US army had not enough resources to cover efficiently these
In 1950 the NSC-68 exposed the strategic concept used at the beginning of the Cold War by US. This report emerged as a response to the communist threat against the democratic and liberal values of the US , as the individual freedom and capitalism, and at the same time the defence against external threat. The document contrasted the US model against the USSR model, and assembled the previous Truman Doctrine , developed in the early years of the Cold War, which exposed that it was necessary confront the communist spread through the word.
A short background …show more content…
His main strategic goal was to stop communist guerrillas and North Vietnamese army attacks and threat. Due to the delicate situation in the country, Westmoreland developed his strategy about three main pillars . The first and most relevant of them was the attrition strategy. This term is used to describe the sustained process of wearing down an opponent so as to force their physical collapse through continuous losses in personnel, equipment and supplies or to wear them down to such an extent that their will to fight collapses . The strength of US troops in Vietnam must have been their firepower superiority. However, the singularities of the field, besides the support that the North Vietnam army and guerrillas were received from the USSR and People’s Republic of China, turned unfeasible the weakening of the North Vietnam military in the short term. General Westmoreland demanded more supplies and troops to overcome the communist enemy. One of the particularities of the Vietnam War was the inefficacy of the aircraft attacks, so it turned required to put troops in the ground. The following pillars of Westmoreland doctrine were pacification and training of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Nevertheless, both of them were put aside because the US army had not enough resources to cover efficiently these