Why Couldn’t American Bombing Achieve Victory in Vietnam?

“No nation can long survive the free exploitation of air weapons over its homeland,” asserted the official U.S. study of strategic bombing during World War II. In the Vietnam War, U.S. planes delivered even more explosives than they had in World War II. Why, then, did strategic bombing not bring victory in Vietnam?

“Our airpower did not fail us; it was the decision makers,” asserted Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp, head of the Pacific Command during the Vietnam War. In February 1965, military officials welcomed President Johnson’s order to begin bombing North Vietnam to destroy the North’s capacity and will to support the Communist insurgents in South Vietnam. But they chafed at Johnson’s strategy of gradual escalation and the restrictions he imposed on Operation Rolling Thunder, the three-and-a-half-year bombing campaign. Military officials believed that the operation should have begun with all-out bombing and continued until the devastation brought North Vietnam to its knees. Instead, they charged, civilian decision makers forced the military to fight with one hand tied behind its back. Their arguments echoed General Douglas MacArthur’s criticism of Truman’s policy during the Korean War—although these officials did not repeat MacArthur’s insubordination (see “From Containment to Rollback to Containment” in chapter 26).

Unlike military officials, who could single-mindedly focus on defeating the enemy, the president had to balance military objectives against political considerations, and he found compelling reasons to limit the use of airpower. Recalling the Korean War, Johnson carefully avoided action that might provoke intervention by the Chinese, who now possessed nuclear weapons. Johnson’s strategy also aimed to keep the Soviet Union out of the war, to avoid escalating antiwar sentiment at home, and to minimize international criticism of the United States. Consequently, the president banned strikes on areas that could produce high civilian casualties, and on areas near the Chinese border or airfields and missile sites under construction and likely to contain Chinese or Soviet advisers. Military leaders agreed with Johnson’s desire to spare civilian lives, and noncombatant casualties in North Vietnam contrasted sharply with those in World War II. During that war, the Anglo-American bombing of Dresden, Germany, alone killed more than 35,000 civilians, and the firebombing of Japan took 330,000 civilian lives. By comparison, over three and a half years, Operation Rolling Thunder killed an estimated 52,000 civilians.

North Vietnam’s relatively low level of economic development and its government’s ability to mobilize citizens counteracted the military superiority of the United States. Sheer human-power compensated for the demolition of transportation facilities, factories, and electric power plants. When bombs struck a rail line, civilians rushed in with bicycles to unload a train’s cargo, carry it beyond the break, and load it onto a second train. Three hundred thousand full-time workers and 200,000 farmers labored to keep the Ho Chi Minh Trail usable in spite of heavy bombing. When bridges were destroyed, the North Vietnamese resorted to ferries and bamboo pontoons and rebuilt bridges slightly underwater to make them harder to detect from the air. They scattered oil storage facilities and production centers throughout the countryside and, when bombs knocked out electric power plants, used portable generators and lit oil lamps and candles in their homes. “The Americans thought that the more bombs they dropped, the quicker we would fall to our knees and surrender. But the bombs heightened rather than dampened our spirit,” remarked one Vietnamese.

North Vietnam’s military needs were relatively small, and officials found ample means to meet them. In 1967, North Vietnam had only about 55,000 soldiers in South Vietnam, and because they waged a guerrilla war with only sporadic fighting, the insurgents in the South did not require huge amounts of military supplies. Even after Communist forces in the South increased, the total nonfood needs of these soldiers were estimated at just one-fifth of what a single U.S. division required. What U.S. bombs destroyed, the North Vietnamese replaced with Chinese and Soviet imports. China provided 600,000 tons of rice in 1967 alone, and it supplied small arms and ammunition, vehicles, and other goods throughout the war. Competing with China for influence in North Vietnam and favor in the third world, the Soviets contributed tanks, fighter planes, surface-to-air missiles, and other weapons. In addition, the Soviet-installed modern defense systems made the bombing more difficult and dangerous for the United States, which lost 1,400 planes by 1969.

Short of decimating the civilian population, it is doubtful that more intense bombing could have completely halted North Vietnamese support for the Vietcong, given the nature of the North Vietnamese economy, the determination and ingenuity of the North Vietnamese people, and the plentiful assistance from China and the Soviet Union. Whether the strategic bombing that worked so well in a world war against major industrial powers could be effective in a third world guerrilla war remained in doubt after the Vietnam War.

Questions for Analysis

Summarize the Argument: What circumstances that prevented U.S. victory in Vietnam does the author attribute to the United States and what factors to North Vietnam?

Analyze the Evidence: What specific conditions in North Vietnam enabled it to withstand heavy bombing and continue to support the insurgency in the South?

Consider the Context: How did other nations influence both the United States’ bombing campaign and North Vietnam’s response to it?