What was the strategy of the North Vietnamese and NLF?
1 Answer
Combining mainly guerrilla and conventional warfare tactics long with a political offensive.
Explanation:
The tactics of the North Vietnamese and NLF were mainly reflective of a guerrlla war. This was due to the terrain in South Vietnam and the fact that the American military was the strongest in the world, and conventional warfare would have led to defeat.
(It has to be remembered however that there was a very large NVA presence in the south with a conventional structure.)
Examples of the tactics employed by the NLF can be seen in the Tet offensive in 1968. They brought the fighting right into the heart of the cities including Saigon and Hue. They even occupied the American embassy in Saigon for a while.
After several weeks bitter fighting the Americans and South Vietnamese army regained control but at an enormous cost. Thousands were killed and much of the old city of Hue was destroyed.
Militarily it was a defeat for the NLF however politically and psychologically it was a victory. The American public, prior to Tet were being told they were winning the war. However widespread media coverage of the fighting, including inside the American embassy and the execution of a Vietcong suspect by the Saigon chief of police projected a very different picture on American televisions.
Such events and others such as the My Lai massacre turned the American public against the war, and this political strategy of the NLF and North Vietnamese proved to be ultimately successful with America's withdrawal in 1975.
