Summary
North Vietnam did not take the Americans at their word that they were exercising restraint. Total war was preached from the beginning of the US intervention and a huge mobilization started as early as 1965 with population evacuation and construction of massive air defenses. In terms of stopping Hanoi's ruthless drive for reunification, the overall US bombing campaign, with its varied stops and starts, was ultimately ineffective in the face of cascading imports from socialist allies, political restraints on American action, the remorseless marshaling of the populace, and the stoic endurance of the North Vietnamese. A post-war analysis by the BDM Corporation, a think-tank contractor in Vietnam, summarized the efficiency and effectiveness of VC/NVA logistics as follows:
- "Subsequently the Communist Vietnamese leadership outlasted America's eight-year combat effort in Southeast Asia, and finally reunited Vietnam by force of arms. A major factor contributing to their success was the remarkable logistical support they created in an integrated network of bases, sanctuaries and lines of communication. Indeed the sanctuaries gave them the trump card that enabled them to fight a protracted war and outlast the United States commitment to the Republic of Vietnam."
Read more about this topic: Viet Cong And Vietnam People's Army Logistics And Equipment
Famous quotes containing the word summary:
“Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)