First and foremost it was ignorance, a failure
to understand the true nature of the conflict in
Vietnam, reducing it to the simple formula that
it was part of the worldwide struggle between the
free and the communists. But it was not a war
arising simply out of communist aggression from
North Vietnam. The Vietcong were a South
Vietnamese force, the expression of a political
opposition and disaffection with the rulers of
South Vietnam. It was this misreading of the sit-
uation that underlay the US decision to intervene
on a massive scale. The belief that superior tech-
nology, the bombardment from the air, could
break the will and capacity to fight of the North
Vietnamese and Vietcong caused heavy loss of
life and terrible destruction, but in the end was
ineffective. Nor could the ground forces defeat
an enemy prepared to answer escalation with
escalation. The military experts were wrong in
their optimistic assessments, and once President
Johnson had engaged American prestige he found
it impossible to pull out and to admit defeat. But
meanwhile the war had been Americanised and,
after Tet, the propping up of an unviable South
Vietnamese government became increasingly
problematical. The US had been sucked into a
civil war and faced a determined and ruthless
enemy. Attrition in the end broke the American
will to continue fighting in a distant country and
for a cause that was lost.