Finally, our political and military leaders must understand the needs of the people that we are trying to help.
Americans cannot always assume that our way of fighting is appropriate in every situation. In the case of South Vietnam, the RVNAF was designed to resemble the U.S. military structure; they were inundated with modern, technologically superior weapons and saddled with an enormously expensive and manpower-intensive logistics system to maintain their armed forces. Consequently, although the RVNAF numbered 1.1 million men, only 100,000 were actual combat troops. When the U.S. aid was cut after 1973 and the RVNAF had to restrict their expenditure of ammunition and use of helicopters, they lost the technological advantage and mobility they enjoyed over the North Vietnamese Army in 1972; they were forced to fight a "poor man's war" against a numerically superior enemy. This situation proved fatal in 1975.
As I stated in the beginning of this paper, we would try to analyze some crucial events which occurred prior to April 30, 1975, and try to determine the reason the South Vietnamese armed forces suddenly and totally collapsed in those fateful early months of 1975. The reasons were many: low morale, uncontrolled corruption, incompetent leadership, and the lack of U.S. military aid and air support, especially close air and deep interdiction of Hanoi's war-sustaining operations along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There were two critical events which occurred after 1973 that sealed the fate of South Vietnam and paved the way for North Vietnam to successfully conclude a military solution to the conquest of South Vietnam: the Paris Agreements in January 1973 and the Congressional bombing cutoff in August 1973.
Without a doubt, the agreement signed in Paris to end the war and restore the peace in Vietnam was a critical turning point in the beginning of the end for South Vietnam. Although the Nixon Administration fully intended that South Vietnam would remain free and independent, the fact remains that the agreement was only successful in withdrawing U.S. troops from South Vietnam and obtaining the return of American POWs from North Vietnam. Hanoi had good reason for strictly complying with these two terms: by removing the U.S. from the war, North Vietnam was free to rebuild after the devastation it suffered during the 1972 "Easter" offensive and prepare for its final offensive in 1975 to conquer all of South Vietnam.
The superb military performance of the ARVN troops during the Communist LANDGRAB 73 operation provides clear proof that the South Vietnamese forces were militarily stronger than the Communist forces in the South in 1973. If the terms of the Paris Agreements were kept and North Vietnam not allowed to massively rebuild its forces in the South as it did, the cease-fire could have worked, and South Vietnam would have had a much more favorable chance for survival. The Thieu government definitely needed reform; however, with over 160,000 NVA regular troops inside South Vietnam's borders, democratic reform was a luxury a government concerned with national survival could ill-afford. However, removal of the external North Vietnamese threat could have gone a long way towards creating a favorable environment within the South to encourage meaningful reforms.
Many former South Vietnamese leaders truly believed that the "fates" were against them in 1975. They felt that no matter what they could have done to change things in 1975, the outcome would have been the same. Some leaders, like South Vietnamese General Don, remarked that they seriously thought about overthrowing the Thieu regime and trying to form a coalition government with the PRG.4 However, they were fearful that they would lose American support, since the U.S. was so constant in its support of President Thieu.5 However, the memory of the political chaos in South Vietnam that followed after the 1963 Diem coup was firmly established in the minds of the U.S. leadership and was one of the primary reasons the Nixon Administration held firm in its support of the Thieu government, despite its often corrupt and inefficient practices. The United States was firmly committed to decreasing its active involvement in the war and political stability in South Vietnam was necessary in order for Vietnamization to succeed.
Indeed, because of the events which occurred after the overthrow of the Diem regime and the external military threat posed by North Vietnam, the Nixon Administration's position in relation to its support of the Thieu government was the correct one. The corruption and inefficiency within the Thieu regime was not unique and is common in many developing countries throughout Asia, including Communist Vietnam today. The only reason the Western world doesn't see the corrupt, inefficient, and oftentimes cruel practices within Communist governments like Hanoi's is because the Communists have complete control over the press and systematically liquidate any political opposition which could cause unrest and dissension among the local population.
Despite the lack of support by the United States and the enormous external threat posed by the North Vietnamese Army, the Thieu regime cannot hold itself unaccountable for its failure to gain the support of its own soldiers in 1975. Although the scenes of south Vietnamese rangers fleeing in panic from Da Nang presented a horrifying and disgusting image of the RVNAF to the world, the performance of some ARVN soldiers, especially during the battle of Xuan Loc, indicates that some were extremely capable and willing to fight, provided they had the proper leadership. The shortage of competent, professional military leadership in 1975 was a key factor in the disintegration of morale within the RVNAF, which precipitated the rapid and unprecedented collapse of one of the largest armies in Asia. Thieu's fixation on the internal threat to his regime and his policy to reward political loyalty with promotion and command proved fatal to South Vietnam by producing a military leadership which was incapable of dealing effectively with the external threat posed by North Vietnam in 1975.
In conclusion, the top military leadership in South Vietnam, created by a politicized promotion system, proved incapable of successfully combating the North Vietnamese threat in 1975. However, there were younger and more capable South Vietnamese officers who could have provided the necessary leadership to the RVNAF to prevent its collapse if they could have surfaced to the top earlier. If the U.S. Congress had been willing to fulfill its moral obligations to South Vietnam and allowed the President a free hand to effectively punish Hanoi's blatant violations of the Paris Agreements, South Vietnam could have survived the 1975 NVA offensive. If the terms of the agreements had been strictly enforced upon Hanoi, there is a very strong possibility that North Vietnam would not have been able to recover as quickly as it did; and, with a little more time, the younger military officers in the RVNAF could have had time to move into top leadership positions.
If these officers could have succeeded in making significant reforms within the armed forces, then the RVNAF may have been able to thwart the NVA offensive and quite possibly made a difference in the final outcome of the Vietnam War. However, events proved that the deficiencies inherent in the Thieu regime eroded the support of its people and soldiers; thus, the collapse was inevitable. Also, the political climate in the United States during this time period would not allow for U.S. support to the government of South Vietnam to continue indefinitely. Although these younger officers could have eventually fostered the necessary reforms, the South Vietnamese needed to make quick changes and simply ran out of time in 1975.
