The Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive

            The Tet Offensive was a surprise attack on the United States Army (US) and the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) by the Viet Cong (VC) and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) during a “cease fire” agreement. The cease fire agreement was a halt in fighting due to the important Vietnam holiday Tet, the beginning of the lunar new year.¹ Over 84,000 VC and NVA soldiers attacked five of the six largest cities, thirty-six of the forty-four provincial areas, and sixty-four of the two-hundred and forty-two district capitals making it one of the largest attacks by either party up until this point in the war.²  Even though the U.S and ARVN were taken by surprise they were able to fight back quickly using their superior fire power and mobility allowing the attackers no time to secure any of their positions.³ In this essay I will give my assessment of the Tet Offensive as well as what I think could have been done differently to avert the negative domestic political effects in America that resulted from the attack.

            When you look at a basic summary of the Tet Offensive you may assume it was a failure for the VC and the NVA. They had a few major goals for the attack. Firstly, they wanted to destroy the ARVN and bring down the South Vietnamese government. Secondly, they assumed that their attack would bring uprising by the South Vietnamese toward the South Vietnamese government in the North’s favor. Lastly, once the South Vietnamese government fell, the United States would no longer have a reason to stay in Vietnam and they would pull out of Vietnam leading the way towards an independent and unified Vietnam.⁴ When you see those basic goals for the Tet Offensive you may think it might have been a failure because none of those things were achieved by the offensive alone, however, some other very important things were achieved by the offensive that the VC and the NVA did not count on. Media coverage of the event spread like wildfire across America. Americans were surprised that the enemy could have mounted such a major military effort all over South Vietnam that caught the Allies by surprise. It shattered all illusions of impending American victory in the war.⁵ How could an “almost dead” VC and NVA launch such a large military operation covering so much of South Vietnam? People all over America started to think that the war with Southeast Asia was a stalemated war at best.⁶ Another important point that the Tet Offensive made was that it gave the anti-Vietnam War movement a serious boost in credibility. More and more people were beginning to flock to the idea that being involved in this unwinnable war was a bad idea from the start. Like many other things that came before it, the Tet Offensive should have been a sign to the United States that the VC and the NVA would stop at nothing to win the war and their vision of a free and independent unified Vietnam.

            It is never easy to determine what the result of a situation could have been had America chosen a different path. Perhaps if the Johnson Administration had been more forth coming about events in Vietnam America would not have been so shocked when North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive. Having said that, if the Johnson Administration had been so forth coming about the direction of the war, the support for the war could have been way down by the time the Tet Offensive was even launched. At the end of the day nothing truly could have altered people’s feelings of the Tet Offensive in a positive way. The Vietnam War was unwinnable even with the mighty United States on South Vietnams side and people saw that.

            Overall the Tet Offensive did not accomplish exactly what the VC or the NVA wanted but it did provide one positive outcome for them: increased anti-war sentiment in the United States. There was no way the United States could turn this offensive into a true win for America because of the political effect it had on the American people.