Twfowler, re: Vietnam was a good example of it being about will. The Vietnamese communists had more will to win than the US did.
Tw, I would like you to think carefully about the statement I'm going to make and then answer with a thoughtful post. Here's the statement:
The Vietnamese communists won the battle of wills because we had no way to effectively destroy their "will to win." They could fight, or not, on any given day, month or year. They could lay low and lick their wounds when their will ebbed as it did after 68 Tet, and then fight when their will rebounded. They could, in effect, largely determine the level of conflict, the places, times and intensity. And there was, generally speaking, no effective way for us to identify, locate or attack them. In the interim, many of the actions we took incensed the local population and increased their number and determination. It was only a matter of time until rationality took hold and our will eroded to the point where we left. |
