Editing William Westmoreland (section)

===Vietnam War: Background and overview===
[[File:Johnson and Westmoreland Vietnam 23 December 1967.jpg|thumb|Westmoreland and President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] at [[Cam Ranh Base|Cam Ranh Air Base]] in [[Khánh Hòa province]], 23 December 1967]]
[[File:President Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam, With General William Westmoreland decorating a soldier - NARA - 192511.jpg|thumb|Johnson and Westmoreland decorating a soldier at [[Cam Ranh Bay]], South Vietnam, in October 1966]]
The attempted French re-colonization of [[First Indochina War|Vietnam]] following World War II culminated in a decisive [[French Fourth Republic|French]] defeat at the [[Battle of Dien Bien Phu]].<ref name = "nat">{{cite book |title = Lịch sử thế giới hiện đại |author1= Nguyễn Anh Thái<!-- chief author --> |author2 = Nguyễn Quốc Hùng |author3=Vũ Ngọc Oanh |author4 = Trần Thị Vinh |author5 = Đặng Thanh Toán |author6 = Đỗ Thanh Bình |year = 2002 |publisher = Giáo Dục Publisher |location= Ho Chi Minh City |id = 8934980082317 |pages = 320–22 |language = vi}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Flitton|first1=Dave|title=Battlefield Vietnam – Dien Bien Phu, the legacy|date=7 September 2011 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQdFGr7NQ4o| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211117/eQdFGr7NQ4o| archive-date=2021-11-17 | url-status=live|publisher=Public Broadcasting System PBS|access-date=29 July 2015}}{{cbignore}}</ref>  The Geneva Conference (26 April – 20 July 1954) discussed the possibility of restoring peace in [[Mainland Southeast Asia|Indochina]], and temporarily separated Vietnam into two zones, a northern zone to be governed by the Việt Minh, and a southern zone to be governed by the [[State of Vietnam]], then headed by former emperor [[Bảo Đại]]. A Conference Final Declaration, issued by the British chairman of the conference, provided that a general election be held by July 1956 to create a unified Vietnamese state. Although presented as a consensus view, this document was not accepted by the delegates of either the State of Vietnam or the United States.

In addition, [[China]], the [[Soviet Union]], and other communist nations recognized [[North Vietnam]] while the United States and other non-communist states recognized [[South Vietnam]] as the legitimate government. By the time Westmoreland became army commander in South Vietnam, the option of a Korea-type settlement with a large demilitarized zone separating north and south, favored by military and diplomatic figures, had been rejected by the U.S. government, whose objectives were to achieve a decisive victory and not to use vastly greater resources. The infiltration by regular [[North Vietnamese Army]] forces into the South could not be dealt with by aggressive action against the northern state because intervention by China was something the U.S. government wanted to avoid, but President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] had given commitments to uphold South Vietnam against communist North Vietnam.<ref name=Daddis-74>''Westmoreland's War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam'', Gregory Daddis, p. 74</ref><ref name="globetrotter.berkeley.edu">Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley [http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/Summers/ Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies and Colonel Harry G. Summers]</ref>

General [[Harold Keith Johnson]], Army Chief of Staff, came to see U.S. goals as having become mutually inconsistent, because defeating the Communists would require declaring a national emergency and fully mobilizing the resources of the US. General Johnson was critical of Westmoreland's defused corporate style, considering him overattentive to what government officials wanted to hear. Nonetheless, Westmoreland was operating within longstanding army protocols of subordinating the military to civilian policymakers. The most important constraint was staying on the strategic defensive out of fear of Chinese intervention, but at the same time Johnson had made it clear that there was a higher commitment to defending Vietnam.<ref name="Peter J. Schifferle 1994">The la Drang Campaign 1965: A Successful Operational Campaign or Mere Tactical Failure?, Peter J. Schifferle (1994)</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite web |last=Sorley |first=Lewis |url=https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1868&context=parameters |title=To Change a War: General Harold K. Johnson and the PROVN Study |publisher=United States Army War College Press |date=February 17, 1998 |access-date=November 6, 2021}}</ref> Much of the thinking about defense was by academics turned government advisors who concentrated on nuclear weapons, seen as making conventional war obsolete. The fashion for counter-insurgency thinking also denigrated the role of [[conventional warfare]]. Despite the inconclusive outcome of the Korean War, Americans expected the war to end with an unconditional surrender of the enemy.<ref name="globetrotter.berkeley.edu" />

A dramatic increase in direct American participation in the Vietnam War began in February and March 1965, with 184,300 military personnel in Vietnam by the end of the year. [[NLF and PAVN strategy, organization and structure|Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure]] meant that Westmoreland faced a dual threat. Regular North Vietnamese army units infiltrating across the remote border were apparently concentrating to mount an offensive and Westmoreland considered this the danger that had to be tackled immediately. There was also entrenched guerrilla subversion throughout the heavily populated coastal regions by the [[Viet Cong]]. During this time, Westmoreland forbade the CIA from publishing a count of enemy fighters greater than 399,000, because admitting there were more than 600,000 fighters including guerrillas would have revealed that the insurgency had popular support.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Perlstein |first=Rick |url=http://archive.org/details/nixonlandriseofp0000perl |title=Nixonland : the rise of a president and the fracturing of America |date=2008 |publisher=New York : Scribner |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-7432-4302-5 |pages=170}}</ref> Consistent with the enthusiasm of Defense Secretary [[Robert McNamara]] for statistics, Westmoreland placed emphasis on [[Vietnam War body count controversy|body count]] and cited the [[Battle of Ia Drang]] as evidence the communists were losing.

The government sought to win at low cost, and policymakers received McNamara's interpretation indicating huge American casualties in prospect, prompting a reassessment of what could be achieved. The Battle of Ia Drang was unusual in that U.S. troops brought a large enemy formation to battle. After talking to junior officers General Westmoreland became skeptical about localised concentrated [[search and destroy]] sweeps of short duration, because the Communist forces controlled whether there were military engagements, giving an option to simply avoid battle with US forces if the situation warranted it. The alternative of sustained countrywide pacification operations, which would require massive use of US manpower, was never available to Westmoreland, because it was considered politically unacceptable.<ref name="Peter J. Schifferle 1994"/><ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="Westmoreland p96">Westmoreland: The General who Lost Vietnam  By Lewis Sorley p96</ref>

In public, Westmoreland continued to be sanguine about the progress being made throughout his time in Vietnam, though supportive journalist [[James Reston]] thought Westmoreland's characterizing of the conflict as [[attrition warfare]] presented his generalship in a misleading light.<ref>''Westmoreland's War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam'', Gregory Daddis, pp. 74-75</ref> Westmoreland's critics say his successor, General [[Creighton Abrams]], deliberately switched emphasis away from what Westmoreland dubbed attrition. Revisionists point to Abrams's first big operation being a tactical success that disrupted North Vietnamese buildup, but resulted in the [[Battle of Hamburger Hill]], a political disaster that effectively curtailed Abrams's freedom to continue with such operations.<ref name="Peter J. Schifferle 1994"/><ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="Westmoreland p96"/>