Could the US have won the Vietnam war?

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. The war in Vietnam was an unparalleled test of American military might. But could the U.S. ever have secured victory? Why did various US presidents commit so much firepower to fighting such an elusive enemy?

And why was the war even fought at all? In today's episode, historian Jeffrey Warrowe joins us to discuss his new military history of Vietnam, which argues that this was a war of choice, and that those in the highest offices of US power underestimated their enemy in waging the conflict for so long. Ellen Evans spoke to Jeffrey to find out more. You say throughout this account that you lay out it was a war of choice, that it was fought and elongated off the back of hubris and reputation.

And before we get into the meat of how this war was fought, Can we start with the choices that led to the USA's involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s and ultimately to the escalation of engagement? Yeah, well, that's a great question. You know, Franklin Roosevelt, who was, you know, United States president until the the last month of World War II in Europe, had always believed that the US would not support European colonialism after the war. And part of his whole plan for a United Nations and a new world order was that, you know, you'd have decolonization and then the US would be sort of the

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (52 minutes, 9,938 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.