[Note: This is a subpost linked to by Vietnam, Israel and the Left’s Delusional Narratives. Feel free to comment but the post might not make much sense without the parent post’s context.]
Delusion:The Tet Offensive proved the US military had lied about the strength and scale of support in South Vietnam for the Viet Cong.
Reality: The Tet Offensive achieved surprise for the same reason Hitler’s offensive in the Battle of the Bulge achieved surprise: The plan was based on a delusional narrative and had no chance of success. In both cases, the US military found it impossible to predict that the enemy would do something so incredibly stupid and self-destructive.
The Tet Offensive was a staggering tactical defeat for the communists that led to the destruction of the Viet Cong as a fighting force. From that point on, all of the major fighting for the communists would be carried out by successive waves of invasion of North Vietnamese regular army units from North Vietnam. Post-1968 the war ceased to be an insurgency and became one of outright external invasion.
The failure of the US and Western mass media to correctly analyze the military situation of Tet is a huge and shameful black mark on their record, one they have never corrected. Shame on them.