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The Vietnam War: A Military History
The first comprehensive military history of the war in Vietnam
The Vietnam War cast a shadow over the American psyche from the moment it began. In its time it sparked budget deficits, campus protests, and an erosion of US influence around the world. Long after the last helicopter evacuated Saigon, Americans have continued to battle over whether it was ever a winnable war.
Based on thousands of pages of military, diplomatic, and intelligence documents, Geoffrey Wawro’s The Vietnam War offers a definitive account of a war of choice that was doomed from its inception. In devastating detail, Wawro narrates campaigns where US troops struggled even to find the enemy in the South Vietnamese wilderness, let alone kill sufficient numbers to turn the tide in their favor. Yet the war dragged on, prolonged by presidents and military leaders who feared the political consequences of accepting defeat. In the end, no number of young lives lost or bombs dropped could prevent America’s ally, the corrupt South Vietnamese regime, from collapsing the moment US troops retreated.
Broad, definitive, and illuminating, The Vietnam War offers an unsettling, resonant story of the limitations of American power.
The Vietnam War cast a shadow over the American psyche from the moment it began. In its time it sparked budget deficits, campus protests, and an erosion of US influence around the world. Long after the last helicopter evacuated Saigon, Americans have continued to battle over whether it was ever a winnable war.
Based on thousands of pages of military, diplomatic, and intelligence documents, Geoffrey Wawro’s The Vietnam War offers a definitive account of a war of choice that was doomed from its inception. In devastating detail, Wawro narrates campaigns where US troops struggled even to find the enemy in the South Vietnamese wilderness, let alone kill sufficient numbers to turn the tide in their favor. Yet the war dragged on, prolonged by presidents and military leaders who feared the political consequences of accepting defeat. In the end, no number of young lives lost or bombs dropped could prevent America’s ally, the corrupt South Vietnamese regime, from collapsing the moment US troops retreated.
Broad, definitive, and illuminating, The Vietnam War offers an unsettling, resonant story of the limitations of American power.
672 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2024
124 people are currently reading
1026 people want to read
About the author
Geoffrey Wawro
16 books79 followersGeoffrey Wawro is the General Olinto Mark Barsanti Professor of Military History at the University of North Texas, and Director of the UNT Military History Center. His primary area of emphasis is modern and contemporary military history, from the French Revolution to the present.
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April 12, 2025
“The Vietnam War is an unsettling, illuminating story of American power at its zenith. In the world wars of the early twentieth century, the United States had intervened with extreme reluctance. The nation had viewed wars as catastrophic in every way. After 1945, the United States was more willing to go to war. This was partly hubris and partly because national security was politically weaponized during the Cold War. Politicians had to project toughness or risk ridicule and defeat. Wealth, power, and anticommunism inclined ordinary Americans toward intervention abroad in the early 1960s. Vietnam would reveal the weakness of Congress, the power of the presidency, the complicity of the general public, the might of the bureaucracy and armed services, and the ease with which these power centers can make and prolong even the most ill-considered wars, with ruinous consequences…”
- Geoffrey Wawro, The Vietnam War: A Military History
The Vietnam War remains the most disastrous foreign policy decision in American history, of which there are several. It cost the United States over 58,000 lives, and killed millions of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. It also damaged America’s moral prestige, created social ruptures, and squandered billions of dollars. Though it ended fifty years ago, it remains contentious.
All wars are political, the Vietnam War more than most. The United States purportedly intervened for geopolitical reasons – to contain communism, and to keep the so-called dominoes from falling – but American involvement from Truman to Nixon was fueled by domestic concerns. Even when various presidents recognized the folly of continuing, they continued forward, sacrificing the lives of others to extend their own grasp on power.
Geoffrey Wawro’s The Vietnam War understands the inseparable intertwining of martial means for political ends. As a result, despite being billed as “a military history,” this is ultimately the tale of doomed diplomacy in service of a stillborn country.
***
Any book about the wars of Vietnam has to make a hard choice about where to commence, because the roots of the struggle stretch back to the mid-nineteenth century, with French colonization. During the Second World War, Japan invaded Indochina, but allowed Vichy France to maintain administrative control until 1945. Following the war, France – writing imperial checks its faded power could not cash – demanded the return of their colony, precipitating the First Indochina War, lasting from 1946-54. As soon as that ended, the Second Indochina War kicked off, ranging from 1955-75, when South Vietnam finally fell.
The conflict covered in The Vietnam War is a subset of the Second Indochina War, when the United States attempted to prop up South Vietnam as a bulwark against communist North Vietnam. However, Wawro does not seem to know exactly where to begin, so the opening is a bit of a rolling start, with a compressed summary of an extensive background that is vital to understanding what’s going on. Wawro does a decent enough job, but this probably isn’t the best place to start if the subject is new to you.
***
Wawro’s narrative starts in earnest in 1964, and proceeds chronologically. America’s Vietnam War was one of gradual escalation, with each questionable decision bringing consequences that required other questionable decisions. For example, Lyndon Johnson tried to use airpower as a diplomatic messaging tool. This strategy necessitated air bases in South Vietnam. Once those bases were built, men were needed to keep them running. Then ground troops had to be deployed for base protection. Once those troops arrived, they started patrolling outside the bases. In this way, participation increased incrementally, not part of a coherent plan, but as a reaction to contingencies.
The scope of Wawro’s coverage is pretty broad. There is much space devoted to overarching strategies, from William Westmoreland’s attritional “search and destroy” to Creighton Abram’s smaller-unit “clear and hold.” He describes the battles, of course, such as the Ia Drang, Khe Sanh, and Hamburger Hill, the latter of which he underlines as emblematic of the Sisyphean U.S. experience in Vietnam, in which ground was captured, then left and reclaimed by the enemy. He also discusses technological innovations, especially the use of helicopters.
Complementing this material is the political side of the coin. This is a bit outside Wawro’s bailiwick, and he does not seem as comfortable in this area as he does on the battlefield. Nevertheless, he does enough to maintain a proper balance, for the American-Vietnamese War cannot be understood without those considerations.
***
The Vietnam War is not an objective book, at least in the sense that it lets the story speak for itself. Quite to the contrary, Wawro is unrelentingly critical, sometimes to the point of repetitiveness. That said, many of his points are well taken.
For instance, a fundamental principle of military operations is concentration of force to deliver superior firepower at a decisive point. This never happened. Even when the United States had half a million men in country, only 10-15% were in combat roles, amounting to 75-80,000 troops. Moreover, many of the men assigned to combat duty were draftees on one-year tours. As a result, only a fraction of the overall force actually went into the field to fight, with many of them unwilling participants who would be leaving – if they survived – by the time they gained the necessary experience. It is therefore unsurprising that in 1967-68, less than 1% of two million small-unit operations resulted in enemy contact.
Throughout The Vietnam War, Wawro develops a number of themes that he returns to repeatedly. One of these is an obsession with costs. With the intensity of an auditor, Wawro tallies up the taxpayer dollars ignited in Vietnam. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot. He also notes that this wastage had an enormous – and potentially catastrophic – impact on the overall American defense posture, especially vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Another theme is the questionable value of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Some historians have attempted to salvage the ARVN’s reputation by highlighting their intermittent successes, but Wawro isn’t having it. The facts bear him out, as it folded with stunning rapidity following America’s withdrawal. More specifically, in the course of thirty days, they lost $1 billion of U.S.-provided equipment, and collapsed within fifty-five days in 1975.
The bulk of Wawro’s ire is directed at the Americans, but the North Vietnamese made their share of mistakes too. Le Duan, for example, focused on trying to destroy South Vietnam with the Americans still in it, when he should have been maneuvering to get America out of the war, at which point South Vietnam could have been knocked over by a stiff breeze.
***
In some ways, the American military performed well in Vietnam. At the very least, they fared better than the French. Despite some close calls, the United States never experienced a Dien Bien Phu. On occasion, their tactics proved devastating to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, especially the integration of airpower and artillery.
Nevertheless, these “successes” came at an enormous toll on civilians and the environment. An obscene amount of ordinance was dropped from planes. Cancer-causing defoliants were sprayed over the jungles. Villages were obliterated by long-range artillery. Meanwhile, certain military operations – such as Operation Speedy Express – treaded the line of war crimes.
***
The further we get from Vietnam, the greater the space for revisionism, and there have been attempts to argue that the United States could have won, if only the gloves had come off. The invasion of North Vietnam, to take one example, is a popular suggestion. Wawro deflects these contentions convincingly.
First, the United States never had any gloves on. An incredible amount of destructive force was unleashed during the war. Cambodia alone – putatively neutral – received three times the tonnage of bombs that hit Japan in World War II.
Second, even a full-scale invasion and occupation of the North – assuming the Chinese let this happen – would not have covered for the fact that South Vietnam was a corrupt and illegitimate state. While North Vietnam formed organically out of anticolonial resistance, South Vietnam was an artificial creation, which never had the absolute support of its own citizens. In the end, America’s Vietnam War was a lethal form of life support of a nation that never had a chance.
- Geoffrey Wawro, The Vietnam War: A Military History
The Vietnam War remains the most disastrous foreign policy decision in American history, of which there are several. It cost the United States over 58,000 lives, and killed millions of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. It also damaged America’s moral prestige, created social ruptures, and squandered billions of dollars. Though it ended fifty years ago, it remains contentious.
All wars are political, the Vietnam War more than most. The United States purportedly intervened for geopolitical reasons – to contain communism, and to keep the so-called dominoes from falling – but American involvement from Truman to Nixon was fueled by domestic concerns. Even when various presidents recognized the folly of continuing, they continued forward, sacrificing the lives of others to extend their own grasp on power.
Geoffrey Wawro’s The Vietnam War understands the inseparable intertwining of martial means for political ends. As a result, despite being billed as “a military history,” this is ultimately the tale of doomed diplomacy in service of a stillborn country.
***
Any book about the wars of Vietnam has to make a hard choice about where to commence, because the roots of the struggle stretch back to the mid-nineteenth century, with French colonization. During the Second World War, Japan invaded Indochina, but allowed Vichy France to maintain administrative control until 1945. Following the war, France – writing imperial checks its faded power could not cash – demanded the return of their colony, precipitating the First Indochina War, lasting from 1946-54. As soon as that ended, the Second Indochina War kicked off, ranging from 1955-75, when South Vietnam finally fell.
The conflict covered in The Vietnam War is a subset of the Second Indochina War, when the United States attempted to prop up South Vietnam as a bulwark against communist North Vietnam. However, Wawro does not seem to know exactly where to begin, so the opening is a bit of a rolling start, with a compressed summary of an extensive background that is vital to understanding what’s going on. Wawro does a decent enough job, but this probably isn’t the best place to start if the subject is new to you.
***
Wawro’s narrative starts in earnest in 1964, and proceeds chronologically. America’s Vietnam War was one of gradual escalation, with each questionable decision bringing consequences that required other questionable decisions. For example, Lyndon Johnson tried to use airpower as a diplomatic messaging tool. This strategy necessitated air bases in South Vietnam. Once those bases were built, men were needed to keep them running. Then ground troops had to be deployed for base protection. Once those troops arrived, they started patrolling outside the bases. In this way, participation increased incrementally, not part of a coherent plan, but as a reaction to contingencies.
The scope of Wawro’s coverage is pretty broad. There is much space devoted to overarching strategies, from William Westmoreland’s attritional “search and destroy” to Creighton Abram’s smaller-unit “clear and hold.” He describes the battles, of course, such as the Ia Drang, Khe Sanh, and Hamburger Hill, the latter of which he underlines as emblematic of the Sisyphean U.S. experience in Vietnam, in which ground was captured, then left and reclaimed by the enemy. He also discusses technological innovations, especially the use of helicopters.
Complementing this material is the political side of the coin. This is a bit outside Wawro’s bailiwick, and he does not seem as comfortable in this area as he does on the battlefield. Nevertheless, he does enough to maintain a proper balance, for the American-Vietnamese War cannot be understood without those considerations.
***
The Vietnam War is not an objective book, at least in the sense that it lets the story speak for itself. Quite to the contrary, Wawro is unrelentingly critical, sometimes to the point of repetitiveness. That said, many of his points are well taken.
For instance, a fundamental principle of military operations is concentration of force to deliver superior firepower at a decisive point. This never happened. Even when the United States had half a million men in country, only 10-15% were in combat roles, amounting to 75-80,000 troops. Moreover, many of the men assigned to combat duty were draftees on one-year tours. As a result, only a fraction of the overall force actually went into the field to fight, with many of them unwilling participants who would be leaving – if they survived – by the time they gained the necessary experience. It is therefore unsurprising that in 1967-68, less than 1% of two million small-unit operations resulted in enemy contact.
Throughout The Vietnam War, Wawro develops a number of themes that he returns to repeatedly. One of these is an obsession with costs. With the intensity of an auditor, Wawro tallies up the taxpayer dollars ignited in Vietnam. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot. He also notes that this wastage had an enormous – and potentially catastrophic – impact on the overall American defense posture, especially vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Another theme is the questionable value of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Some historians have attempted to salvage the ARVN’s reputation by highlighting their intermittent successes, but Wawro isn’t having it. The facts bear him out, as it folded with stunning rapidity following America’s withdrawal. More specifically, in the course of thirty days, they lost $1 billion of U.S.-provided equipment, and collapsed within fifty-five days in 1975.
The bulk of Wawro’s ire is directed at the Americans, but the North Vietnamese made their share of mistakes too. Le Duan, for example, focused on trying to destroy South Vietnam with the Americans still in it, when he should have been maneuvering to get America out of the war, at which point South Vietnam could have been knocked over by a stiff breeze.
***
In some ways, the American military performed well in Vietnam. At the very least, they fared better than the French. Despite some close calls, the United States never experienced a Dien Bien Phu. On occasion, their tactics proved devastating to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, especially the integration of airpower and artillery.
Nevertheless, these “successes” came at an enormous toll on civilians and the environment. An obscene amount of ordinance was dropped from planes. Cancer-causing defoliants were sprayed over the jungles. Villages were obliterated by long-range artillery. Meanwhile, certain military operations – such as Operation Speedy Express – treaded the line of war crimes.
***
The further we get from Vietnam, the greater the space for revisionism, and there have been attempts to argue that the United States could have won, if only the gloves had come off. The invasion of North Vietnam, to take one example, is a popular suggestion. Wawro deflects these contentions convincingly.
First, the United States never had any gloves on. An incredible amount of destructive force was unleashed during the war. Cambodia alone – putatively neutral – received three times the tonnage of bombs that hit Japan in World War II.
Second, even a full-scale invasion and occupation of the North – assuming the Chinese let this happen – would not have covered for the fact that South Vietnam was a corrupt and illegitimate state. While North Vietnam formed organically out of anticolonial resistance, South Vietnam was an artificial creation, which never had the absolute support of its own citizens. In the end, America’s Vietnam War was a lethal form of life support of a nation that never had a chance.
May 4, 2025
A well-organized, insightful and clearly written work.
The discussions of politics and strategy on all sides are broad and thorough, and there’s more of it than you may expect from the title (economics, too). The coverage of the air war is also good, though the book focuses mostly on the war on the ground in South Vietnam. The maps are good. He’s pretty critical of Westmoreland and Johnson, noting that “LBJ’s war planning resembled a political science seminar. There was no military involvement, no major targets, no clear objective, just a lot of words.” He also argues that Abrams’ strategy differed little from Westmoreland’s. Most of the book deals with Johnson and Nixon. He also notes the self-interested motives of presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, all of whom feared that the fall of South Vietnam would ensure their political doom.
Wawro also takes a hard look at revisionist versions and arguments of the war. Some argue that the war may have been won by the US if LBJ had permitted Westmoreland to expand it with invasions or heavier bombing of North Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia. Wawro calls these arguments “nonsense,” contending that Johnson rejected these options because they were infeasible in the first place, not simply because he lacked the political will. A drastic expansion of the war would also have required more money and manpower than America had, and Wawro notes that there was no way to expand the war without increasing inflation and inciting backlash at home. Expanding the war would have required clearer war aims, clearer explanations for why the war was necessary, and more support than the public was willing to give. Again and again Wawro stresses that America was unable to increase troop levels that would have been needed to control the South Vietnamese countryside, let alone to invade or occupy large sections of North Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia
The writing is accessible and the narrative moves along at a brisk pace. Wawro does, however, begin the book with America’s role in Vietnam, and some readers may wish for more detail on the civil war in that country or political developments in South Vietnam (at one point he writes that “South Vietnam had no history”), and on the decisions of the communists that helped lead to war. There’s also little discussion of some of the more classic counterinsurgency gambits that were tried under Westmoreland. The coverage of military operations is good, but might not feel too original if you’re familiar with these stories.
There’s also a few minor quibbles: Wawro cites as fact Curtis LeMay’s alleged quote about bombing North Vietnam “into the Stone Age.” He refers to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried as a “memoir.” He writes that Lon Nol’s coup in Cambodia was “supported by Nixon,” but the evidence for direct American involvement in that coup is still murky, as far as I know. He also writes that Kissinger opposed Nixon’s plans to secretly bomb Cambodia because it would provoke more opposition to the war. Kissinger actually opposed overt attacks there for this reason.
An absorbing, well-researched, and very readable work.
The discussions of politics and strategy on all sides are broad and thorough, and there’s more of it than you may expect from the title (economics, too). The coverage of the air war is also good, though the book focuses mostly on the war on the ground in South Vietnam. The maps are good. He’s pretty critical of Westmoreland and Johnson, noting that “LBJ’s war planning resembled a political science seminar. There was no military involvement, no major targets, no clear objective, just a lot of words.” He also argues that Abrams’ strategy differed little from Westmoreland’s. Most of the book deals with Johnson and Nixon. He also notes the self-interested motives of presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, all of whom feared that the fall of South Vietnam would ensure their political doom.
Wawro also takes a hard look at revisionist versions and arguments of the war. Some argue that the war may have been won by the US if LBJ had permitted Westmoreland to expand it with invasions or heavier bombing of North Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia. Wawro calls these arguments “nonsense,” contending that Johnson rejected these options because they were infeasible in the first place, not simply because he lacked the political will. A drastic expansion of the war would also have required more money and manpower than America had, and Wawro notes that there was no way to expand the war without increasing inflation and inciting backlash at home. Expanding the war would have required clearer war aims, clearer explanations for why the war was necessary, and more support than the public was willing to give. Again and again Wawro stresses that America was unable to increase troop levels that would have been needed to control the South Vietnamese countryside, let alone to invade or occupy large sections of North Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia
The writing is accessible and the narrative moves along at a brisk pace. Wawro does, however, begin the book with America’s role in Vietnam, and some readers may wish for more detail on the civil war in that country or political developments in South Vietnam (at one point he writes that “South Vietnam had no history”), and on the decisions of the communists that helped lead to war. There’s also little discussion of some of the more classic counterinsurgency gambits that were tried under Westmoreland. The coverage of military operations is good, but might not feel too original if you’re familiar with these stories.
There’s also a few minor quibbles: Wawro cites as fact Curtis LeMay’s alleged quote about bombing North Vietnam “into the Stone Age.” He refers to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried as a “memoir.” He writes that Lon Nol’s coup in Cambodia was “supported by Nixon,” but the evidence for direct American involvement in that coup is still murky, as far as I know. He also writes that Kissinger opposed Nixon’s plans to secretly bomb Cambodia because it would provoke more opposition to the war. Kissinger actually opposed overt attacks there for this reason.
An absorbing, well-researched, and very readable work.
June 30, 2025
There were points in this book where I felt like I wanted to sign up for the Viet Cong.
But my overwhelming feeling is just ... sadness. This was a stupid war, waged for stupid reasons, that accomplished nothing except to kill millions of civilians and traumatize an entire generation of Americans.
Not that the Cong were great folks, mind you, but we did some pretty terrible things over there too. And the South Vietnam government was just an incredible nest of inefficiency, graft, corruption, and incompetence, and as some folks pointed out ... why were we fighting for a country that wouldn't even fight for itself? We should've just left them to hash it out.
And arguably we might not have gotten the killing fields of Pol Pot in Cambodia if we hadn't started screwing around over there either.
So much pointless death.
But my overwhelming feeling is just ... sadness. This was a stupid war, waged for stupid reasons, that accomplished nothing except to kill millions of civilians and traumatize an entire generation of Americans.
Not that the Cong were great folks, mind you, but we did some pretty terrible things over there too. And the South Vietnam government was just an incredible nest of inefficiency, graft, corruption, and incompetence, and as some folks pointed out ... why were we fighting for a country that wouldn't even fight for itself? We should've just left them to hash it out.
And arguably we might not have gotten the killing fields of Pol Pot in Cambodia if we hadn't started screwing around over there either.
So much pointless death.
February 22, 2025
The Vietnam War is subtitled “A Military History,” but it’s a lot more than that; Wawro nails a balance in presenting both the military and political sides of the war’s equation, going back to Harry Truman and the end of World War II.
I didn’t expect anyone to come off well here (no one does) but Wawro really has it in for U.S. General William “Westy” Westmoreland, notably hawkish and mendacious in a war hallmarked with hawkishness and mendacity.
It’s an exhaustive account almost exclusively top-down. I’m already looking for more on-the-ground perspectives, like Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and oral histories.
I didn’t expect anyone to come off well here (no one does) but Wawro really has it in for U.S. General William “Westy” Westmoreland, notably hawkish and mendacious in a war hallmarked with hawkishness and mendacity.
It’s an exhaustive account almost exclusively top-down. I’m already looking for more on-the-ground perspectives, like Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and oral histories.
February 5, 2025
Well written and appreciated the unabashed hatred he has for Westy, Kissinger and Nixon. They deserve it!
April 7, 2024
This is an amazing book! The amount of research that the author poured into this book is astounding! It's an honest, no holding back synopsis of the war from beginning to end. I'd recommend this book to anyone who's interested in the Vietnam War: why it happened, how it affected numerous people, and lessons to be learned.
I was provided a copy of the book from Basic Books/ Hachette Book Group via Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I was provided a copy of the book from Basic Books/ Hachette Book Group via Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
April 3, 2025
I have read a lot of books about the war in Vietnam, as this was the war that my generation was drawn into. (Born in 1955, I was among the last American men to receive a draft card.) While this book does not tell the entire story of the war, I can't think of how a book could do a better job of describing what it sets out to focus on in its subtitle: the military history. The book was published in 2024, so the author had access to materials that previous Vietnam War historians would have been unable to examine. In addition, he took a number of trips to Vietnam to do his research, so the book feels ver authentic in the way that it examines the fates of the various armies: the United States, the South Vietnamese (ARVN), the North Vietnamese (NVA), and the Viet Cong (VC). Having lived through the war, it has always struck me as an unbelievable waste of lives and resources, and this book reinforces that notion, again and again in excruciating detail. The author, a military historian, is very skillful at presenting tactics and strategies in a way that the layman (like me) can both easily understand, and readily discern the misguided assumptions and motives of those who were making the decisions. The book tends to look at the war from "on high"- the reader can visualize the movement of the armies and the war materials and there are quite a few maps included that clearly show the troop movements that the text describes. There are a lot of numbers in the narrative: troops, planes, tons of bombs (and always casualties), but those numbers don't drag the story into a morass of minutia, but rather they illustrate the enormity of the waste of that conflict. There were quite a few things that I learned for the first time by reading this book, for instance that Nixon's bombing campaigns took a tremendous toll on the North Vietnamese population and morale, and also that the speed with which the NVA was moving in the spring of 1975 had a lot to do with their desire to crush the South Vietnamese government before the Viet Cong (their so-called allies) could set themselves up as the new rulers of an independent South Vietnam, as the Chinese actually preferred a divided nation once the Americans were gone. There are enough "nuggets" like those to make this book a rewarding read for even those who have been consuming books about this war for the past 50 years. The book doesn't set out to provide the full picture of this war, as it touches very lightly on the domestic turmoil emerging back in the U.S., nor does it relate the experiences of individual soldiers, but I does a fantastic job of living up to its subtitle's claim of offering a complete military history of the war.
June 22, 2025
Vietnam was a war of choice. Understanding it requires a reckoning of this stubborn fact.
A book of choices. What sources to use, what narrative thread to weave. Some of the choices I agree with. Some I don’t.
The Political
At the highest level, Wawro gets across the main point fantastically. Vietnam was not a crucial interest to the United States and its escalation management was always flawed. Wawro also takes the time to disabuse the fantasy that widening the war would have ended it favourably (after-all, the interventions in Cambodia and Laos did widen the war without real benefit). As a political-diplomatic history of the Vietnam War, Wawro is clear headed, clear written, and clearly correct.
Vietnam had hollowed out the American military, sucking up all of its “residual force capability.” Something would have to give, and soon.
On the pre-election Nixon/Kissinger manipulations in 1968, Wawro is on the side that they happened and that they did not help America. He is also relatively unforgiving of McNamara’s about turn from confidence to despair – after-all, it hardly helped and was kind of morally cowardly to just be defeatist about a war you pushed for. The domestic politicisation of the Vietnam War is a fascinating subject – while it does not lie in Wawro’s wheelhouse, The Vietnam War suggests it should be.
As one other point, despite explicitly being a military history, detailed coverage of the many engagements is limited to making particular points, such as at Hamburger Hill. I am fine with this, page limits and reader interest are real constraints. If you want to see more Nato symbols moving forward and back, there are plenty of options on that.
The Source of It All
A limitation when reading or reviewing non-fiction books is that I am rarely going to check more than a smattering of the citations. It was particularly hard with The Vietnam War where multiple statements were rolled up to into one citation at the end of the paragraph, making it hard to work out statement was covered by a particular source.
The point comes to a head here:
Guided everywhere they went by locals, the main-force battalions could move twenty-five miles in five hours, attacking a government post at night and vanishing without a trace before daylight.
I do try to resist relying on “common sense”, because what seems reasonable to me does not need to accord with facts. However… …25 miles in 5 hours is a long way in a short period… …presumably through jungle… …presumably heavily encumbered… …and then fitting in a battle and withdrawal. I struggle to believe this, and without reference to an engagement where this happened, nor a helpful citation, “common sense” weighs heavily on me.
While this may appear to be a nitpick, it does reflect a general scepticism in the book towards American performance vs North Vietnamese Army/Viet Cong. Wawro presents American forces as constantly overstating their enemy kill counts, with regular tactical reverses, except for the Tet Offensive and similar times where the enemy plays into the American advantages of firepower.
This becomes more of an issue in that the book also accepts the ultimate kill count of over a million North Vietnamese forces, a ratio that far exceeded the same target of 10:1 that Wawro constantly criticises US forces for making up in their battle reports. Accordingly, I look in askance at the book’s presentation of the apparent super abilities of one side, where even their inadequacies:
Their medical care was all but non-existent. An American study in 1969 would discover that nearly half of communist forces in the field at any given time suffered from malaria or dysentery. Eighty-seven percent of communist troops wounded in combat died of their wounds, as the average NVA “medevac” took eight to twelve hours on a hammock or a bicycle and at the end of it there were few if any sterile instruments, antibiotics, painkillers, intravenous fluids, or blood bags.
…can be explained away with superior moral fibre:
And yet the communists persevered. The keys were the endurance and the patriotism of the troops and the savvy of their political officers. The troops, an NVA defector explained, were “very young men who were flattered to think that they were fighting for something great, something superhuman.”
…and I wonder whether, for all the citations (which are hard to track), Wawro has been captured by his sources (that may overstate enemy capabilities for their own reasons) and his own writing tendencies. For example, Wawro is also stark in his dismissal of Austro-Hungarian forces in A Mad Catastrophe, and reviews suggest he is similarly inclined with non-American Allied forces in Sons of Freedom. It is also worth pointing out that Wawro switches in the narrative on the relative firepower of individual soldiers. It is explicable with regards to the passage of time but the writing comes off as though North Vietnamese equipment levels vary according to the point Wawro is making.
As a further point on the sourcing issue which I believe links to the above, North Vietnamese perspectives are primarily at the highest level, which is interesting and includes information that was new to me, with little from the average “grunt” or even mid ranking officers. As reliance on North Vietnamese soldiers increased to support the Viet Cong, I would have been interested to know how they integrated – how different was it for them, hundreds of miles from their home? How did they feel the battles went?
Without saying Wawro is wrong on any specific fact, he does appear to have a trend towards marshalling the evidence in one direction. I suspect that, but need to read more, the American soldier was more tactically capable than as presented. The heavy US casualty levels do suggest otherwise, but it is possible to view these in the context of an intense war with well-armed opposition and not that far past similar experiences in World War II – casualties were inevitable. In fairness the operational choices of taking land and then abandoning it (such as Hamburger Hill), the disregard for collateral damage (and even massacring civilians) and the continuing poor performance under Abrams (against the mythologizing) are valid criticisms by Wawro.
Abe Abrams’ determination to “exploit superior firepower and mobility” was nothing new, and it had the same effect as Westy’s airmobile operations: it killed civilians.
The Vietnam War is a great book to read on why the United States committed itself to the war and why it stayed in the war. It is a good book to read about what the United States did wrong (killed a lot of the civilians they were trying to “save”). It’s just not quite “the” book on the military history of the Vietnam War, which it sells itself to be. I have no regrets on my choice to read it, and my perspective may change when combined with other books on the subject.
A book of choices. What sources to use, what narrative thread to weave. Some of the choices I agree with. Some I don’t.
The Political
At the highest level, Wawro gets across the main point fantastically. Vietnam was not a crucial interest to the United States and its escalation management was always flawed. Wawro also takes the time to disabuse the fantasy that widening the war would have ended it favourably (after-all, the interventions in Cambodia and Laos did widen the war without real benefit). As a political-diplomatic history of the Vietnam War, Wawro is clear headed, clear written, and clearly correct.
Vietnam had hollowed out the American military, sucking up all of its “residual force capability.” Something would have to give, and soon.
On the pre-election Nixon/Kissinger manipulations in 1968, Wawro is on the side that they happened and that they did not help America. He is also relatively unforgiving of McNamara’s about turn from confidence to despair – after-all, it hardly helped and was kind of morally cowardly to just be defeatist about a war you pushed for. The domestic politicisation of the Vietnam War is a fascinating subject – while it does not lie in Wawro’s wheelhouse, The Vietnam War suggests it should be.
As one other point, despite explicitly being a military history, detailed coverage of the many engagements is limited to making particular points, such as at Hamburger Hill. I am fine with this, page limits and reader interest are real constraints. If you want to see more Nato symbols moving forward and back, there are plenty of options on that.
The Source of It All
A limitation when reading or reviewing non-fiction books is that I am rarely going to check more than a smattering of the citations. It was particularly hard with The Vietnam War where multiple statements were rolled up to into one citation at the end of the paragraph, making it hard to work out statement was covered by a particular source.
The point comes to a head here:
Guided everywhere they went by locals, the main-force battalions could move twenty-five miles in five hours, attacking a government post at night and vanishing without a trace before daylight.
I do try to resist relying on “common sense”, because what seems reasonable to me does not need to accord with facts. However… …25 miles in 5 hours is a long way in a short period… …presumably through jungle… …presumably heavily encumbered… …and then fitting in a battle and withdrawal. I struggle to believe this, and without reference to an engagement where this happened, nor a helpful citation, “common sense” weighs heavily on me.
While this may appear to be a nitpick, it does reflect a general scepticism in the book towards American performance vs North Vietnamese Army/Viet Cong. Wawro presents American forces as constantly overstating their enemy kill counts, with regular tactical reverses, except for the Tet Offensive and similar times where the enemy plays into the American advantages of firepower.
This becomes more of an issue in that the book also accepts the ultimate kill count of over a million North Vietnamese forces, a ratio that far exceeded the same target of 10:1 that Wawro constantly criticises US forces for making up in their battle reports. Accordingly, I look in askance at the book’s presentation of the apparent super abilities of one side, where even their inadequacies:
Their medical care was all but non-existent. An American study in 1969 would discover that nearly half of communist forces in the field at any given time suffered from malaria or dysentery. Eighty-seven percent of communist troops wounded in combat died of their wounds, as the average NVA “medevac” took eight to twelve hours on a hammock or a bicycle and at the end of it there were few if any sterile instruments, antibiotics, painkillers, intravenous fluids, or blood bags.
…can be explained away with superior moral fibre:
And yet the communists persevered. The keys were the endurance and the patriotism of the troops and the savvy of their political officers. The troops, an NVA defector explained, were “very young men who were flattered to think that they were fighting for something great, something superhuman.”
…and I wonder whether, for all the citations (which are hard to track), Wawro has been captured by his sources (that may overstate enemy capabilities for their own reasons) and his own writing tendencies. For example, Wawro is also stark in his dismissal of Austro-Hungarian forces in A Mad Catastrophe, and reviews suggest he is similarly inclined with non-American Allied forces in Sons of Freedom. It is also worth pointing out that Wawro switches in the narrative on the relative firepower of individual soldiers. It is explicable with regards to the passage of time but the writing comes off as though North Vietnamese equipment levels vary according to the point Wawro is making.
As a further point on the sourcing issue which I believe links to the above, North Vietnamese perspectives are primarily at the highest level, which is interesting and includes information that was new to me, with little from the average “grunt” or even mid ranking officers. As reliance on North Vietnamese soldiers increased to support the Viet Cong, I would have been interested to know how they integrated – how different was it for them, hundreds of miles from their home? How did they feel the battles went?
Without saying Wawro is wrong on any specific fact, he does appear to have a trend towards marshalling the evidence in one direction. I suspect that, but need to read more, the American soldier was more tactically capable than as presented. The heavy US casualty levels do suggest otherwise, but it is possible to view these in the context of an intense war with well-armed opposition and not that far past similar experiences in World War II – casualties were inevitable. In fairness the operational choices of taking land and then abandoning it (such as Hamburger Hill), the disregard for collateral damage (and even massacring civilians) and the continuing poor performance under Abrams (against the mythologizing) are valid criticisms by Wawro.
Abe Abrams’ determination to “exploit superior firepower and mobility” was nothing new, and it had the same effect as Westy’s airmobile operations: it killed civilians.
The Vietnam War is a great book to read on why the United States committed itself to the war and why it stayed in the war. It is a good book to read about what the United States did wrong (killed a lot of the civilians they were trying to “save”). It’s just not quite “the” book on the military history of the Vietnam War, which it sells itself to be. I have no regrets on my choice to read it, and my perspective may change when combined with other books on the subject.
October 30, 2024
Best and most complete history of the Vietnam era: battles, campaigns, and politics. Very personal and empathetic with multiple participants and those personally involved. Its history cannot be separated from the dirty politics and the Zeitgeist of the tempestuous 60s and 70s.
January 18, 2025
4.5 stars. Excellent comprehensive American military history of the Vietnam War. Wawro expertly dispels several myths, including NVA invincibility, American military prowess, and that we "shoulda, coulda, woulda" won, if "allowed" to do so. Well worth your reading.
November 18, 2024
Certainly in depth and answered every question I had about the Vietnam War, but much like the war itself, from battle to battle, it seemed the book might never end. Not an enjoyable read as the reader can only feel shame at being associated with the United States of America and the death and suffering we imposed upon the world.
September 16, 2025
“Vietnam would reveal the weakness of Congress, the power of the presidency, the complicity of the general public, the might of the bureaucracy and armed services, and the ease with which these power centers can make and prolong even the most ill-considered wars, with ruinous consequences.”
- Geoffrey Wawro
In 1945, America was at the height of its power after the defeat of Axis forces in World War II. The economy was booming, its pop culture from things like Hollywood and Rock n Roll were about to take the world by storm, public trust in American institutions was considerable, and international prestige was like never before. If a definition for zenith was to be found, it was in the United States of America.
Then came the Vietnam War.
I knew of the broad strokes of how America stumbled in and out of Vietnam, but Geoffrey Wawro paints a vivid picture of what just might be the most perfectly misguided war I have ever read about, and does so with both engaging and entertaining writing. Bungled operations, shaky allies, thousands of deaths in vain, willfully neglected intelligence reports that could have prevented this entire mess of a war. Wawro has uncovered a story of lies, callousness, ignorance, and atrocity that would rival any spy novel. What I would give to wish it were only fiction.
Wawro focuses strictly on the American involvement in Vietnam. Any readers wanting to learn about the misadventures of France in the jungles of Vietnam must look elsewhere; Dien Bien Phu is mentioned only in passing. 1963 is when the story begins with the coup of Ngo Dinh Diem and ends with the collapse of Saigon in 1975. While I was a little disappointed by this, it must simply be understood that the Vietnam War for Wawro is that of the American juggernaut being bested by a country that few could point out on a map.
The details and trajectory of the war are far too much to lay out in a book review, but it’s not overbearing for Wawro, who does an excellent job explaining the coups, campaigns, sieges and cease fires that made up this confounding war. Troop movements are elaborated on without being overbearing, accompanied with enough maps to get a decent bearing on what is happening. The politics are distilled enough to understand the motivations of politicians without being diluted with unnecessary details. It makes for a fast and eye-opening read. The subterfuge of Johnson and Nixon are laid out plainly, not because Wawro is a biased writer pushing his views on the reader, but because his copious amounts of research simply point to this being the conclusion. This makes for a difficult read; not from Wawro’s writing, but from my country’s deceit.
Of the 26 chapters that make up the book, the chapters on Khe Sanh and Hamburger Hill were my personal favorites. These are battles that I’ve heard about in passing, but never read further into. These chapters are where Wawro shines. Not only are the troop movements and tactics discussed, but the violence on the ground is exposed to the reader as well. This is something that far too many military history books neglect. Discussing strategy is important, but flesh-and-blood men and women are the ones who have to carry it out. Death and destruction cannot be removed from battle, and Wawro acknowledges this. He describes vivid scenes of American Marines living in mud for months on end at the siege of Khe Sanh, with NVA mortars and artillery killing many and frightening more. The dense and humid jungles surrounding Hamburger Hill are illustrated in gripping detail, as American troops struggle to ascend the slope under heavy fire from a seemingly invisible enemy. The loss of life is explained in detail, an important aspect of the war for it helped lose the support of the American public and invigorated the North Vietnamese/Viet Cong.
For those looking for a one-volume history on American involvement in the Vietnam War, Geoffrey Wawro’s “The Vietnam War: A Military History” is a great option. While the social elements are only referenced in passing, is is a military history after all. What it does do is describe the politicking, strategy, and fighting in a coherent and vivid manner. This is an easy five star read, and one that I would recommend to anybody intrigued with how a great power can stumble its way from prosperity to disaster.
- Geoffrey Wawro
In 1945, America was at the height of its power after the defeat of Axis forces in World War II. The economy was booming, its pop culture from things like Hollywood and Rock n Roll were about to take the world by storm, public trust in American institutions was considerable, and international prestige was like never before. If a definition for zenith was to be found, it was in the United States of America.
Then came the Vietnam War.
I knew of the broad strokes of how America stumbled in and out of Vietnam, but Geoffrey Wawro paints a vivid picture of what just might be the most perfectly misguided war I have ever read about, and does so with both engaging and entertaining writing. Bungled operations, shaky allies, thousands of deaths in vain, willfully neglected intelligence reports that could have prevented this entire mess of a war. Wawro has uncovered a story of lies, callousness, ignorance, and atrocity that would rival any spy novel. What I would give to wish it were only fiction.
Wawro focuses strictly on the American involvement in Vietnam. Any readers wanting to learn about the misadventures of France in the jungles of Vietnam must look elsewhere; Dien Bien Phu is mentioned only in passing. 1963 is when the story begins with the coup of Ngo Dinh Diem and ends with the collapse of Saigon in 1975. While I was a little disappointed by this, it must simply be understood that the Vietnam War for Wawro is that of the American juggernaut being bested by a country that few could point out on a map.
The details and trajectory of the war are far too much to lay out in a book review, but it’s not overbearing for Wawro, who does an excellent job explaining the coups, campaigns, sieges and cease fires that made up this confounding war. Troop movements are elaborated on without being overbearing, accompanied with enough maps to get a decent bearing on what is happening. The politics are distilled enough to understand the motivations of politicians without being diluted with unnecessary details. It makes for a fast and eye-opening read. The subterfuge of Johnson and Nixon are laid out plainly, not because Wawro is a biased writer pushing his views on the reader, but because his copious amounts of research simply point to this being the conclusion. This makes for a difficult read; not from Wawro’s writing, but from my country’s deceit.
Of the 26 chapters that make up the book, the chapters on Khe Sanh and Hamburger Hill were my personal favorites. These are battles that I’ve heard about in passing, but never read further into. These chapters are where Wawro shines. Not only are the troop movements and tactics discussed, but the violence on the ground is exposed to the reader as well. This is something that far too many military history books neglect. Discussing strategy is important, but flesh-and-blood men and women are the ones who have to carry it out. Death and destruction cannot be removed from battle, and Wawro acknowledges this. He describes vivid scenes of American Marines living in mud for months on end at the siege of Khe Sanh, with NVA mortars and artillery killing many and frightening more. The dense and humid jungles surrounding Hamburger Hill are illustrated in gripping detail, as American troops struggle to ascend the slope under heavy fire from a seemingly invisible enemy. The loss of life is explained in detail, an important aspect of the war for it helped lose the support of the American public and invigorated the North Vietnamese/Viet Cong.
For those looking for a one-volume history on American involvement in the Vietnam War, Geoffrey Wawro’s “The Vietnam War: A Military History” is a great option. While the social elements are only referenced in passing, is is a military history after all. What it does do is describe the politicking, strategy, and fighting in a coherent and vivid manner. This is an easy five star read, and one that I would recommend to anybody intrigued with how a great power can stumble its way from prosperity to disaster.
June 18, 2025
As an American, I was aware of the Vietnam war, but never really interested enough to really look into it. My knowledge came from movies, mostly.
With this book, Wawro has crafted a perfect one-volume tome on the war, and made it so anyone can see what a futile massacre it was for everyone involved.
The book itself covers, year by year, the US military involvement in Vietnam and how the Johnson and Nixon administrations were essentially acting without a plan. Johnson wanted a quick, cheap war, and the delusions of the Pentagon in planning and waging that war.
The strategic dullness is met with tactically uncreative tactics that North Vietnam was able to learn and counter almost immediately. The US advantages in firepower were relied upon to an almost comical degree, with horrific results for the noncombatants in the South.
There is a maddening monotony to the US' conduct in the war that Wawro fully explored. Obsessions with statistics like body count over nation building doom the effort as early as 1965, and repeated air assaults via helicopter and bomber raids so nothing except kill civilians and force the NVA to keep moving.
The book was enraging in parts. While the massacre in Mai Lai is well known, what is less so is the Einsatzgruppen action in the Mekong during Operation Speedy Express. Close to 10,000 civilians ("A Mai Lai a day") were deliberately targeted and killed by war criminal Ewell in an attempt to bloat the body count stastics. These and other little crimes really got to me, and the book had me raging at the uselessness of the South Vietnamese and the other strongmen in Cambodian and Laos
My only real complaint is sometimes the tone he takes with the NVA/VC is a bit bipolar. One reads the NVA is mopping the floor with ARVN, and then how the politburo in Hanoi was this close to collapse. Both can be true of course, but the transitions between them were a little jarring and make it difficult to get a read on the North Vietnamese.
Truly a masterful book I devoured in just a few days. highly recommend
With this book, Wawro has crafted a perfect one-volume tome on the war, and made it so anyone can see what a futile massacre it was for everyone involved.
The book itself covers, year by year, the US military involvement in Vietnam and how the Johnson and Nixon administrations were essentially acting without a plan. Johnson wanted a quick, cheap war, and the delusions of the Pentagon in planning and waging that war.
The strategic dullness is met with tactically uncreative tactics that North Vietnam was able to learn and counter almost immediately. The US advantages in firepower were relied upon to an almost comical degree, with horrific results for the noncombatants in the South.
There is a maddening monotony to the US' conduct in the war that Wawro fully explored. Obsessions with statistics like body count over nation building doom the effort as early as 1965, and repeated air assaults via helicopter and bomber raids so nothing except kill civilians and force the NVA to keep moving.
The book was enraging in parts. While the massacre in Mai Lai is well known, what is less so is the Einsatzgruppen action in the Mekong during Operation Speedy Express. Close to 10,000 civilians ("A Mai Lai a day") were deliberately targeted and killed by war criminal Ewell in an attempt to bloat the body count stastics. These and other little crimes really got to me, and the book had me raging at the uselessness of the South Vietnamese and the other strongmen in Cambodian and Laos
My only real complaint is sometimes the tone he takes with the NVA/VC is a bit bipolar. One reads the NVA is mopping the floor with ARVN, and then how the politburo in Hanoi was this close to collapse. Both can be true of course, but the transitions between them were a little jarring and make it difficult to get a read on the North Vietnamese.
Truly a masterful book I devoured in just a few days. highly recommend
February 10, 2025
I was not familiar with this author prior to this book. This is a very well researched and written account of the Vietnam War starting from the transition of the conflict from the French to the United States. It delves into the political and military aspects of the conflict without being overly verbose or technical, especially about the combat part of the conflict. I would definitely have given it five stars for its content and handling of the history of the war. I did not because it evinces a bias against some, if not all, of the players. Now, this is likely very well deserved but to me, a historian has to keep personal feeling out of pure historical writing. This book castigates General Westmoreland and all the presidents in office during the course of the war, but really vilifies Johnson. As stated, after reading it I am sure it is justified and I applaud the author for having the character to provide unvarnished analysis and recitation of the events. Still, sometimes it seemed more like reading a critical briefing as opposed to a history. Enough of my personal feelings about writing style, this is an excellent and needed book on a criminally underrepresented era of US history. I was horrified to learn much of what was set forth regarding the political side and how justified all of the protesting really was, even when people couldn't have known the truths revealed at that time. So many people were affected and, as the book amply demonstrates, for no good reason at all. If you're a history buff or someone who wants to know the nitty gritty of the Vietnam War this is one of the best one volume histories I have encountered, especially on that subject. Lastly, my sincere and heartfelt respect and gratitude to all who served there....please know that you are not forgotten and that so many us hold you in the pantheon of warrior heroes of our nation.
July 31, 2025
Geoffrey Wawro's book The Vietnam War: A Military History is the best one volume on the Vietnam War. Wawro gets right into it and begins in 1964 with President Lyndon Johnson. I found it interesting that were advisors early on telling Johnson that this was unwinnable. This was stated multiple throughout the book. South Vietnam was a corrupt and unstable government. Let's also remember the Vietnamese people had been fighting for a long time. I remember in my Vietnam class they interviewed a member of the Vietcong, and he said that they fought the Japanese, the French, and others that the Americans were just the next ones to fight. He added they were used to war.
Wawro's book was readable and engaging, but there were a few moments I admit I found it to be a chore to get through. I have heard through the years the US lost the war because it did not invade North Vietnam and use more force in Laos and Cambodia. Wawro debunks those myths, and that is definitely one of the strengths of his book.
Wawro's book was readable and engaging, but there were a few moments I admit I found it to be a chore to get through. I have heard through the years the US lost the war because it did not invade North Vietnam and use more force in Laos and Cambodia. Wawro debunks those myths, and that is definitely one of the strengths of his book.
February 25, 2025
This was or is a very through look into the Vietnam War and the Polotics behind the war as well. Really begins in WWII then takes you through when the French was in power and the struggles that they had. The aid that we supplied started in the fifties and when the French lost a huge battle we really stepped in with personal just as advisors. Not officially fighting until 1965 but the author will take you through the victories and the losses even those were mainly caused by higher ups. Eventually you see that their really was no straight forward commentment, and that is what I had always heard from my family who fought over there. A very in depth look into the war from all sides and on book that I will be reading again.
July 15, 2025
Okay I didn't know what to rate this because it's so different from literally every book I've ever read. As most of you know I have fallen into a Vietnam War hole post my trip to Vietnam and this book really did satisfy my craving for knowledge. However, holy crap it was dense. I can't remember the last time a book took me this many pick-ups to finish. Overall, it was incredibly well researched and organized and set up for a military history newbie (me) to understand and grasp what was happening and why. There were a couple times where Geoffrey would say something like "they felt xyz" and I was a little bit like... how do you know how they felt... but that's okay! TLDR: US should've never been in the war and Nixon/Kissinger are evil.
December 21, 2025
(audiobook) I have read many books covering the Vietnam War. Also books about America, about Vietnam and SE Asia to try to understand why the US involved itself in this, purely political war. This excellent book is the best I've yet in explaining, why. It is written with clarity, without sensationalism and biase. It contains the good, the bad and the horrendously ugly. It's packed with quotes and data, some jaw dropping, example;
The U.S. dropped over 2 million tons of bombs (more than in WWII) on Laos, equivalent to a planeload every eight minutes for nine years.
Laos was a neutral country, not at war with the US. It was a CIA-run operation, largely hidden from the American public.
I hope as many young Americans, and others, read/listen to this book.
The U.S. dropped over 2 million tons of bombs (more than in WWII) on Laos, equivalent to a planeload every eight minutes for nine years.
Laos was a neutral country, not at war with the US. It was a CIA-run operation, largely hidden from the American public.
I hope as many young Americans, and others, read/listen to this book.
October 27, 2024
While very much focused on the US side of the equation - the North Vietnamese thoughts and discussions are more sketched out to provide context for US decision making, the moral rage at the futility of the whole affair sustains this book. No real revisionist attempts here, and an excoriating dissection of the moral and intellectual failings of the US armed forces (and their politicians - the title is perhaps slightly misleading, as more than most wars, management and direction of the US efforts in the Vietnam war were subject to vast intervention by politicians, generally for short term venal goals)
Highly recommended
Highly recommended
June 14, 2025
As a Vietnam vet (1967-68) this book was a must read to find who did what and when. Over 570 pages so its a big commitment of time and energy but well worth it. If not sure go to end and read the conclusions which the author backs up in great detail over and over again. I learned new facts about the war and how it was screwed up. For example President Nixon's efforts to hamper a possible truce just before 1968 elections to hamper LBJ and in turn VP Humphrey his Democratic opponent. There are many more cited in the book. The 'best and brightest' were not so in the White House, Joint Chiefs of Staff and generals running the war in country.
December 19, 2024
One of the best comprehensive histories of the Vietnam War. There was some revisionist history beginning to circulate around the time the US was involved in Iraq and Wawro dispels these myths.
While it doesn’t offer any revelations for a reader well versed in the topic. It’s meticulously researched and well written. I also liked that he tied the fates of Cambodia and Laos to US action in Vietnam.
For those of us born in the sixties and seventies. This War was our Odyssey. And we should not forget the harsh lessons.
While it doesn’t offer any revelations for a reader well versed in the topic. It’s meticulously researched and well written. I also liked that he tied the fates of Cambodia and Laos to US action in Vietnam.
For those of us born in the sixties and seventies. This War was our Odyssey. And we should not forget the harsh lessons.
September 3, 2025
The Vietnam War has always been high on the list of “things I should know more about.”
This book adds much necessary context to movies like “Platoon” and is great written reinforcement to the information in the Ken Burns documentary.
At times, the book felt overly long and repetitive, but I am sure the subject matter contributed to that feeling. The war itself was long combat scenarios repeating themselves due to the same bad decisions being made for the same wrong reasons over the entirety of the conflict.
I am glad to have read it and applaud the author’s diligence in his research.
This book adds much necessary context to movies like “Platoon” and is great written reinforcement to the information in the Ken Burns documentary.
At times, the book felt overly long and repetitive, but I am sure the subject matter contributed to that feeling. The war itself was long combat scenarios repeating themselves due to the same bad decisions being made for the same wrong reasons over the entirety of the conflict.
I am glad to have read it and applaud the author’s diligence in his research.
September 7, 2025
Geoffrey Wawro has written an absolutely lacerating new history of what he correctly calls an American war of choice. It's a chronicle of mendacity and gaslighting from the very beginning; all the main players are here, from the forever dithering LBJ to the deceitful Westmoreland to the cynical, callous duo of Nixon and Kissinger. What's different about Wawro's book is how much he brings the focus back where it should be, on the South Vietnamese people, and how U.S. strategy and tactics were seemingly designed to alienate them, ensuring defeat in the end.
November 22, 2024
Every American owes it to themselves to read this remarkable work by Geoffrey Wawro. Throw away titles: Democrat, Republican, and whatever to learn, finally, of the truths that anniliated our young fighting men, our country, our belief in political leaders. Lies, distortion on body counts to pad "the war". A very sad book that had no winner. Only the reader with a clear open mind.
May 12, 2025
This is a great book that gives a solid high level overview of the Vietnam war. It is primarily from the US perspective and heavily focuses on why the US failed in Vietnam. On its own it gives a great overview, but you will probably want to pair it with books from Vietnam’s perspective to get a truly comprehensive view of the war.
Still a great and accessible read.
Still a great and accessible read.
April 23, 2024
A good book on the war in Vietnam. The author does a good job of looking at the political aspects as well as the human costs of the war. An informative book for the history fans.
Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
January 3, 2025
Exceptional
As a military physician in the 1990s I was fortunate to care for Vietnam veterans of all ranks and backgrounds. This well researched book corroborates their descriptions of the frustration they rig
As a military physician in the 1990s I was fortunate to care for Vietnam veterans of all ranks and backgrounds. This well researched book corroborates their descriptions of the frustration they rig
August 14, 2025
Pretty all-encompassing account of the folly of Vietnam. A compelling argument against sunk cost fallacy and the hubris of career military men, Wawro’s military history of Vietnam is broad in its scope and scathing in its conclusion. There are no winners.
March 2, 2025
Excellent.
October 8, 2025
My top book of the year so far. Unsparing in his analysis and criticism of America's mis-guided war effort. Top notch work of history.
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