Tet Offensive War Analysis

In, The Tet Offensive Intelligence Failure in War, written in 1991, James J. Wirtz claims, Tet had important optimistic implications for Hanoi as it revealed that the massive U.S. military presence had not been able to stop the North Vietnamese Army infiltration into the South. One of the many questions about the Vietnam War that remains to be settled is why the North Vietnamese decided to launch the Tet Offensive and the question is intriguing because the communist offensive was both a dismal military failure and a brilliant political success. Wirtz references Richard Betts claim that, “Tet did not end the war for the communists, but it created the necessary conditions for political victory.” Wirtz’s two explanations of communist objectives are as follows, the first maintains that the shift created in

In contrast, the second explanation, which focuses on the military objectives of the offensive, fails to acknowledge the deteriorating situation faced by the North Vietnamese and VC forces on the eve of Tet. Wirtz examines three aspects of the decision to launch the Tet Offensive, the first, the choice was probably encouraged by a need to end a divisive military debate over the proper response to U.S. involvement; an offensive that utilized the entire range of military assets in the south would serve to appease all sides in the strategy debate by incorporating everyone’s pet project and military organization. Second, the choice was motivated by the military leadership’s observation that they were no longer making significant progress toward the unification of Vietnam under Communist rule; both the North Vietnamese and VC leadership recognized that, if current military developments continued, they would ultimately lack the resources needed for an offensive strong enough to effect the military situation in the