Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Burmese regime is one of world's most unruly, despotic, prolific, and it can be wiped out clean by US military with ease, without involving any of its allies Maybe you missed the memo, but there is plenty of precedent for US getting its ass handed to it trying to "clean up" despotic states in SE Asia. And as far as doing it without allies, to quote Robert McNamara: > What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of om…
I am glad you unearthed NcNamara here. US lost in Vietnam because people like him were idiots. US military was not attacking, nor defending, but doing god knows what for entirety of the Vietnam campaign because cool kids like McNamara, Nixon, and Kisinger were coming up with their "innovative theories," and trying "redefining the nature of warfare, and politics." For the entirety of Vietnam war, US military had the f…
So yeah, the US could have won by going nuclear, as Nixon briefly considered at Khe Sanh. But that wouldn't have turned the war, he would have had to escalate to nuking Hanoi. And destroying an entire population to effect regime change is not really "winning" in any sense of the word.
There was nothing simple about winning in Vietnam, and the US was never in any position to crush the North.