VW7: Failing Strategies and False Optimism

Key Battles of American History

History

4.7 • 861 Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1966 and 1967, the U. S. forces in Vietnam increased their activity, launching many search and destroy missions, including Operation Masher/Whitewing and Operation Junction City. But as the US casualty count and the economic cost of the war rapidly increased, opposition to the war within the U. S. also grew. Meanwhile, in late 1967, the North Vietnamese Army began planning a major offensive that would consist of attacks all over South Vietnam and would hopefully deal a knockout blow to the ARVN and the government of South Vietnam.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding
0:10.7	right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its size,
0:17.1	and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.
0:23.9	Welcome to Key Battles of American History,
0:26.7	a podcast in which we discuss American history
0:28.9	through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.
0:32.7	Here is your host, James Early.
0:43.3	Thank you. host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to Key Battles of the Vietnam War, a 10,000-foot survey of the war
0:48.0	that defined a generation. I'm your host, James Early, as always. And also, as always, I am joined by my co-host, Sean McIver.
0:58.1	All right, Sean, so we, the U.S. finally going to start winning this thing?
1:02.0	What do you think?
1:03.3	I'm not sure about that.
1:05.1	Going to turn it around?
1:06.3	Well, we're going to find out.
1:07.6	The title of this episode is Failing Strategies and False Optimism,
1:12.5	so that kind of tips her hand a little bit, doesn't it, Sean? That doesn't sound very good.
1:17.6	But as always, before we jump into the new events that we're going to discuss in this episode,
1:22.7	let's recap the last one. So we began our last episode by discussing the June 1965 Battle of Dong Shui, fought between a division of the main force
1:32.9	VC, or Viet Cong, and a smaller Arvin force. I think I'll repeat this
1:38.7	once per episode, just to remind everybody, Arvin, of course, is the
1:41.9	Army of the Republic of Vietnam. It's the South
1:44.6	Vietnamese Army. The battle was a disaster for the Arvin, who suffered 18 times as many casualties
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 26 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Key Battles of American History, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Key Battles of American History and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.