text: what major mistakes did the american military make in the vietnam war?   the united states was never willing to do what was necessary to end north vietnamese and world communism help to the viet cong insurrection, if we can use world war ii as an example. president johnson was always presented with options that could have truly devastated north vietnam, but it would have amounted to the amount of civilian casualties that he simply was not willing to take responsibility for. he could have flooded much of north vietnam like the usaf flooded the rhine valley. he was never willing to strike the most important targets because they were very likely to have russian advisors present, and he was not willing to start world war iii.  no american administration was willing to really confront the problem of the corruption in the south vietnamese leadership. while the usaf was obliterating the ho chi minh trail, the arvn leadership was selling war material to the viet cong. the arvn leadership was fleecing their own people and putting them into relocation camps not to protect them but to take their land.  president nixon was often using action in the vietnam war as cover for his domestic problems, as stated in an interview with pat buchanan. he was willing to make an uneven peace in 1973 to get peoples' minds off of other problems.  the war was not lost by the soldiers, it was lost by the politicians in washington and in saigon.