Description: Drawing on a wealth of new evidence from all sides, Triumph Forsaken overturns most of the historical orthodoxy on the Vietnam War. Through the analysis of international perceptions and power, it shows that South Vietnam was a vital interest of the United States. The book provides many new insights into the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 and demonstrates that the coup negated the South Vietnamese government's tremendous, and hitherto unappreciated, military and political gains between 1954 and 1963. After Diem's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson had at his disposal several aggressive policy options that could have enabled South Vietnam to continue the war without a massive US troop infusion, but he ruled out these options because of faulty assumptions and inadequate intelligence, making such an infusion the only means of saving the country.
Brief description: Dr Mark Moyar is the Kim T. Adamson Chair of Insurgency and Terrorism at the US Marine Corps University. He holds a B.A. summa cum laude in history from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University. A frequent commentator on historical and current events, his articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He is also the author of Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam.
Review Quotes: "Moyar is a fine writer and switches from broad strategic and geopolitical issues to heart-gripping accounts of key military actions...Today's military leaders and policy-makers would do well to ponder this book."
- Leatherneck