Historic Parallel: “Like On The Eve Of The Tet Offensive”

While NATO propaganda insists that Russia is not winning the war in Ukraine and that Kiev will be able to defeat the Russian army provided it is supplied enough weapons, intelligence agencies know that the reality is quite different. At the weekly “Manhattan project dialogue” on Feb. 18, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern likened the situation to the eve of the famous 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam.  At that time, intelligence officials had correctly estimated the Vietcong force to be at least 500,000 and possibly 600,000, but Gen. William Westmoreland, commander-in-chief of US forces in Vietnam, and his deputy General Creighton Abrams decided to suppress the information. They put out the figure of 299,000 and said that the US could turn the tide with 206,000 more men.

A few months later, in January 1968, the North Vietnamese launched a surprise attack on such a scale as to confirm the first estimates. Eventually, US and South Vietnamese forces could contain the offensive, but the U.S. public opinion was so shocked by the capacities shown by the Vietcong, that President Johnson decided to start negotiations to end the war.

What is the lesson for today? McGovern said he had recently “talked to a very senior military analyst, who should be a general, but is not. He’s the best there is.” He said that when the Russians start to move in earnest, which will be in the ensuing weeks, the political effect will be similar to Tet. “But the true military effect will be far greater. The incremental roll-out of Russian forces marshalled in southern Ukraine and western Russia has disguised the actual size and dimensions of the offensive operations.”. In other words, McGovern explained, “the adolescent sophomores around Biden have been able to downplay the intelligence” that had prompted the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Milley, to say about one month ago that “now’s the time we really ought to negotiate. Eventually, he backtracked and said that the Russians are losing.” For the moment, concluded McGovern, “there’s no sense that the West has any idea of dealing now”.