8. The Planned Invasion of North Vietnam
Another Cold War invasion contemplated by the US military but not carried out was of North Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, plans were drawn to end North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam and support for the insurgency there by taking out North Vietnam with a direct invasion. The plan, as described in On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, by Harry G. Summers, was reminiscent of the Normandy invasion. It called for landing an airborne division to the north and west of Hanoi to block off the approaches to the Hanoi-Haiphong region. It was to be accompanied by a seaborne invasion, with three amphibious divisions landed on beaches in the Haiphong area.
The Haiphong force would then advance to Hanoi and linkup up with the airborne troops there. With the Hanoi-Haiphong area secured, outside support would be drastically curtailed. Two major railroads from China would be severed, the country’s main seaport would be in American hands, and the lines of communications to the south would be interdicted. Starved of Chinese and Soviet arms, munitions, and supplies, and cut off from a steady infusion of North Vietnamese manpower, planners expected that organized armed resistance in South Vietnam would soon wane and collapse.