What was 'Tet offensive'?

Answer 1

The North Vietnamese lose the battles, but win the war. That's the shorthand answer but it's incomplete and misleading. The Tet Offensive of 1968, though it received a lot of attention, led directly to nothing. Four years later, the Paris Peace Accords signed on January 27, 1973, ended the fighting between the North and the South and the USA. It came immediately after Nixon was reelected and sworn in again as President for what was thought to be four more years. But a year and a half later, after Nixon was forced from office and replaced by Ford, the US Congress and Ford abandoned the South, leading to the military takeover by the North. That was the break-through the North needed. The South, without assitance from the USA, could not contend with the North, with assistance from the USSR and China. Tet, which the North lost, was neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause of the victory by the north. A change in the US government is what was required, and that change was not even an indirect result of Tet.

Answer 2

The Tet Offensive was a turning point in the Vietnam War (1954-75). The assault began during Tet, a festival of the lunar new year, on January 30, 1968. Though a truce had been called for the holiday, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong issued a series of attacks on dozens of South Vietnamese cities, including the capital of Saigon, as well as military and air installations. American troops and the South Vietnamese struggled to regain control of the cities, in one case destroying a village (Ben Tre) in order to "save it" from the enemy. Fighting continued into February. Though the Communist North ultimately failed in its objective to hold any of the cities, the offensive was critical in the outcome of the war: As images of the fighting and destruction filled print and television media, Americans saw that the war was far from over, despite pre-Tet reports of progress in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive strengthened the public opinion that the war could not be won. It altered the course of the American war effort, with President Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973) scaling back U.S. commitment to defend South Vietnam.