How to Lose a War and a Generation

Lyndon Baines Johnson, a man who could twist arms in Congress like a Texas rodeo champ, met his match in the rice paddies of Vietnam. Fresh off the legislative triumphs of the Civil Rights Act and his “Great Society,” Johnson made the fatal mistake of believing he could apply domestic policy logic to a guerrilla war on the other side of the world.

In 1965, Johnson dramatically escalated U.S. involvement in Vietnam. His reasoning? The “domino theory”—the belief that if Vietnam fell to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would soon follow. This was Cold War chess, but Johnson wasn’t playing with a full board. He inherited the mess from Kennedy, sure, but he owned the escalation. Troop levels jumped from 16,000 advisors in 1963 to over 500,000 by 1968.

Johnson greenlit Operation Rolling Thunder, a relentless bombing campaign, and sent young Americans to fight in jungles they couldn’t pronounce against an enemy they couldn’t see. What followed was a slow-motion quagmire—a war without clear objectives, transparent metrics, or public support.

Back home, Americans were watching the carnage on television every night. The draft tore through the working class while deferments shielded the privileged. Protesters filled the streets, college campuses erupted, and public trust in government began its long erosion.

By 1968, the Tet Offensive—a coordinated attack by North Vietnamese forces—proved that official reassurances of “progress” were lies. Johnson’s approval rating cratered. In March, he stunned the nation: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

Editor’s Note: Johnson may have won the War on Poverty, but he lost the war in Vietnam—and with it, the confidence of an entire generation. The tragedy wasn’t just the loss of life; it was the loss of belief that our leaders knew what the hell they were doing. Worse, the massive expense of escalating the Vietnam War strangled the very programs of the Great Society that Johnson championed. It proved—unequivocally—that America could not sustain a “guns and butter” economy. We were lied to then. And let’s be honest, we’re being lied to now.