I was taught in high school history class that the Tet offensive in the Vietnam War was orchestrated to catch the attention of western media in the hopes that it would cause more public outcry to bring US troops home. I was also taught that if it weren't for the media coverage of the offensive, the U.S. would have achieved victory. How true are these statements?
The North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive in the hopes that mass uprisings would join them in the South, which didn't happen. It was a massive media and propaganda victory for the Communists, but a major military failure for the Viet Cong. At the time, generals and news reports kept saying how many VC were killed in battle, how many bombs were dropped, etc., as a marker for "winning the war". The VC were supposedly disjointed groups of villagers and farmers incapable of launching large attacks, let alone a massive offensive like Tet. The Tet Offensive proved the generals and reports wrong after VC, with NV help, attacked dozens and dozens of bases and cities across South Vietnam. However, the VC were essentiallywiped out as an effective fighting force, and North Vietnam had to send regular troops to replace the losses.
Despite media the coverage, the US was still trying to win a counterinsurgency in the south while fighting North Vietnam with a limited warfare approach, handicapping its forces with what they could and could not do. Even if the US fought with all its might, it was still fighting a brutal insurgency that had been fighting for independence from occupying forces for decades, so victory is questionable.