Missing the Jungle for the Trees

How did US intelligence miss the warning signs of the Tet Offensive? Dmytro Sochnyev revisits one of the Vietnam War’s most consequential intelligence failures. Despite abundant evidence of an imminent large-scale attack, entrenched assumptions and cognitive bias blinded American commanders to the signs. Sochnyev analyses how this misjudgement turned a tactical success into a strategic and political defeat, reshaping U.S. military thinking for decades to come.