The Vietnam War was nearly an American success story, says history professor Mark Moyar in his new book “Triumph Regained: the Vietnam War, 1965-1968.”

“Part of the book is about how the U.S. had been so successful militarily, which hasn’t been fully appreciated,” said Moyar, who is the William P. Harris chair in military history. “The book also looks at missed strategic operations, and I argue that there were some opportunities to take action outside of South Vietnam that could have reshaped the war.”

“Triumph Regained,” published on Jan. 10, is the second volume on the Vietnam War. The book begins in 1965 where his last volume, “Triumph Forsaken,” left off.

In the new book, Moyar argues that the Vietnam War was necessary to curb the flow of communism in Southeast Asia.

“I go into detail on Indonesia and how it confirms the domino theory, which held that if South Vietnam fell, then other countries in the region will fall to communism,” Moyar said.”There was in fact danger of these other dominos falling, and so I show that Vietnam is what helps save Indonesia from communism.”

When Moyar wrote his first book on Vietnam, “Phoenix and the Birds of Prey,” he said he did not believe in domino theory. After further research, he changed his mind.

“That is one of the reasons that I like history,” Moyar said. “You need to be true to the facts if you are a good historian. In other disciplines it is easier to fit the facts to your conclusion, but in good history, you get the facts and then draw conclusions.”

“Triumph Regained” includes new sources released by the North Vietnamese government, which have been overlooked by other scholars of the Vietnam War, according to Moyar.

“North Vietnam has never opened its archives, but they have published a fair amount of useful information,” Moyar said. “Much of it is propaganda, but there is also a good bit of truth you can find if you shift through it carefully.”

By reading correspondence between North Vietnamese officials, Moyar concludes that the U.S. military waged a successful war of attrition under the leadership of General William Westmoreland.

“It turns out the North Vietnamese realized how badly they were doing by 1967,” Moyar said. “They were deluded. They were getting crushed so badly that some of the commanders decided to report the numbers wrong.”

Moyar said he first became interested in the Vietnam War as an undergraduate at Harvard University, where he was taught the anti-war position.

“I started doing reading on my own and it really caused me to question this conventional narrative and pushback on it,” he said.

“Triumph Regained” dispels several myths about the Vietnam war, Moyar said.

“The Vietnam War was a war forged in hate,” said Edward Gutièrrez, director of the college’s Center for Military History and Grand Strategy. “We are blessed to have scholars like Dr. Moyar to put paid to the myths of the war.”

In addition to misunderstandings about American military success, Moyar also tackles misconceptions about public support for the war.

“I show through public opinion polling and also through analyzing the 1968 election that there is still strong public support for the war.”

According to Moyar, it wasn’t until President Gerald Ford’s inability to uphold Nixon’s policy of Vietnamization that support for the war began to wane.

On Monday, the Alexander Hamilton Society hosted a lecture by Moyar on the book, followed by a Q&A session.

“We wanted to host a lecture and Q&A on Dr. Mark Moyar’s book, Triumph Regained, as it is not only a great contribution to the historiography of the Vietnam War, but also a challenge to the long-standing preconceptions about the Vietnam War,” said Connor Bolanos, president of the Alexander Hamilton Society. “The Vietnam War is one of the most popular case studies of twentieth century U.S. foreign policy and Dr. Moyar’s work should make us rethink how we view the Vietnam War in that context.”

 The book touches on atrocities committed by the American military that have colored the American understanding of the war, according to Moyar.

“It’s misleading to say these controversies are emblematic of the war when it’s a couple of officers who are deeply immoral,” Moyar said. “You need to differentiate between national policy and the bad behavior of a few officers.”

Moyar said he hopes his book will give comfort to veterans and their families that the war was a worthy cause.

“A lot of them have been told repeatedly that this war they were part of was a senseless war and that all the blood they shed and the friends they lost was purposeless, but that is not at all the case.”

Since the release of his first book, Moyar said many Vietnam War veterans have reached out to him.

“I have gotten a huge amount of email from veterans and just about all of it is positive—thanking me for correcting a lot of misperceptions and myths that are out there and I think the same will happen for this book,” he said.