"At long last, the U.S. understands Vietnam" Topic

"Nations often change their minds. But over Vietnam the changes have been little short of, well, mind boggling. Just 50 years ago the United States and Australia saw Hanoi as the puppet of an aggression-minded Beijing. Intervention against Hanoi in the Vietnam civil was seen as crucial in preventing the advance of China and communism southwards into the rest of Asia — the domino theory. Today both the U.S. and Canberra have switched 180 degrees. Both seek a close relationship with Hanoi in the hope that Vietnam will help block yet another feared southward Chinese advance, this time into the South China Sea.

Where once the U.S. rained bombs, napalm and toxic Agent Orange over Vietnam, it now bombards Hanoi with invitations for its highest officials to visit the U.S. On his recent visit to Washington, the general secretary of the Vietnam communist party, Nguyen Phu Trong, was granted the privilege of a cosy tete-a-tete with President Barack Obama in the White House Oval Office. Even close allies do not get that sort of treatment.

True, nations are allowed to change policies as circumstances change. But the Hanoi then was the same as the Hanoi of today — sensible, pragmatic and fairly anti-China. When pro-communist President Ho Chi Minh in 1945 announced Vietnam's breaking free from French domination he quoted from the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Yet somehow our policymakers managed to convince themselves despite all the evidence to the contrary that Hanoi was dominated by a communist ogre in Beijing that had to be contained at all costs…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Really? Another revisionist baby boomer supporting the peace loving communist of the north.

The war was fought, our side lost in the end, but please don't tell me the communist that brought you the 5,000 civilians (or was it 15,000, can't remember off the top of my head) killed at Hue in '68 or raise to power of Pol Pot with 1 million killed, were the good guys. I know Pot was a student of Mao, while the Vietnamese were more in line with the Soviets, but while the war with the Free World Forces was going on they were good Allies. Most supplies for the Vietnamese communist came from the Soviets through China.

One of the reasons for Nixon's visit to China in 1972 was to tighten those supply lines, hence putting pressure on the North Vietnamese at the Paris peace conference. China was more than willing to do this as they knew the Western powers were leaving and the age old issue with a Soviet backed Vietnam would return.

This is followed my the mining of the North Vietnamese harbors to restrict Soviet supply ships from making up the short fall.

The Chinese and Vietnamese have never really liked each other, but we're communist allies for decades. Many of the guns used at Dien Bien Phu were shipped there from the Chinese. As soon as Western powers were gone China invaded Vietnam in 1979.

The West didn't have it wrong, the Soviets and Chinese communist were a threat to the region in the early Cold War. Were the governments (read LBJ) got it wrong (along with many other things) was in how the war should be fought.

If the Vietnamese are being open to the return Western powers it is only because they are afraid of China. The article has it backwards, they need us a lot more than we need them.

Typical 1960s leftist trying to explain how his views of that time were right when history has shown how wrong they were.

Not that easy. The original Vietnamese war was basically an independence war against France. If France had pulled, or if the US hadn't intervened, many of the later excesses may not have happened. Certainly, the feared domino effect itself didn't happen anyway – few countries but the area soon stabilised. Probable result? By now Vietnam could have been a stauch American ally in the Region.

I say could because, of course, noone knows.

Actually, the Viet Minh cooperated with the French to get rid of the non-communist nationalists. Sure they wanted independence, but only one way – under their communism. They killed thousands to get that done.

Only once they had eliminated the non-communist nationalists did the Viet Minh take on the French.

One might ask the Laotians and the Cambodians if the domino effect happened. It stopped at Thailand as that country had a king the people strongly supported, they had a middle class that was successful, and with U.S. training their special forces were able to handle the local communists.

Tom

Tom

So to sum up, we will never know what would have happened on the road not taken.

Shame that the South Vietnamese government was hideously corrupt, the US burned a lot of political capital backing them.

I know almost nothing about practically everything. I've read March of Folly. And I remember little of the Vietnam "betrayal" chapter. I've read online sporadically and shallowly since then. I was up for the draft but it ended while I was serving my LDS mission. Vietnam was a bogeyman country to my generation. Nothing made any sense. All was contradiction and discord. Nothing has improved the landscape since the war "ended".

Today we have revisionism, spelled "opinion". This is an opinion piece, nothing more. We have so many of them.

One thing I DO know: the USA has gone wrong every time it has stuck its nose into the business of nations going wrong, spelled "Communistic". We haven't the first clue about how that will go down with the locals. And so we screw the pooch one more time. Iraq and the whole ME is just another "Communism" arising that we must fight.

No we mustn't. We need to get the hell out of it and stay out of it.

Back then, if the USA had simply allowed Communism to "flourish" in the parts of the world that adopted it, where would we be today? Diplomacy backed by enormous, dedicated forces of defense, would have kept us and ours safe. NATO was a good idea to draw the lines of demarcation. We settled nothing by scrambling eggs. Waiting Communism out is the key: because it doesn't work. Free market abundance produces a far larger, less expensive military than Communism can ever hope to raise and maintain.

Don't tell me that there weren't a lot of people back then that knew this was true, and counseled "wait and see". Of course, that didn't go down well with big business, which was in the business of growing the military.

So we CREATED our enemy, in order to keep our military-based economy rolling after the 2WW. It was all a put up job. My generation knew this in their cells and fought against "that war". Even coming to blows with our own military over it.

Today is no different vis-à-vis confrontation with a tyrannical ideology. We cannot crush it, ergo it will continue only as long as "the people" give it power to endure and expand.

We have to trust in our own morality (which we need to seriously rededicate ourselves to), our own rights and our way of life. Exemplary behavior and proof of our superiority will convince everyone to adopt "the American recipe" for material success and abundance. "The good life" is what everyone is after – except for a relative handful of rabble who want to burn down the world. They will always be with us. We ID them and take them out, "surgically", which we increasingly can do today. We don't have to be in a rush about it either. When one of "them" has committed such excesses (they always do) that they have even begun to alienate their own, that is when their removal will be welcomed and not condemned.

Vietnam was "back then". The ME and Asia are NOW. We don't learn much from the past except that intervention through military means is mistaken in all cases except the last extremity to put an end to an already ongoing war that is consuming everyone "over there".

If, on the other hand, we have our own domestic terrorists to deal with, we cannot eradicate anything "over there" until we have cured our own problem at home.

I don't see this as a problem, really. A media looking for stories makes each incident of violence into a religio-racial issue when it isn't anything more than an individual case of a nutjob acting out. We only hurt ourselves, our society, when we expand that kind of rogue behavior to include our other-religious neighbors.

On the corruption issue: we are corrupt ourselves. So that needs to change first. Then we need to not back any corruption abroad. Seems simple enough to me….

Nope – not going there. I see the Dawghouse getting filled again…

Great War- Thanks!

Good threads boys.

Amicalement
Armand

I feel like I read a completely different article then you gents.

Actually, the Viet Minh cooperated with the French to get rid of the non-communist nationalists. Sure they wanted independence, but only one way – under their communism. They killed thousands to get that done.

Only once they had eliminated the non-communist nationalists did the Viet Minh take on the French.

Urr… so exactly when did that period of cooperation happen?

It stopped at Thailand as that country had a king the people strongly supported, they had a middle class that was successful, and with U.S. training their special forces were able to handle the local communists.

The Thai middle class is something that only became relevant in the 90s and you are forgetting a major factor that saved that domino's bacon: after the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam, Beijing ordered the CPT to cease its armed struggle in order to present a united national front against Vietnam.

If I am not mistaken the Vietnamese took out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge because of their genocide.

"Certainly, the feared domino effect itself didn't happen anyway"

I've always wondered if the reason the domino effect didn't happen was because we held it up in Vietnam for 10 years. That may have ben enough to stop the momentum that was feared.

"One thing I DO know: the USA has gone wrong every time it has stuck its nose into the business of nations going wrong, spelled "Communistic"."

I have to disagree on this one. if you look at all the countries the West supported during the cold war, the vast majority have become working, thriving, democracies of one sort or another. There have been some failures, Vietnam being the biggest, but many successes. South Korea, Phillipines, El Salvador, Nicuragua, etc

G'dy, Dn Jackson.

I've always wondered if the reason the domino effect didn't happen was because we held it up in Vietnam for 10 years.

No, I don't think so at all.

VN was the last (successful) gasp, not the start, of the communist campaign to dominate SE Asia (one part of the "Domino Theory"). It was the first post-WW2 war in SE Asia where the US got involved, so the successful earlier counter-insurgencies are probably unknown (or nearly so) in the US.

Communist insurgents had already been defeated or reduced to near-impotence in Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand by 1961. VN flared up in 1960 or so and was escalated in 1965, when US, Australian, South Korean, Thai and New Zealand ground forces were committed to combat operations. That escalation led to a resurgence in both Laos and Cambodia, allowing the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge to take over those countries. In this they were supported by strong, anti-western sentiment that glavanised the locals against their governments. The corruption of those governments, memories of the colonial occupation and the apparent ability of the VN to defy the US and its allies all helped the CT's in Cambodia and Laos with their recruiting.

Nearly simultaneously with the escalation in VN there was also the Konfrontasi, the attempt by Indonesia to destabilise the Malaysian Federation and grab Singapore, Brunei and the rest of Borneo (if not mainland Malaysia as well). Indonesia was encouraged, and to a limited extent supported, by the USSR. And they smacked down hard by troops from the British Commonwealth- something that still disturbs Australian-Indonesian relations today.

So the US did not stop any Domino Effect in SE Asia by fighting in VN- the other "dominoes" had already been secured. If anything the success of the so-called Democratic Republic of Vietnam against the western forces also encouraged the efforts by successful communist insurgencies in central and south America, Africa and the Mid-East.

The VM had learned a lot from the experiences of the insurgents in Malaysia, etc, and from fighting the French, and they used that knowledge ruthlessly. The lessons learned defeating the insurgencies in Malaysia, Burma, Singapore, etc, were nether learned nor accepted by Westmoreland, who seemed to re-fighting the Philippines insurgencies from pre-WW1. Though to be fair the ANZAC experience in Phuoc Tuy suggests the tactics learned in Malaysia and Borneo wouldn't have been as effective as they'd been in Malaysia, anyway.

Dal.

Thanks for the reply Dal. My understanding of the domino theory was that if one country fell to the communists, others would follow. All the successful counterinsurgencies fought by the Commonwealth forces to this point had stopped any country from falling. My thought is that had Vietnam fallen in 1960 to the commies they would have had the manpower, resources, and will to continue the expansion into other countries, (as Cuba tried in Central and South America). By fighting for ten years they were so exhauseted that they couldn't export the revolution, something that was doctorine for the Communists at the time. Just my thought.
Dan

G'day, Dan.

I hadn't thought about it from that point of view. I see your point, however I don't wholly agree. I believe that the war gave as much impetus and inspiration to left-wing and/or nationalist insurgencies as it did to hinder them. It gave insurgents the hope that anything was possible against the former colonial powers. Some nations in Africa and the mid-East succumbed and some were surrendered by international agreement (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, for example), and just as damaging was the rise of regimes like Chile's and Argentina's, in response to the insurgents.

1956 was a big missed opportunity, though why the US didn't pressure France to get out of SE Asia in 1952 was even bigger. But then everyone has 20-20 hindsight, don't they? I don't accept that HCM was a nationalist by nature and communist by forced circumstance (methinks that nationalism was a convenient fig leaf for a committed, hard core totalitarian socialist), but the possibility that a unified VN could play the part of Tito's Yugoslavia in SE Asia existed until 1956. After that it seems the war was inevitable.

I'm not blaming the US for what happened. The USSR, PRC, western Europe, European Oceania and Israel-Palestine all had a hand in creating the events that led to the Cold War and the VN front of that war. The tendency to try to paint VN as anything other than a lost war aggravates me a little. It's as prevalent here as in the US, believe me. But how will we learn the lessons from wars if we immediately start spinning defeat into partial victory?

Still, I'm just as likely to be wrong as right. The only thing I can be certain of is that I was lucky to be too young to go. And extremely fortunate to be trained by those who had been to VN, Malaysia and Borneo!

Cheers, mate.

Dal.

As always, words of wisdom from Dallas!

Risaldar, the period of cooperation between the Viet Minh and the French began when the French returned after WWII. I have just finished that part of one of the most interesting books I have read in a long time.

Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars by Nguyen Cong Luan who lived through it.

See page 46 and others in that part of the book. There were times when the French and Viet Minh jointly attacked non-communists nationalists.

Tom

Very true that the Aussie experience in their sector could not be extrapolated to the country as a whole – let alone into the neighbouring countries that were drawn in.

I once attended a lecture and though much of what the speaker had to saw I did not agree with one thing stuck in my mind and I think it is a key point.

There was not ONE Vietnam war – but many all going on at the same time. There was a village war for control of the peasants. There was a simultaneous, parallel and more conventional war between the PAVN and Main Force NLF and the US Army/Marines. There was an interdiction war trying to cut/maintain supply and a quite separate strategic bombing war over North Vietnam.

The Australians were mainly fighting the Village war with occasional guest appearances in the more conventional war.

Although the Australians managed to pacify and secure their area of operations pretty well this is because they were more or less left alone to do it their way – both by their US bosses and by the main force NLF/PAVN.

You can say the Aussies drove the PAVN/NLF out of their province but I think it was as much a matter of priorities. Greater PAVN/NLF forces were not allocated because there was little to be gained. The same goes to a large extent for the ROK forces. Both difficult to fight and nothing much to be gained from the risk.

ARVN were a softer target and by inflicting losses they could make the GVN even more unpopular.

My response to the OP's article is the US will never understand the Vietnam war or Vietnam because they are not interested in either.

The rapprochement – such as it is – is about the South China Sea and countering China. US self interest though in this case it is in everyone's interest to keep the sea lanes open and reduce the risk of clashes.

Dal, again thanks for the reply. Again, I'm only speculating as there's no way to ever know the truth. However, the Soviets were doing everything they could to foment unrest in any country aligned with the west, including within western countries themselves. I have no doubt that Ho was a died in the wool communist and the nationalist front was just that, a front. Its just a thought, but I do think there's something to it that had we allowed Vietnam to fall to the commies in 60, they may well have spread throughout much more of SEA. I look at what Cuba did under Castro and could see the same thing happening in 'Nam under Ho.

G'day.

Blackie, wisdom is one thing I can never be accused of, mate!

Tom, thanks for the book recommendation. I'll see if I can get my hands on it, as it sounds as if it will answer quite a few questions I have.

Skarper, it's the post-war writers who try to paint Phuoc Tuy as a complete success. The blokes who were there had a much more realistic view- they had some wins, but the job itself was too big for the resources allocated and the strategies that were adopted. Neither the PAVN nor the NLF/VC were ever completely kicked out of the province- they left and came back as their requirements dictated, as you say. 275 VC REGT never left at all, and 33 PAVN REGT wandered in and out as needed. They got a few bloody noses, such as at Bihn Ba, Long Tan and in OP Hammersley, in the Long Hais, but their activities weren't curtailed to the extent some pop histories say.

I like your term "village war". It does describe the basis of 1ATF's activities very well.

Dan, thank you for your replies, too. We essentially agree, especially about the USSR's stirring the pot. I don't think it's any coincidence that insurgencies in Malaya and Burma went hot just after the Berlin Blockade happened and that there's a good argument for the validity of the Domino Theory. Soviet actions in Asia, Africa, Central-South America and the Mid-East provide enough evidence, if people don't want to accept the Politburo's own statements of intent.

Cambodia would have been at risk, but with a more popular government SEATO intervention may have succeeded there, when it didn't in VN.

Laos is less certain, as Laotians have always seemed to view VN as a very real threat, yet the Pathet Lao were USSR/NVN supported. Without the SEATO bombing of Laos would the PL be able to destabilise the country enough to put it at risk?

Forget anything further west. Although the Thai insurgency lasted into the mid 80's and Chin Peng's in Malaysia until '89, in both cases the movements had devolved into little more than criminal gangs, and didn't provide a real threat. The Thais were quite capable of fighting the PAVN at any level needed, as they showed time and again in the 60's, while the Malays were sick of east-Asians, particularly communist ones, interferring in their country. So I see the result as being no worse than what happened, but without the damage to SEATO nations' political will and international standing.

Then again, we may also have seen the The Mamas & the Papas singing "If You're Going to San Francisco" on the steps of the Hanoi Palace, with HCM accompanying them on sitar while the Age of Aquarius swept the world.

But probably not.

Cheers.

Dal.

I think the domino theory is pretty much discredited now.

The big threat of countries like Vietnam going their own way without the approval of the US was in serving as an example to others.

The US didn't want the Philippines going democratic because it was a major US base and Indonesia had important resources so any populist movements had to be crushed – and they were with US support.

This was also the risk with Cuba. Even today few are aware of the decades long campaign of terror waged against Cuba with US support and from sanctuaries inside the USA.

There was Soviet and Chinese support for North Vietnam but they didn't need to 'foment' anything. Ho Chi Minh's first and natural port of call for help against the French was the USA. His early appeals were ignored time and again. IMO a big factor is the change in direction when FDR died and was replaced by Truman. FDR was a moral compass while Truman was a weather vane.

The US even today talks a lot about freedom and democracy but it's code for subservience and obedience. Time and again they install, support and sustain dictators in preference to democratically elected and supported government. When they are ousted the US frequently harbours them and their henchmen.

Maybe it really is in the US interests to do this – I'm doubtful myself but accept a case can be made for such 'Realpolitik'.

But let's not pretend the US wants or works to increase democracy anywhere in the world – even at home.

And it matters little what party occupies the Whitehouse.

Skarper, I'm not talking about the US' motivation for getting involved, I'm talking about what I see as being the result of the involvement. Let's face it, the world was two armed camps with a few nations huddling behind hopeful neutrality. When you look at the progression of "Progressive Revolutionary Movements" (pardon the pun) it does follow the Domino pattern. Particularly if you look at sub-Saharan Africa from about '68 onwards and SE Asia from about '43 to the 60's.

Yes, all those revolutions had their genesis in nationalist movements against their colonial masters. They also had a lot of help and support from the USSR or PRC as well. Angola, Afghanistan and Mozambique were probably the most blatant interventions by the Soviets and their satellites, while the colonial powers (including the USA) at least had the legal fig leaf of acting to uphold the established legal authority. Not humankind's finest hours, really.

While the specifics of the Domino Theory may have been wrong- and many writers and theorists love to point out those errors in detail, using the tactic of claiming that if one little bit is wrong, the whole theory is invalid- the general outline and progress of totalitarian regimes did fit the broader theory's pattern. By the same token there was a contrary push by the "Western" nations to extoll the advantages of "democracy" to the "downtrodden masses under the cruel communist yoke". It was no more accidental than was the "liberation" of Zimbabwe, Egypt or Mozambique.

Cuba is well into Blue Fez territory, so I'll duck on that. I don't necessarily disagree, but I believe it's more complicated than Good Cuba, Bad Yankee.

Cheers, mate.

Dal.

I think the Domino theory was always an outright and brazen lie. There was no serious belief that a left wing government in one country would attempt to cause revolution in neighbouring countries.

But there was a parallel theory that the virus of self determination and independence would infect other countries – perhaps quite distant geographically – and cause instability.

It may be quite a nuanced difference but it is nonetheless significant.

I'm not going to pretend that Castro's Cuba is a paradise or a beacon for the respect of human rights. But terrorism is never justifiable.

I'm impressed by how knowledgeable you are despite having a different point of view to me. That's refreshing. And it's more useful to discuss a topic with someone who disagrees.

It's worth noting that even anti-communist Vietnamese I have spoken to think of the war as one of de-colonialism and independence, not one to enforce communist ideology.

But if you were wanting to free yourself from colonialism, there was only one place to turn, so that's where they turned.

Of course, pretty soon after the idea of Vietnamese independence was thoroughly secured, everyone realized that we might as well do some business while we're at it.

Skarper, how boring would life be if everyone agreed on everything? Besides, while I disagree with some of what you're saying, that doesn't mean I reject it outright. I discuss these topics to learn- and occasionally put a myth to bed- and a reasonable argument will change my mind. Weasel made a good point that I hadn't considered, as well, about communism being the only available course for those wanting independence.

I don't really know that much, but the history of SE Asia was very much to the fore as I was growing up. Later, as a young digger, I was trained by men who'd fought in Malaysia, VN, Singapore and Borneo. We learned about the "why" as well as the tactics, etc.

Agreed 100%, terrorism is terrorism. It doesn't matter whether it's IRA, UDF, ISIS, Al Q, the local knitting club or anyone else- if you target innocent people to make a political statement then you're a terrorist. Collecting money for "The Cause" is the same, whether you're in an Irish pub in Atlanta (it happened to a mate- things were a bit awkward until he explained he was Aussie, not British- then got awkward again when he wouldn't "support the cause"), a Cuban bar in Florida or a mosque in Sydney.

Weasel,

But if you were wanting to free yourself from colonialism, there was only one place to turn, so that's where they turned.

That's a bloody good point, mate. And another I hadn't considered. Are you and Dan Jackson tag reaming me?

If you wanted out from under a western colonial power, be it France, the US , the UK or whoever, then I suppose the USSR and PRC were the only likely supporters you'd be able to find. Whereas those wanting out from the Soviet Empire, or just professing an anti-communist dogma, had (parts of) the west ready to help. Too bad if you're in Tibet or are Uighur, though. The PRC seems to be coated with teflon.

Some good points for me to think about.

Thanks.

Dal.

I guess I can come off a little dogmatic sometimes – for which I apologise.

This is a topic I feel strongly about and I often post in haste without editing. Though I may disagree vehemently I'd rather hear another's point of view than not.

Sometimes I type out my post in open office then edit it and let it sit for a while before checking it and posting – or not posting quite often.

One thing I'd like to add is that the 'parts of the west' did not 'help' anyone out of the Soviet Empire, they merely used them to destabilise it. Afghanistan is a case in point. Some of the worst crazies of the Islamic world were trained, armed and fed into Afghanistan/Pakistan and when the Soviets were forced out the US/CIA just let them run riot. It seems the CIA under Carter [how much he actually knew about it is moot] fomented trouble in the region to harass the Soviet Union – leading to the 1979 invasion.

The very same goes for the Chinese/Soviet 'help' to countries wanting to be free from colonialism. Help is available right up to the point they fail to comply with the Soviet/Chinese policy – then cut off or even attacked.

Just because I'm critical of US policy does not mean I am not critical of Soviet or Chinese policy.

One thing I'd like to add is that the 'parts of the west' did not 'help' anyone out of the Soviet Empire, they merely used them to destabilise it.

I'd argue that Yugoslavia was a partial exception, and Austria had help as well. Agreed that the main reason for supporting insurgencies by both (all three?) power blocks was to destabilise the opposition. There was very little altruism in play, despite the big speeches.

I guess I can come off a little dogmatic sometimes – for which I apologise………..than not

No need, mate. It's been a good, amicable discussion IMHO. And there's been two points of view that I'd never considered (Weasel's of them blindingly obvious, but I still missed it).

To me it's a very complicated period of history- and we haven't had a century or two to dissect, analyse and spin stories about it as yet, so how can we possibly understand. I think I have a reasonable idea of what happened, causes and effects. But the I would, wouldn't I?

Just because I'm critical of US policy does not mean I am not critical of Soviet or Chinese policy.

Agreed. There's no clean hands between Antarctica and the north pole.

Cheers.

Dal.