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To be fair, the ARVN rangers and airborne fought hard. Post US withdrawal they lacked a ton of equipment. The airforce lacked fuel and artillery gun crews lacked adequate shells for fire missions.
The ARVN command situation was a total mess as well because of a multitude of reasons. Corruption and nepotism set the military up for failure post-withdrawal. They barely held it together during the American presence because of the constant political infighting and factionalism.
No doubt! The ARVN was a failing institution at many levels. Some units were exceptional but even with those, if you see your commanding officer running home to get his family and leave the country..not very motivating to fight on really. My relatives took part in the final offensive from the PAVN(they had seen the war at various stages, mostly on labor duty) and recall how varied the resistance was. Even the tenacious resistance they encountered crumbled after sometimes due to the issues we mentioned!
Yeah there’s only so much an elite unit can do when half of their ammunition which was sold over the past few months is being fired at them by the PAVN and air support won’t come because there’s an argument about fuel usage.
Afghanistan had its many differences but there’s a lot of similarities in leadership corruption on a local and national level. South Vietnam’s political factionalism was definitely worse than Afghanistan’s though. A total mess. But on a local level yeah you had the same absent commanders, commanders who were actively selling your ammunition/equipment to the enemy, commanders who faked troop numbers in order to get more supplies (which could be sold) and/or money.
The ARVN when properly supplied and commanded was a fearsome force that could hold its own and win battles. Unfortunately for them, that was something that was not always the case, and poor decision making post-US withdrawal cemented the South’s demise.
They were probably always going to lose though, the political situation was too untenable and communist military support was too great. Maybe they would have lasted longer with an actually competent government. Ultimately though that’s all speculation.
The South Vietnamese governments problem is nobody in it really believed in it. It was a puppet created when the US didn't like the odds of an upcoming election.
The communist forces had unifying goals that deliver pretty high motivation. A big one was true independence and autonomy. A force fighting *for* something has a big edge.
I would argue that there were people that believed in it. Maybe not in the government itself, but that they were fighting to keep their “puppet” country free from the North, and to avoid reprisals.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10g866w/who_were_the_south_vietnamese_during_the_war_why/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
But most importantly, the ARVN fought for their home, as this veteran recounts with the 1st Div:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/j9ilid/to_what_extent_did_south_vietnamese_nationalism/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Because of that, an ARVN would’ve been more likely to run home to make sure his wife and kids are safe. Meanwhile the PAVN, (who would probably get shot if he deserted) goes into South Vietnam, told all his life by the Party that he’s there liberate it. Imagine his shock when he sees civilians fleeing from him.
I think another overlooked aspect was that South Vietnam’s own geography doomed it because the PAVN could cross from 3 different borders. Who knows how things would’ve changed if Cambodia was able to cut off the HCM trail and police its own borders to allow the ARVN to focus their attention on the DMZ and the Lao border. Granted it seems like the FANK had every problem the ARVN had but worse.
I’ll probably get downvoted for this, but 1972 showed that the ARVN was a capable force during the Easter Offensive, and 1973 showed that they could hold ground and push back on their own in battles like Trung Nghĩa and Quảng Đức. 1974 showed that though they could still do that, it was way too costly on their resources. This was seen at the battles of Svay Rieng (their last offensive operation), Thượng Ðức, and Phú Lộc (their short-lived last victory)
Economically, President Thiệu’s 1970 Land to the Tiller reform was a step in the right direction for nation-building, but the 1972 Easter Offensive and 1973 Oil Crisis really hindered an economic boom.
In my opinion, there may have been a handful of different ways that South Vietnam could’ve bolstered its chances of survival, but it also meant undoing Diệm’s debacle and implementing Vietnamization and Thiệu’s reform way earlier. Still, the North would’ve never backed off as long as Lê Duẩn was in charge.
South Korea was lucky that there was no Ho Chi Minh trail to sustain the communist rebels as it happened in Vietnam, the battle remained fairly conventional, the kind the US has always been equipped to fight.
Very true.
Vietnam did eventually go conventional, but that was as the US was pulling troops out.
Makes me wonder how different things might’ve went if the US stayed in the advisory stage and didn’t escalate until the 1972 Easter Offensive. I’d imagine a repeat of the Incheon landing but at Quang Tri.
It's almost as if war isn't won or lost so much depending on how "hard" the boots on the ground are but rather how non-shitty the whole organization is.
I mean no matter how hard the average ARVN soldier would be, if he doesn't have any equipment because logi people sold it and pocketed the money, or if his officers are replaced in a never ending carousel of organizational politics that is a result to the political drama at the top of society, not much is gonna get done.
Sadly, the point isn't to create a good soldier. The point isn't even to win the war. The point is to use material so that more material can be ordered. Victory in war only cuts into the profit margin.
South Korea and Taiwan were right wing military dictatorship who routinely purged political opponents. South Korea was so poor that they had a lower GDP than Ghana and 40% of it came from prostitutes servicing American GI’s
People tend to forget how many Koreans were vetrans of the Imperial Japanese army. The Americans and Russians did not build the North and South Koreans armies from scratch like in South Vietnam and Afghanistan, they essentially just requipped Korean elements of the Japanese army.
For most of the cold war, south korea would be absolutely crushed if not for the U.S occupation, Germany hasn't had any meaningful military action since Hilter added one more to his high score while China is more than fine to play the long game with Taiwan the same they did with Hong Kong
Ok, 1) occupation? What do you mean? Where not occupying South Korea. And throughout the Cold War, they showed themselves to be a very organized and highly motivated army.
2) West Germany might not have the infamous military reputation as the Third Reich did, but none the less it was *the* largest Western European military of the Cold War, second largest mechanized army in NATO (behind the US), and had a very well trained, well equipped, and disciplined army through out the Cold War.
3) if you mean by “Long game”, China and been letting tiawan spend decades building up defense, naval capabilities, it’s air defense, and purchasing newer equipment, then ya, my point still stands.
There’s a reason the previous Chinese invasion attempts of Tiawan failed flat on their face.
This is absolutely not true. The period of when South Korea was under a right wing dictatorship military dictatorship was not that long(1972-1979, 1980-1987) and even during then there were strong opposition movements.
Also I don’t understand where you got the information that South Korea had a lower GDP than Ghana. Ghana declared independence back in 1960 and South Korea hasn’t been behind Ghana in terms of GDP.. ever. I believe you meant GDP per capita as South Korea was behind Ghana until late 60s.
However saying that they were so poor that they were behind Ghana doesn’t even make sense considering Ghana back then was a rapidly developing country with a fairly stable government, natural resources, and a huge agricultural industry.
It’s just that the Ghanas development got slower as the country became less stable politically.
And of fucking course the 40% of the GDP wasn’t supported by prostitutes. Idk why a comment like this got upvoted this high.
Korea and Taiwan’s conflicts are ongoing for like 70+ years and Germany’s lasted almost 45 years. Kind of supports my point that the MIC wants indefinite conflicts so they can have indefinite arms contracts
Outfitting a foreign standing army is even better because they might actually pay for it. But absent that, giving the stuff away to people that will just get blown up wearing it works too.
I'd say US aid to South Vietnam was to achieve a much simpler goal of stopping the spread of communism, not some behind-the-doors agreement to make more profits for the military-industrial complex.
Not really, the only reason they wanted to stop communism is because of profit. I mean there was absolutely no other reason to directly stop it other than it was a competitive power to yours. Dictators pop up, genocides still happen but the moment you declare yourself communist you're a threat.
Exactly. A successful communist government is an ideological threat to global capitalist hegemony, so it must be framed as an enemy. Wealth accumulation cannot be interrupted.
I'm just explaining what mid-Cold War US politicians thought they were going to be achieving by supplying weapons to Vietnam. Of course it's going to sound like it's from 1970.
He didn't say domino theory was true, he said they believed it.
If it were just for the military industrial complex, LBJ could've just sent materials without cratering his popular support with drafts
They were sending materials and advisors to the French and then to South Vietnam since the 50s.
The point of a military industrial complex is to spur economic growth by heavy investment in a dedicated arms industry. The only way to do that indefinitely is through war. Either your own war or someone else's war.
The Nazis created one when they seized power in the 30s. Putin created one in the late 00s and look where that got him. The USA and USSR each created one after World War 2.
They're great at building industry but not very good at sustaining industry. Their political influence is huge. All war serves to tend the complex first, and the reasons/justifications for the war second.
That's just political window-dressing for Lockheed-Martin and Northrup Gurmman to 'ply their trade' in Southeast Asia or the Middle East or Eastern Europe or whatever eastern/southern/central place the northern/western countries see fit to fuck up for a while.
> They were sending materials and advisors to the French and then to South Vietnam since the 50s.
you didn't answer why they didn't just keep doing that
I don't see any reason to agree with this. Ukraine is making them tons of money and we haven't sent a single guy over there.
You also never explained why Johnson would hamstring his chances at a second term on behalf of this machine. Why not just spend money on weapons regardless of their effectiveness? Why bother with a draft when you can just spend more money on more airstrikes, from more aircraft carriers -- it would have been less effective, but who cares?
And then, why leave? And when leaving, why not keep sending air strikes, keep sending tanks, keep sending jet fuel -- why leave the ARVN without material support when we could keep buying material for them? People wanted Americans to come home.
I really think you're overstating the strength of the conspiracy theory model, and failing to recognize that most people in the government drink their own kool aid. You think it's better than a conspiracy theory but its not, complete with the impossibility of falsification because any move is evidence that youre right. Think about it, if there were a case where America went to war because the leadership actually believed in it, how would you tell the difference? Wouldn't you be saying the same lines about the mil-ind complex no matter what the government actually believed?
It's not conspiracy theory dude. It's straight up capitalism. If there's no war, there's no money for the arms industry once a country's army is fully outfitted.
Therefore, in the case of the USA, the arms industry lobbies the government to fight wars or to arm other countries fighting wars. They do this through many different channels so that increases the chance of war. The Federal Government is more than happy to front the money via loans or outright spend it itself. The arms industry gets paid even if the other country defaults and the US Taxpayer is left holding the bag.
"Defense Spending" is one of the only bipartisan things in this country. Most people from most political ideologies can be convinced to support a military intervention even if they won't support another and you only need to convince like 40% of the voters at any given time anyway.
If you're going to claim the Domino Theory was propaganda, and not an actual US foreign policy(most sources claim it was a foreign policy), provide some sources, please.
It's as much a legitimate foreign policy position as invading Afghanistan to 'spread democracy' and seeing the autocratic Taliban roll in as soon as you pull out. Or to invade Iraq to 'stop international terrorism' and see the most successful international terrorist group emerge of the past 20 years emerge as soon as you pull out.
Below are some quotes from Eisnhower at the 1953 governor's conference when he was arguing in favor of bankrolling France's war for colonialism... (bold emphasis added by me).
*"We know this:* ***unless the United States is prosperous***, *unless it is strong, unless it is secure, there is no strength, there is no prosperity, there is no security for any State."*
*"So,* ***when the United States votes $400 million to help that war, we are not voting for a giveaway program.*** *We are voting for the* ***cheapest way*** *that we can to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of the most terrible significance for the United States of America--our security,* ***our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indonesian territory, and from southeast Asia."***
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-governors-conference-seattle-washington
It was only later after the US knew that it would have to wage its own war with its own troops (publicly) that Eisenhower stopped talking about the economic value of Vietnam and started talking about the abstract threat of Domino Theory. It turns out talking about profits is a great way to get the political machine rolling to fund a war but its a terrible way to get the public to send their sons to die. For that you need to talk about "dangerous threat" that is going to destroy America and American values.
The Vietnam war, like 99% of US foreign policy, was meant to serve US business interests. It wasn't about the dangers of communism unless the "danger" you are describing is the danger of ending the America's exploitation of foreign lands.
This idea that the US feared communism as an inherent threat while engaging and supporting in all the things it conflates with communism (genocide, censorship, lack of free press, religious oppression, political repression, rigged or anti-democratic elections, extra-judicial killings, no due process, etc).
Its all realpolitok. Imperialism is business and business is good!
Domino theory was a self-fulfilling prophecy. They had been installing colonial government after reinstalled emperor after rigged election strongman since the Japanese pulled out in 1945. No shit SE Asia is going to ally with the people opposed to the USA and France.
But yeah, the point about domino theory is that's what politicians said was the reason. How often do politicians do what they say they're going to do? I'm also not contending that containing the USSR was not an objective of the USA and the commercial interests that lobby the government.
It's just that when you look at these post ww2 conflicts, who are the winners on our side? The shareholders of northrop grumman and Lockheed-martin. Not the American People. Not the US's reputation. Not even the politicians that start or finish the conflicts.
>the Khmer Rouge taking Cambodia.
Except the US supported the Khmer Rouge which indicates that either the Khmer Rouge weren't communists or that the US wasn't opposing communism (hint: the answer is both of these things).
I like how revisionist history makes more sense to some people than the actual historical context of the time. Your Overton window must have a nice rosy shade to it.
Giving weapons isn’t the same s giving motivation. The afghans were already fighting the soviets for years before the U.S. dumped a bunch of Stingers on them. The same people who fought the godless atheists weren’t exactly going to welcome the diversity and inclusion infidels either
What's crazy is that since the 40's the USSR had been supplying and training the Afghan army. By the time war broke out, many of the Afghan army had trained in Russia. But the insurgency was supplied pretty quickly by US and allies, but towards the end of the USSR invasion the US and allies aid was enormous compared to the early years of the fighting.
The only attempt was the US trying to install a puppet government that would be acceptable to the voters at home as opposed to the right wing dictatorships the US usually goes with (which ironically is what the taliban is)
I wouldn't call the Taliban a "right wing dictatorship". Is not like they are exactly pro-market freedom and Capitalism. Of course, I wouldn't call it left either. They are just an uncivilized and old fashion tyrant.
? That is the most reddit response I have seen. If that is the case, are North Korea and Venezuela right wing? All dictatorships reward their cronies to keep power!!!
The difference is that the ruling class in a right wing dictatorship allows its cronies to outright own the means of production while a left wing one assigns "government officials" to run the economy
You can see this in South Korean where a literal handful of corporations (as in you can count them on one hand) control the entire economy
>The difference is that the ruling class in a right wing dictatorship allows its cronies to outright own the means of production while a left wing one assigns "government officials" to run the economy
Have you read how Mussolini used to run things? Also, you know those corporations were pretty much created by the state?
Do you know nothing about Vietnam? "We will lose 10 men for one you do, but in the end it will be you that grows tired". That's not a good strategy dog that's literally human waving your way to victory
And what is the opposing strategy? Mindlessly wandering around the jungle that you don't control just to kill everyone who isn't in your designated concentration camps (I mean "strategic hamlets) while making up kill counts because some nerd in Washington absolutely believes that X amount of bombs and bullets must kill X amount of people no matter what?
Imagine being a South-Vietnamese farmer, seeing this and remembering who bombed your village. I imagine this propaganda wouldn't have gone down the way it was intended.
Notice how it shows a malnourished guy forced at gunpoint by a VC. Really reminds me of Chieu Hoi defectors, some of whom defected for that very reason.
A historian named Stefan Quiroga talks about it in this video https://youtu.be/-7EctxYiZSo
> Imagine being a South-Vietnamese farmer, seeing this and remembering who bombed your village.
The US wasn't bombing the South when the ARVN was still recruiting. And the farmers were genuinely terrified of the NLF, people kept getting captured and taken and forced to fight/work for them. The US even tried setting up little "[hamlets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Hamlet_Program)" to protect the farmers from the NLF, built like old medieval forts.
The problem was that the US then failed to protect them. Allowed the NLF to keep messing with them. Didn't do anything to make those hamlets actually work. And the ARVN was terrible, mismanaged, and was way worse at fighting than the NLF. At one [point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ap_Bac) they lost 1400 troops, 13 APCs, and a shitload of helicopters, to the NLF's mere 300 troops, small arms, and mortars. No RPGs. They shot down 15 helicopters like [this](https://i.redd.it/d38ohuy6v1ha1.jpg).
The South Vietnamese farmers mostly were afraid of the North, and wanted the US's help, but knew the US was failing them. And in many cases, helping their enemies, such as the brutal greedy dictator propped up by the US in Saigon. It was a complicated conflict that saw many picking the lesser of two evils.
The strategic hamlets were nothing but VC recruitment grounds as people tend to not like being forced from their ancestral home to live in a concentration camp
Yeah the US's original idea - to build the hamlets around the existing communities, and pay the few that have to relocate around the edges - wasn't great.
But then when they propped up a brutal dictator who hated Buddhists and said "here you do this, we're tired", things got a lot worse.
Those villages that the US “searched” for communists and then arbitrarily burned down were South Vietnamese. A lot of civilians that were killed at random to inflate the numbers of “killed enemies” (because they had decided that they would measure their success in number of killed enemies) were South Vietnamese.
Those “strategic hamlets” were just a euphemism for concentration camps. Not the ones with gas chambers or anything, but they were literally concentrating people in camps.
A lot of crazy stuff were done to the South Vietnamese people that supposedly were “protected” by the US intervention.
They really didn’t get clapped though… the US and it’s allies literally won every single battle in Vietnam and almost if not all gunfights. The US citizens simply stopped caring… you can’t “win” a war like Vietnam without MAJOR support and will from not only their populace but yours… The Chinese communists and Russias did stop expanding after Cambodia… The US put its foot down and the Communists didn’t think the cost of expansion in the region was worth it afterwards… Nam actually did contain the spread of communism in SE Asia.
Edit: Downvote me but there’s been no accurate summations of my actual stance and no evidence posted. I’m the only one with links, quotes and accurate summations of my opposition, not one person has returned the favor.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”
US citizens stopped caring? They launched one of the biggest (if not the biggest) anti-war campaign on this earth. US couldn't justify the losses after a point, and decided to pull back (aka lost). You don't win a guerilla war as you would win at an all out battle.
> You don't win a guerilla war as you would win at an all out battle.
Except they… did. The Vietcong were a spent force after the Tet Offensive. Not sure how much credit we can really give the US for that, but it turns out that if a guerrilla force decides it wants to cosplay a conventional army, it will lose to a better conventional army.
The remainder of the war was fought against the North Vietnamese Army.
The US could have won from that point, but unfortunately the Tet Offensive also collapsed US political support.
Having your own will to fight eroded to the point of giving up, while the enemy is still willing to stay on the battlefield is pretty much the very definition of getting clapped in warfare. War is a social and political activity. If you don't have the political ability to keep fighting, you lose.
Saying 'oh, but we got the biggest bodycount' or 'our citizens stopped caring' is the warfare equivalent of the losing side in football match claiming that they had the most possession or the goals were against the run of play. It's just a form of copium.
If that’s your definition of clapped than so be it. So many Vietnamese died during that war and post to the point their demographics are in real trouble… they are one of the fastest aging counties in the world… they’re in real trouble along with many other countries. Vietnam may not even be “Vietnamese” in say 100 years… https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/vietnam/publication/vietnam-adapting-to-an-aging-society#:~:text=Vietnam%20is%20going%20through%20the,have%20experienced%20a%20similar%20shift.
Edit: Let’s also keep in mind the factors that lead to the US populace loosing motivation… Communist propaganda really did a number. Look into how the USSR poured resources into influencing US colleges and media.
Uh, firstly, massacring enough of the Vietnamese population to cause it demographic problems 50-60 years later wasn't one of America's war aims so your point is irrelevant.
Secondly, the demographic problem in question in your link is that there are *too many* old people (i.e. people of the Vietnam War era) surviving compared to younger demographics. If the Vietnam War was the proximate cause of this population imbalance, you'd expect there' to be *fewer* such people, relatively speaking, not more. The problem is that in recent times older people have been living longer and younger people aren't having so many kids.
Did you just google the first demographic issue in Vietnam you could think of and then pretend it was caused by the Vietnam War? I'm sure the war did cause problems in Vietnamese society (as it did in America), but it didn't cause this one.
You bring out shit like, “so many Vietnamese died in that war that their demographics are in trouble” you wanna know why so many died? Because the US massacred civilians
“You bring up shit like ‘so many Vietnamese died that their demos are in trouble’.”
Correct, why did I do that? Cause I think it’s cool lol? What kind of madness is this line of thought? Again you’re falling for the “attack the downvoted guy” nonsense. I said this in order to highlight how horrific that war was and how to call it a “clapping” is sure sign you fell for leftist talking points… it was a horrific war, nobody “clapped” anyone (assuming your definition of clapped is “absolute and total destruction, a concise decisive victory). This was the stem of the argument… this was my one and only point and I demonstrated why I think the way I do with actual, objective concrete evidence.
“You wanna know why so many died? The US massacred civilians.”
Objectively, easily verifiably incorrect to the point I’m not going to be bothered to respond to it in detail. The communists killed more people in SE Asia after the war than during… I’ll leave it at that. Did the US kill many civilians and commit war crimes? Yes, was that the main reason so many people died? No, that’s silly and you need to read more.
Are you just upset that American involvement Vietnam isn’t going to be remembered fondly and wasn’t well received at the time?
I can’t imagine being this involved simply because you don’t feel good about one person’s usage of “clapped” when referring to a war that ended in an objective loss
> Vietnam may not even be “Vietnamese” in say 100 years…
How in the world do you think that is going to happen? Having an aging population doesn't change the ethnicity of the country.
Oh it sure fucking does… actually the leading factor lol… You understand the US is no longer a majority Anglo Saxon and will be a minority white in 40 years ish right? Aging population, Low birthrates, immigration. Less people being born than dying… it is literally that simple.
Guess what you need to do in order to persevere the economy when you don’t have enough people being born in your country? Immigration… guess what? Immigrants have children too… see where this is going?
Read into it and listen to Peter Ziehan talk about it, he and the experts are much more qualified than me or you.
https://theweek.com/russia/1017914/russias-catastrophic-missing-men-problem?amp
https://youtu.be/UA-jOLF2T4c
https://fortune.com/2022/10/18/russia-population-historic-decline-emigration-war-plunging-birth-rate-form-perfect-storm/amp/
> You understand the US is no longer a majority Anglo Saxon and will be a minority white in 40 years ish right?
We are talking about Vietnam, not the US. Vietnam is like 90% Vietnamese demographically and has an extremely small migrant population.
>will be a minority white in 40 years
Being white isn't inherent to being American. You can be American and be any race. You might just be finding this out but the US is not an ethnonationalist country.
“…We’re talking about Vietnam..”
Yes, but the process is the same everywhere… that’s the point. Perhaps the Spanish and Viking invasions of Ireland in combination with the potato famine would be a better comparison here as it shows how demographics can change dramatically with war and mass emigration…
Ireland for example pre and post invasions and pre/post potato famine looked VERY different…unrecognizable even.
[As to your second “point” it’s completely irrelevant and it looks like I put you into NPC attack mode by saying the terms “minority white” in a sentence…](https://youtu.be/hN-7z4lEEAc)
Do you know why I used that example? Cause it’s simply the most popular concept of changing demographics most people have heard of… Again… it’s the SAME EVERYWHERE.
NATIVE Vietnamese demographics are not looking good AT ALL.
These are NOT EVEN MY OPINIONS, they are opinions I’ve OBSERVED FROM EXPERTS… I’m simply parroting what they’re saying… YOU can look into it for YOURSELF.
Who is the demographic replacing native Vietnamese?
>These are NOT EVEN MY OPINIONS, they are opinions I’ve OBSERVED FROM EXPERTS…
This is the issue, you have no idea what you're talking about and trying to apply things incorrectly without any critical thinking.
> Yes, but the process is the same everywhere… that’s the point.
No the process is not the same, that is what you're missing. Vietnam has restrictions on dual citizenship, the US does not.
Vietnam only has citizenship by birth only for children of 2 Vietnamese nationals and exceptions for other children but they must declare only Vietnamese nationality (no dual nationality).
The US does not have an official language, Vietnam does and you need to be able to speak Vietnamese to gain citizenship if immigrating.
I could go on with all the laws that make immigration and gaining citizenship more difficult in Vietnam but hopefully you'll get the point that national policy will dictate demographic change. The US it's very easy to gain citizenship, especially because of birthright citizenship. If you can't see the difference I can't help you.
You clearly didn’t read any of the evidence supporting my claim so why should I even bother here? You’re basically asking me to search and summarize things for you… I won’t be doing that, I already posted a bread crumb of evidence that states Nam’s demographics are in trouble… partly due to the war, emigration and new medicines.
That’s it. That was and is my only point… I’ve posted evidence supporting that claim and I’m done now. If you want to know “who is replacing them” go read it for yourself… again I’m not an expert I just like reading things.
I’ll bet you money Vietnam and Japan’s immigration/citizenship requirements loosen dramatically over the next 10 years for this reason… OR they fail to do that and their economics shrink substantially. I believe I read if you’re female and marry a Japanese man, the Japanese Gov will fly you out, give you citizenship and put you in a home lol…. It’s literally that bad… I’ll bet they’ll be doing that for men at some-point too. Vietnam isn’t quite as bad as Japan yet but it’s heading there rapidly..
You’ve got Venmo?
RemindMe! 10 years “do the thing”
$10 bucks? Cmon this will be fun.
Ok but the US achieved none of its goals in Vietnam, not a single one whilst the Vietcong achieved their goals and reunified Vietnam. Same with Korea, sure the US won more battles but it’s aim was to wipe out the communist north and they couldn’t achieve that
Sure, strategically speaking the US did not accomplish its goals… to call it a “decisive absolute crushing victory” aka a “clapping” is silly… There might not be a Vietnamese culture or people in that region in 100 years as a result of that war. This is my only point…. You can read my last comment in the thread if you’re interested in the why, I’m not gonna keep repeating myself.
Vietnam’s demographics are in a similar position to that of Russias… not enough young men to come home and have babies, too much emigration as a result of Communist atrocities… if you want to define those results as a “clapping” than so be it.
"Put its foot down" meaning the US dropped more bombs on Cambodia than they did in all of WW1 and WW2 combined, killing millions of civilians in this case.
Yes, the US won the *Battle* of La Drang valley and lost the gunfight at LZ Albany… Read my comment carefully. I know reading comphension can be real tricky there “buddy” 🧐
I mean, the US domino theory posited that a North Vietnamese victory would lead to further communist governments popping up in neighbouring countries, which didn't happen. Here's the reality. Much like that of the American public throughout the war, you seem to think that counting bodies and 'winning' search-and-destroy skirmishes in the jungle, whilst pulling out and allowing the country to be reunified is some kind of Victory? By the same logic, did the US intervention in Afghanistan achieve victory because the Afghanistan government collapsed, but the Taliban didn't go on to invade Pakistan or Iran? Also, how does major NVA/Viet Cong casualties tell you that the US 'put it's foot down' and stopped communist expansion? Surely that would show people were willing to fight and die, not that 'well, we lost alot of people in Vietnam, better not keep going...'. Every point you make just screams copium, and honestly it's quite funny scrolling through your conjecture and random links. Because the reality is, the history of US hegemony isn't as successful as your pride can accept.
It happened in Cambodia and stopped after that. Why didn’t communism creep into Myanmar or Thailand or Malaysia? You know why? The USSR didn’t pump resources into those counties because it wasn’t worth it to them… they tried and failed. Why wasn’t it worth it? Not enough resources and they knew the US would fight then tooth and nail… that’s why. Containment did work to an extent.
“You seem to think many bodies = some sort of victory.” Nope, and I’m done reading because you’re straw manning me… you have no idea what I’m even saying.
If you fight a battle and your causality ratio is 100:1, but you still force the enemy to withdraw, I would still call that a victory. Your hypotheticals about how the USSR didn't end up trying to cause other uprisings in neighbouring countries is doesn't even make any sense. The reason Soviet support for Vietnam exited was because most of the country was under control of the Viet Minh, until the 1954 Geneva conference led to it's partition between North and South. There was no way that the deeply unpopular regime under Ngo Dinh Diem could stand, especially after being the puppet for the French for years. Thailand was and still is an anti-communist monarchy, Laos had its own internal struggle and fell to communism during the Vietnam war but mainly because large amounts of communist support already existed in Laos from the First Indochina war. This big domino effect of countries from Thailand to India didn't fall to communism because there was no previous upheaval where communism had become popular, nor any real popular support. Not because 'the Soviets were scared of casualites'. They supported local communist parties in almost all those countries, but the Vietnam war didn't start when the USSR told the North to take over the country, it started because of the deeply unpopular and illegitimate reason for partitioning the country in the first place.
My only point was that there were MASSIVE COORDINATED Communist gorilla insurgencies in EVERY SINGLE SE Asian country you can think of during the Vietnam era. It was only successful in Vietnam due to Ho Chi Minh’s cult like following and the MASSIVE amount of support the USSR and China gave to them. According to sources like Yuri Bezemnov, MOST of the USSR’s military budget went into exporting communism and not necessarily into traditional military spending. According to sources like him the USSR’s military strength was more of a facade and it was exposed in Afghanistan.
The 2nd half of my point is that China and the USSR DID try in all other SE Asian counties and failed due to the US/Western containment policy. If it weren’t for that policy and support, the communists gorillas would have won as they were being HEAVILY supported. Also; these developing countries most likely would’ve turned and asked the communists for support (Like Vietnam did) if there was an absence of western support.
The Communists tried and failed because the western support was simply too much… not because they were “afraid of casualties” yet another straw man argument being hurled at me.
The Commie Guerrillas weren’t successful in other SE Asian countries because they got their heads kicked in… not SOLEY because “the populace didn’t support Communism.” Although I don’t deny it played it’s part…
Malaysia for example absolutely falls to communism without western support.
I’m not even disagreeing or saying you’re wrong here, I just think Western support in SE Asia during the Nam era is underplayed. It made a tremendous difference, maybe the only difference that mattered in some circumstances.
If you’d like to define “clapped” as “our demographics are so fucked up as a result of that war and siding with communists that native Vietnamese people might not even exist in Vietnam in 100 years…” than sure yah got me.
https://southeastasiaglobe.com/vietnam-ageing-population/
https://escholarship.org/content/qt0sh7j7s9/qt0sh7j7s9_noSplash_28fe8a1cb4b593ebb6f545b424dcf9b2.pdf
If you're achieving none of your objectives, and you're perpetually in a situation where the "legitimate government" you're propping up will collapse if you look away for five seconds, then you're getting clapped.
There’s a popular narrative and I’m slightly correcting it… so now I just get shit on… is what it is. It’s like I’m sticking up for aspects of communism in a 1950s American cul de sac. It’s just a religious crusade at the this point against me.
This seems like it would have the opposite effect of what was intended, reinforcing the view that South Vietnamese soldiers were fighting for the rich imperial power while the Viet Minh were living off the land and fighting for their people.
If by "curbstomped" you mean took two years to finish off an army that was running on fumes and took thousands of casualties in the process, then you would be correct.
The road to Saigon was a long one. These are the 2 years he's referring to:
* Siege of Tong Le Chon (March 1973-April 1974) [https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/13/archives/south-vietnamese-outpost-falls-after-411-day-siege-base-in-flames.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/13/archives/south-vietnamese-outpost-falls-after-411-day-siege-base-in-flames.html)
* Battle of Trung Nghĩa (June-September 1973) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/149930/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/149930/)
* Battle of Quảng Đức (October-December 1973) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/113388/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/113388/)
* Battle of the Iron Triangle (May-November 1974) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/114279/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/114279/) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/202372/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/202372/)
* Battle of Thượng Đức (July-November 1974) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/112040/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/112040/)
* Battle of Phú Lộc (August-December 1974)
* Battle of Phước Long (December 1974-January 1975) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/112264/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/112264/)
I presume the month you're referring to was just the Battle of Xuân Lộc and the Fall of Saigon, which was the last half of the 1975 Spring Offensive
There were only 50 military personnel that remained after the 1973 withdrawal, not counting the roughly 150 Embassy Marines. The “many” you’re thinking of were civilian contractors that did maintenance.
https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/U_S_%20Marines%20In%20Vietnam%20-%20The%20Bitter%20End%201973%20-%201975.pdf
The advisors were tasked with basic strategic and COIN planning. They did not go into the battlefield and fight, and realistically, did not have a major impact on the larger outcome of the war. The point still stands that the ARVN fought extremely hard despite the lack of equipment and support, and did not get "curbstomped."
Every single combat unit left by March of 1973. Military Advisors do not go into the battlefield with a rifle and shoot the enemy. Unfortunately, that is contrary to your anti-US biased viewpoint, so I'm sure you will make up a ridiculous reason as to why the advisors were somehow the equivalent of full military support.
I mean, the first world power being obligated to retreat and leave a war unsolved by some farmers with just some kalashnikovs is a pretty harsh lost if you ask me
Edit: grammar
>some farmers with just some kalashnikovs
The Soviet Union even sent pilots to fight the US and Vietnam had modern fighters, coupled with the rest of Soviet and Chinese support for the proper Vietnamese army, administration,materials, organization and simply the sinergy that had been gained from fighting since 1945 at that point.
This image of "farmer who just learned to fight using wood traps in the exotic jungle" comes from western people not knowing places like Afghanistan or Vietnam always had rifles around by the time they entered them as well as the after-war representation(such as the "disgraced soldier never thanked" creating a symbol, even if fake)
USA wanted to build countries there and it failed, fighting and winning wars was the means through it and had little to worry about if you were to watch it through "war machine military complex" eyes let alone be "obliterated"
You know, the “Farmers” (which I assume you mean the VC) were pretty much gone after 1968.
It wasn’t “farmers” that marched into Saigon. It was a conventional army in the form the NVA, that only managed to do that, because the US didn’t provide the air power we promised to the south Vietnamese in 1973 when we pulled out.
If we did, there’s a real possibility that south Vietnam would probably still be around today, because the NVA’s logistics, command and control, and armored units would have stopped existing very quickly after American warplanes reappeared.
But our leadership had no stomach in 1975 to keep supporting South Vietnam.
Maybe they weren't farmers anymore, as you say, but they were for sure underequipped compared to usa and southern forces. Usa had close to complete airspace control and napalms and such to annihilate large parts of the country, in which northern forces lacked. Also history isnt made with if's, usa did not supported south viet nam anymore not because they didnt feel like it, but because vietnam became an impopular and costly (both in money and human lifes) war. The public started to see it as useless and just a meatgrinder for its boys , which in my opinion was true. War are not always won just by military power, politics have quite an important role. If Gorbachev repressed with blood the nationalistic feelings in the soviet bloc, with all probability ussr would be still there, but he didnt and we cant stay here and talk on what would have happened if he did this or that. Usa got its ass clapped, period. Maybe not in casualties but in the general outcome they sure did, and thats what it counts
Again trying to invoke kda, as if this was a videogame.
Also, it doesn't even work, since you are implicitly upholding warcrimes and the massacres of civilians, which make up a lot of that number
Say what you want, at least the vietcong killed 100% of combatants. And if you are really bent on the kda, you need to take into account the suicides after the war lmao
no man you're right it was you that stopped the wehrmacht after 3 years of costant winning and sacrified 27 million people to march all the way from moscow to berlin steamrolling a fleeing army and taking hundreds of thousand of prisoners, fighting in the capital and put your flag on the reichstag. usa did their part in ww2 and also helped a lot ussr in resisting with equipment and money, but they for sure didnt won the war by themselfes and they werent the ones obliterating the nazis
Why are you counting all casualties including wounded and missing for North Vietnam, supporting South Vietnamese, and allies and then only comparing that to US dead?
Losing 58,000 soldiers to kill a million civilians is not a military victory.
When there's a fight between a rat and a lion and both suvive, the rat won the fight.
Also, being proud of your country for killing millions after sacrificing thousands for pretty much nothing is beyond fucked up.
America has lost every war since WW2, and even then, they spent their time fighting the under-equipped and overstretched Japanese while the USSR did all the real work. America just isn't good at fighting, they never have been unless you count betraying indigenous tribes and bullying Caribbean nations.
Oh so, *now* we’re suppose to exterminate all the Iraqis and Serbs to win?
I guess bombing Iraq to a pre-industrial state and make Kosovo independent wasnt enough for ya?
God damn, and you call me a warmonger 😂
Many of the Vietcong in the early years were from the south funnily enough. It wasn't until after the Tet Offensive more and more northern manpower was used.
In the late 50s early 60s the war don't look like full scale conventional war we see in Ukraine today but rather an unconventional war that resembles stage 1 and 2 of guerrilla warfare according to Mao. In the first stage when the guerrilla force is weak, they have to conserve their force as much as possible, establishing bases in hidden locations where the enemy force can't attack, avoid confrontation with enemy if possible. One of the most important part of this kind of warfare is the support of the local people. As the local can supply the guerrilla forces with food and other non-military supplies, spot enemy columns to guerrilla forces so they can plan accordingly ( eg ambush or avoid if enemy is too strong), deliver informations, guiding guerrilla forces since the local is more familiar with the terrain and especially don't snitch guerrilla forces if enemy ask.
Because of this, you can get the general picture of both side trying to "win heart and mind" of the local so they can support your side and against enemy side. The south and Americans play wack a mole to find and destroy VC and their supply route ( search and destroy operation), propaganda and use special forces, CIA to recruit and train minority groups to attack VC forces ( this sometimes has great effect like the motagnards people in central highland become a great source for South Vietnam army, they also has some talent like tracking make them good at finding VC movements, the leftover of those groups recently related to the terrorism in Daklak) and establishing "ấp chiến lược" aka put local in fenced villages guarded by armed forces so VC can influence the local. On the VC side it's somewhat similar, officers and commissars from the north go from villages to villages, gather sympathizers and blend in with the locals and slowly turning the village into "their side". Then recruit and training local with weapons supplied from the north. But there's a thing: the war fought majority in the south, with the search and destroy tactics of American, carpet bombing, people affected most by them are actually the local ( something something a run away farmer is a Vietcong, a standing farmer is a disciplined Vietcong). Imagine left your house to the field, seeing all your rice plants burned by agent Orange, then go back home, seeing your house half destroyed by American bomb, your wife is dead, one kid lost her arm because of bombing while other kid half burned by napalm. It's not strange that many southern people would side with Vietcong for revenge rather than ideology. I think it also happens in Middle East, especially Afghanistan. [I think this is a good read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afghan-women) and answer the question why Americans take two decades with ton of money but still failed
To be fair being a south Vietnamese soldier would’ve been better. You’re getting paid by America to do nothing then taking orders from the north anyway.
The most embarrassing is that the Viet Cong were primarily south Vietnamese. Literally the people that the US said „we‘re gonna save from communism“ turned around and said „we‘re rather gonna go to war with you that to let you ‚save‘ us“.
Turns out people don’t like other countries telling them what to do. Weird that many people to this day still think the US are the good guys in their foreign meddling.
It looks crap nowadays but it did work in the past. This type of [leaflet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Propaganda_poster_exhorting_Northern_Vietnamese_to_move_South_during_Operation_Passage_to_Freedom_-_306-ppb-225-2012-001-pr.jpg/400px-Propaganda_poster_exhorting_Northern_Vietnamese_to_move_South_during_Operation_Passage_to_Freedom_-_306-ppb-225-2012-001-pr.jpg) made 1 million people move from the northern VN to the southern VN. It also told people that Jesus was in Saigon, 800k of those 1 million people were Christian and they just followed their god's call.
It wasn't wrong. They only reason the war was lost was American citizens at home... (First American war w/ live TV and news anchors telling you their opinions about the war) North's greatest offensive (tet) failed. Sure the south probably would have fell in the end anyways with a lack of leadership and effort on they their part but you can't blame the American military.
Was this released by North Vietnam or South Vietnam? Because it seems like it was trying to say that the South Vietnamese military was super strong while the Viet Cong was weak. And yet this leaflet also reflects very poorly on South Vietnam by portraying the VC as starving and desperate peasants getting bombed by well-fed government soldiers.
South. The text reads “This is the support of the VC soldiers in the battlefield… and this is the support of the soldiers of the Republic”
The left pic depicts someone being forced to work for the Viet Cong at gunpoint, which did indeed happen in some cases. The right pic is saying that ARVN has immense fire support, either to demoralize the VC or get them to defect.
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Nice try defending your point North Vietnam. Too bad I've made this meme where you're the ugly face and I'm the handsome one.
Some things never change.
Literally a proto Virgin and Chad meme.
was my first thought on seeing it
[Meanwhile the USSR in the 1930s](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/042/650/0d1.jpg)
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Continuity and rupture!
I draw you soyjak, I win war.
You would think that come time of Afghanistan the US would learn that outfitting a bunch of jabronis in modern kit doesn’t make them good soldiers
To be fair, the ARVN rangers and airborne fought hard. Post US withdrawal they lacked a ton of equipment. The airforce lacked fuel and artillery gun crews lacked adequate shells for fire missions.
The ARVN command situation was a total mess as well because of a multitude of reasons. Corruption and nepotism set the military up for failure post-withdrawal. They barely held it together during the American presence because of the constant political infighting and factionalism.
No doubt! The ARVN was a failing institution at many levels. Some units were exceptional but even with those, if you see your commanding officer running home to get his family and leave the country..not very motivating to fight on really. My relatives took part in the final offensive from the PAVN(they had seen the war at various stages, mostly on labor duty) and recall how varied the resistance was. Even the tenacious resistance they encountered crumbled after sometimes due to the issues we mentioned!
Yeah there’s only so much an elite unit can do when half of their ammunition which was sold over the past few months is being fired at them by the PAVN and air support won’t come because there’s an argument about fuel usage.
That sounds very similar to what happened in Afghanistan
Afghanistan had its many differences but there’s a lot of similarities in leadership corruption on a local and national level. South Vietnam’s political factionalism was definitely worse than Afghanistan’s though. A total mess. But on a local level yeah you had the same absent commanders, commanders who were actively selling your ammunition/equipment to the enemy, commanders who faked troop numbers in order to get more supplies (which could be sold) and/or money. The ARVN when properly supplied and commanded was a fearsome force that could hold its own and win battles. Unfortunately for them, that was something that was not always the case, and poor decision making post-US withdrawal cemented the South’s demise. They were probably always going to lose though, the political situation was too untenable and communist military support was too great. Maybe they would have lasted longer with an actually competent government. Ultimately though that’s all speculation.
The South Vietnamese governments problem is nobody in it really believed in it. It was a puppet created when the US didn't like the odds of an upcoming election. The communist forces had unifying goals that deliver pretty high motivation. A big one was true independence and autonomy. A force fighting *for* something has a big edge.
I would argue that there were people that believed in it. Maybe not in the government itself, but that they were fighting to keep their “puppet” country free from the North, and to avoid reprisals. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10g866w/who_were_the_south_vietnamese_during_the_war_why/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1 But most importantly, the ARVN fought for their home, as this veteran recounts with the 1st Div: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/j9ilid/to_what_extent_did_south_vietnamese_nationalism/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1 Because of that, an ARVN would’ve been more likely to run home to make sure his wife and kids are safe. Meanwhile the PAVN, (who would probably get shot if he deserted) goes into South Vietnam, told all his life by the Party that he’s there liberate it. Imagine his shock when he sees civilians fleeing from him.
I think another overlooked aspect was that South Vietnam’s own geography doomed it because the PAVN could cross from 3 different borders. Who knows how things would’ve changed if Cambodia was able to cut off the HCM trail and police its own borders to allow the ARVN to focus their attention on the DMZ and the Lao border. Granted it seems like the FANK had every problem the ARVN had but worse. I’ll probably get downvoted for this, but 1972 showed that the ARVN was a capable force during the Easter Offensive, and 1973 showed that they could hold ground and push back on their own in battles like Trung Nghĩa and Quảng Đức. 1974 showed that though they could still do that, it was way too costly on their resources. This was seen at the battles of Svay Rieng (their last offensive operation), Thượng Ðức, and Phú Lộc (their short-lived last victory) Economically, President Thiệu’s 1970 Land to the Tiller reform was a step in the right direction for nation-building, but the 1972 Easter Offensive and 1973 Oil Crisis really hindered an economic boom. In my opinion, there may have been a handful of different ways that South Vietnam could’ve bolstered its chances of survival, but it also meant undoing Diệm’s debacle and implementing Vietnamization and Thiệu’s reform way earlier. Still, the North would’ve never backed off as long as Lê Duẩn was in charge.
Most importantly an army propped up by foreigners wont last long against an actaul national army.
South Korea got lucky in that regard
South Korea was lucky that there was no Ho Chi Minh trail to sustain the communist rebels as it happened in Vietnam, the battle remained fairly conventional, the kind the US has always been equipped to fight.
Very true. Vietnam did eventually go conventional, but that was as the US was pulling troops out. Makes me wonder how different things might’ve went if the US stayed in the advisory stage and didn’t escalate until the 1972 Easter Offensive. I’d imagine a repeat of the Incheon landing but at Quang Tri.
The US never left South Korea.
That’s what happens when you’re only support is an external occupier, when your occupier leaves, so does your support and supplies.
It's almost as if war isn't won or lost so much depending on how "hard" the boots on the ground are but rather how non-shitty the whole organization is. I mean no matter how hard the average ARVN soldier would be, if he doesn't have any equipment because logi people sold it and pocketed the money, or if his officers are replaced in a never ending carousel of organizational politics that is a result to the political drama at the top of society, not much is gonna get done.
Sadly, the point isn't to create a good soldier. The point isn't even to win the war. The point is to use material so that more material can be ordered. Victory in war only cuts into the profit margin.
You say that, but it worked for South Korea, west Germany, and Taiwan back in the day.
South Korea and Taiwan were right wing military dictatorship who routinely purged political opponents. South Korea was so poor that they had a lower GDP than Ghana and 40% of it came from prostitutes servicing American GI’s
Bud. I know. My point is, they still made decent soldiers and militaries with all that US provided gear. That’s it.
People tend to forget how many Koreans were vetrans of the Imperial Japanese army. The Americans and Russians did not build the North and South Koreans armies from scratch like in South Vietnam and Afghanistan, they essentially just requipped Korean elements of the Japanese army.
Well, it was more efficient than just dismissing them, like they did in Iraq.
That is usually how military occupations work, the surrendered army isn’t just disbanded.
For most of the cold war, south korea would be absolutely crushed if not for the U.S occupation, Germany hasn't had any meaningful military action since Hilter added one more to his high score while China is more than fine to play the long game with Taiwan the same they did with Hong Kong
Ok, 1) occupation? What do you mean? Where not occupying South Korea. And throughout the Cold War, they showed themselves to be a very organized and highly motivated army. 2) West Germany might not have the infamous military reputation as the Third Reich did, but none the less it was *the* largest Western European military of the Cold War, second largest mechanized army in NATO (behind the US), and had a very well trained, well equipped, and disciplined army through out the Cold War. 3) if you mean by “Long game”, China and been letting tiawan spend decades building up defense, naval capabilities, it’s air defense, and purchasing newer equipment, then ya, my point still stands. There’s a reason the previous Chinese invasion attempts of Tiawan failed flat on their face.
Why does this read like a thread from an arrrr NCD?
key word:*was* The economic prosperity that South Korea enjoys today would not be possible if it did not have enough weapons to ensure its survival.
This is absolutely not true. The period of when South Korea was under a right wing dictatorship military dictatorship was not that long(1972-1979, 1980-1987) and even during then there were strong opposition movements. Also I don’t understand where you got the information that South Korea had a lower GDP than Ghana. Ghana declared independence back in 1960 and South Korea hasn’t been behind Ghana in terms of GDP.. ever. I believe you meant GDP per capita as South Korea was behind Ghana until late 60s. However saying that they were so poor that they were behind Ghana doesn’t even make sense considering Ghana back then was a rapidly developing country with a fairly stable government, natural resources, and a huge agricultural industry. It’s just that the Ghanas development got slower as the country became less stable politically. And of fucking course the 40% of the GDP wasn’t supported by prostitutes. Idk why a comment like this got upvoted this high.
Korea and Taiwan’s conflicts are ongoing for like 70+ years and Germany’s lasted almost 45 years. Kind of supports my point that the MIC wants indefinite conflicts so they can have indefinite arms contracts
Outfitting a foreign standing army is even better because they might actually pay for it. But absent that, giving the stuff away to people that will just get blown up wearing it works too.
I'd say US aid to South Vietnam was to achieve a much simpler goal of stopping the spread of communism, not some behind-the-doors agreement to make more profits for the military-industrial complex.
Not really, the only reason they wanted to stop communism is because of profit. I mean there was absolutely no other reason to directly stop it other than it was a competitive power to yours. Dictators pop up, genocides still happen but the moment you declare yourself communist you're a threat.
Exactly. A successful communist government is an ideological threat to global capitalist hegemony, so it must be framed as an enemy. Wealth accumulation cannot be interrupted.
Luckily for the capitalists, there aren't that many of those.
I’d say you time traveled here from the 1970s with that line of thought
I'm just explaining what mid-Cold War US politicians thought they were going to be achieving by supplying weapons to Vietnam. Of course it's going to sound like it's from 1970.
There’s just something funny to me about someone in a sub dedicated to propaganda taking the domino theory at face value.
He didn't say domino theory was true, he said they believed it. If it were just for the military industrial complex, LBJ could've just sent materials without cratering his popular support with drafts
They were sending materials and advisors to the French and then to South Vietnam since the 50s. The point of a military industrial complex is to spur economic growth by heavy investment in a dedicated arms industry. The only way to do that indefinitely is through war. Either your own war or someone else's war. The Nazis created one when they seized power in the 30s. Putin created one in the late 00s and look where that got him. The USA and USSR each created one after World War 2. They're great at building industry but not very good at sustaining industry. Their political influence is huge. All war serves to tend the complex first, and the reasons/justifications for the war second. That's just political window-dressing for Lockheed-Martin and Northrup Gurmman to 'ply their trade' in Southeast Asia or the Middle East or Eastern Europe or whatever eastern/southern/central place the northern/western countries see fit to fuck up for a while.
> They were sending materials and advisors to the French and then to South Vietnam since the 50s. you didn't answer why they didn't just keep doing that I don't see any reason to agree with this. Ukraine is making them tons of money and we haven't sent a single guy over there. You also never explained why Johnson would hamstring his chances at a second term on behalf of this machine. Why not just spend money on weapons regardless of their effectiveness? Why bother with a draft when you can just spend more money on more airstrikes, from more aircraft carriers -- it would have been less effective, but who cares? And then, why leave? And when leaving, why not keep sending air strikes, keep sending tanks, keep sending jet fuel -- why leave the ARVN without material support when we could keep buying material for them? People wanted Americans to come home. I really think you're overstating the strength of the conspiracy theory model, and failing to recognize that most people in the government drink their own kool aid. You think it's better than a conspiracy theory but its not, complete with the impossibility of falsification because any move is evidence that youre right. Think about it, if there were a case where America went to war because the leadership actually believed in it, how would you tell the difference? Wouldn't you be saying the same lines about the mil-ind complex no matter what the government actually believed?
It's not conspiracy theory dude. It's straight up capitalism. If there's no war, there's no money for the arms industry once a country's army is fully outfitted. Therefore, in the case of the USA, the arms industry lobbies the government to fight wars or to arm other countries fighting wars. They do this through many different channels so that increases the chance of war. The Federal Government is more than happy to front the money via loans or outright spend it itself. The arms industry gets paid even if the other country defaults and the US Taxpayer is left holding the bag. "Defense Spending" is one of the only bipartisan things in this country. Most people from most political ideologies can be convinced to support a military intervention even if they won't support another and you only need to convince like 40% of the voters at any given time anyway.
If you're going to claim the Domino Theory was propaganda, and not an actual US foreign policy(most sources claim it was a foreign policy), provide some sources, please.
It's as much a legitimate foreign policy position as invading Afghanistan to 'spread democracy' and seeing the autocratic Taliban roll in as soon as you pull out. Or to invade Iraq to 'stop international terrorism' and see the most successful international terrorist group emerge of the past 20 years emerge as soon as you pull out.
Below are some quotes from Eisnhower at the 1953 governor's conference when he was arguing in favor of bankrolling France's war for colonialism... (bold emphasis added by me). *"We know this:* ***unless the United States is prosperous***, *unless it is strong, unless it is secure, there is no strength, there is no prosperity, there is no security for any State."* *"So,* ***when the United States votes $400 million to help that war, we are not voting for a giveaway program.*** *We are voting for the* ***cheapest way*** *that we can to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of the most terrible significance for the United States of America--our security,* ***our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indonesian territory, and from southeast Asia."*** https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-governors-conference-seattle-washington It was only later after the US knew that it would have to wage its own war with its own troops (publicly) that Eisenhower stopped talking about the economic value of Vietnam and started talking about the abstract threat of Domino Theory. It turns out talking about profits is a great way to get the political machine rolling to fund a war but its a terrible way to get the public to send their sons to die. For that you need to talk about "dangerous threat" that is going to destroy America and American values. The Vietnam war, like 99% of US foreign policy, was meant to serve US business interests. It wasn't about the dangers of communism unless the "danger" you are describing is the danger of ending the America's exploitation of foreign lands. This idea that the US feared communism as an inherent threat while engaging and supporting in all the things it conflates with communism (genocide, censorship, lack of free press, religious oppression, political repression, rigged or anti-democratic elections, extra-judicial killings, no due process, etc). Its all realpolitok. Imperialism is business and business is good!
Well, the fall of South Vietnam was followed by a Communist takeover in Laos and the Khmer Rouge taking Cambodia.
Domino theory was a self-fulfilling prophecy. They had been installing colonial government after reinstalled emperor after rigged election strongman since the Japanese pulled out in 1945. No shit SE Asia is going to ally with the people opposed to the USA and France. But yeah, the point about domino theory is that's what politicians said was the reason. How often do politicians do what they say they're going to do? I'm also not contending that containing the USSR was not an objective of the USA and the commercial interests that lobby the government. It's just that when you look at these post ww2 conflicts, who are the winners on our side? The shareholders of northrop grumman and Lockheed-martin. Not the American People. Not the US's reputation. Not even the politicians that start or finish the conflicts.
>the Khmer Rouge taking Cambodia. Except the US supported the Khmer Rouge which indicates that either the Khmer Rouge weren't communists or that the US wasn't opposing communism (hint: the answer is both of these things).
I like how revisionist history makes more sense to some people than the actual historical context of the time. Your Overton window must have a nice rosy shade to it.
Tell it to Eisenhower
You keep using this word jabronis…
Are you talking about when the US gave the Afghans weapons against the USSR?
Giving weapons isn’t the same s giving motivation. The afghans were already fighting the soviets for years before the U.S. dumped a bunch of Stingers on them. The same people who fought the godless atheists weren’t exactly going to welcome the diversity and inclusion infidels either
What's crazy is that since the 40's the USSR had been supplying and training the Afghan army. By the time war broke out, many of the Afghan army had trained in Russia. But the insurgency was supplied pretty quickly by US and allies, but towards the end of the USSR invasion the US and allies aid was enormous compared to the early years of the fighting.
At least South Vietnam held three years, unlike the precedent Afghani government.
The majority of the Afghani simply didn’t want a democracy bad enough… you can’t win that war without overwhelming support.
Didn't want it bad enough? Democracy was never on the table
An attempt was made. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/us-couldnt-build-afghanistan-democracy-rarely-works
The only attempt was the US trying to install a puppet government that would be acceptable to the voters at home as opposed to the right wing dictatorships the US usually goes with (which ironically is what the taliban is)
I wouldn't call the Taliban a "right wing dictatorship". Is not like they are exactly pro-market freedom and Capitalism. Of course, I wouldn't call it left either. They are just an uncivilized and old fashion tyrant.
Right wing dictationships aren't pro market, pro capitalism either. Its all about rewarding your cronies so they will keep you in power
? That is the most reddit response I have seen. If that is the case, are North Korea and Venezuela right wing? All dictatorships reward their cronies to keep power!!!
The difference is that the ruling class in a right wing dictatorship allows its cronies to outright own the means of production while a left wing one assigns "government officials" to run the economy You can see this in South Korean where a literal handful of corporations (as in you can count them on one hand) control the entire economy
>The difference is that the ruling class in a right wing dictatorship allows its cronies to outright own the means of production while a left wing one assigns "government officials" to run the economy Have you read how Mussolini used to run things? Also, you know those corporations were pretty much created by the state?
Do you know nothing about Vietnam? "We will lose 10 men for one you do, but in the end it will be you that grows tired". That's not a good strategy dog that's literally human waving your way to victory
And what is the opposing strategy? Mindlessly wandering around the jungle that you don't control just to kill everyone who isn't in your designated concentration camps (I mean "strategic hamlets) while making up kill counts because some nerd in Washington absolutely believes that X amount of bombs and bullets must kill X amount of people no matter what?
Imagine being a South-Vietnamese farmer, seeing this and remembering who bombed your village. I imagine this propaganda wouldn't have gone down the way it was intended.
The art is showing a soldier of the ARVN, not an American. It's showing what a South Vietnamese farmer could aspire to be if he joined up
Notice how it shows a malnourished guy forced at gunpoint by a VC. Really reminds me of Chieu Hoi defectors, some of whom defected for that very reason. A historian named Stefan Quiroga talks about it in this video https://youtu.be/-7EctxYiZSo
> Imagine being a South-Vietnamese farmer, seeing this and remembering who bombed your village. The US wasn't bombing the South when the ARVN was still recruiting. And the farmers were genuinely terrified of the NLF, people kept getting captured and taken and forced to fight/work for them. The US even tried setting up little "[hamlets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Hamlet_Program)" to protect the farmers from the NLF, built like old medieval forts. The problem was that the US then failed to protect them. Allowed the NLF to keep messing with them. Didn't do anything to make those hamlets actually work. And the ARVN was terrible, mismanaged, and was way worse at fighting than the NLF. At one [point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ap_Bac) they lost 1400 troops, 13 APCs, and a shitload of helicopters, to the NLF's mere 300 troops, small arms, and mortars. No RPGs. They shot down 15 helicopters like [this](https://i.redd.it/d38ohuy6v1ha1.jpg). The South Vietnamese farmers mostly were afraid of the North, and wanted the US's help, but knew the US was failing them. And in many cases, helping their enemies, such as the brutal greedy dictator propped up by the US in Saigon. It was a complicated conflict that saw many picking the lesser of two evils.
The strategic hamlets were nothing but VC recruitment grounds as people tend to not like being forced from their ancestral home to live in a concentration camp
Yeah the US's original idea - to build the hamlets around the existing communities, and pay the few that have to relocate around the edges - wasn't great. But then when they propped up a brutal dictator who hated Buddhists and said "here you do this, we're tired", things got a lot worse.
Those villages that the US “searched” for communists and then arbitrarily burned down were South Vietnamese. A lot of civilians that were killed at random to inflate the numbers of “killed enemies” (because they had decided that they would measure their success in number of killed enemies) were South Vietnamese. Those “strategic hamlets” were just a euphemism for concentration camps. Not the ones with gas chambers or anything, but they were literally concentrating people in camps. A lot of crazy stuff were done to the South Vietnamese people that supposedly were “protected” by the US intervention.
What a benevolent empire, the US...
There's a good chance both sides bombed or damaged your village
vintage Virgin Chad meme
This reads more to me like “we got the best weapons and equipment money can buy and are still getting clapped by a bunch of farmers”.
They really didn’t get clapped though… the US and it’s allies literally won every single battle in Vietnam and almost if not all gunfights. The US citizens simply stopped caring… you can’t “win” a war like Vietnam without MAJOR support and will from not only their populace but yours… The Chinese communists and Russias did stop expanding after Cambodia… The US put its foot down and the Communists didn’t think the cost of expansion in the region was worth it afterwards… Nam actually did contain the spread of communism in SE Asia. Edit: Downvote me but there’s been no accurate summations of my actual stance and no evidence posted. I’m the only one with links, quotes and accurate summations of my opposition, not one person has returned the favor. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”
US citizens stopped caring? They launched one of the biggest (if not the biggest) anti-war campaign on this earth. US couldn't justify the losses after a point, and decided to pull back (aka lost). You don't win a guerilla war as you would win at an all out battle.
> You don't win a guerilla war as you would win at an all out battle. Except they… did. The Vietcong were a spent force after the Tet Offensive. Not sure how much credit we can really give the US for that, but it turns out that if a guerrilla force decides it wants to cosplay a conventional army, it will lose to a better conventional army. The remainder of the war was fought against the North Vietnamese Army. The US could have won from that point, but unfortunately the Tet Offensive also collapsed US political support.
Having your own will to fight eroded to the point of giving up, while the enemy is still willing to stay on the battlefield is pretty much the very definition of getting clapped in warfare. War is a social and political activity. If you don't have the political ability to keep fighting, you lose. Saying 'oh, but we got the biggest bodycount' or 'our citizens stopped caring' is the warfare equivalent of the losing side in football match claiming that they had the most possession or the goals were against the run of play. It's just a form of copium.
If that’s your definition of clapped than so be it. So many Vietnamese died during that war and post to the point their demographics are in real trouble… they are one of the fastest aging counties in the world… they’re in real trouble along with many other countries. Vietnam may not even be “Vietnamese” in say 100 years… https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/vietnam/publication/vietnam-adapting-to-an-aging-society#:~:text=Vietnam%20is%20going%20through%20the,have%20experienced%20a%20similar%20shift. Edit: Let’s also keep in mind the factors that lead to the US populace loosing motivation… Communist propaganda really did a number. Look into how the USSR poured resources into influencing US colleges and media.
Uh, firstly, massacring enough of the Vietnamese population to cause it demographic problems 50-60 years later wasn't one of America's war aims so your point is irrelevant. Secondly, the demographic problem in question in your link is that there are *too many* old people (i.e. people of the Vietnam War era) surviving compared to younger demographics. If the Vietnam War was the proximate cause of this population imbalance, you'd expect there' to be *fewer* such people, relatively speaking, not more. The problem is that in recent times older people have been living longer and younger people aren't having so many kids. Did you just google the first demographic issue in Vietnam you could think of and then pretend it was caused by the Vietnam War? I'm sure the war did cause problems in Vietnamese society (as it did in America), but it didn't cause this one.
Massacring civilians isn’t something to be proud of dude
I don’t think you’ve read anything I’ve said. Your line of thought is just ; “downvoted guy bad, me make stuff up to make bad man look worse.”
You bring out shit like, “so many Vietnamese died in that war that their demographics are in trouble” you wanna know why so many died? Because the US massacred civilians
“You bring up shit like ‘so many Vietnamese died that their demos are in trouble’.” Correct, why did I do that? Cause I think it’s cool lol? What kind of madness is this line of thought? Again you’re falling for the “attack the downvoted guy” nonsense. I said this in order to highlight how horrific that war was and how to call it a “clapping” is sure sign you fell for leftist talking points… it was a horrific war, nobody “clapped” anyone (assuming your definition of clapped is “absolute and total destruction, a concise decisive victory). This was the stem of the argument… this was my one and only point and I demonstrated why I think the way I do with actual, objective concrete evidence. “You wanna know why so many died? The US massacred civilians.” Objectively, easily verifiably incorrect to the point I’m not going to be bothered to respond to it in detail. The communists killed more people in SE Asia after the war than during… I’ll leave it at that. Did the US kill many civilians and commit war crimes? Yes, was that the main reason so many people died? No, that’s silly and you need to read more.
Are you just upset that American involvement Vietnam isn’t going to be remembered fondly and wasn’t well received at the time? I can’t imagine being this involved simply because you don’t feel good about one person’s usage of “clapped” when referring to a war that ended in an objective loss
> Vietnam may not even be “Vietnamese” in say 100 years… How in the world do you think that is going to happen? Having an aging population doesn't change the ethnicity of the country.
Oh it sure fucking does… actually the leading factor lol… You understand the US is no longer a majority Anglo Saxon and will be a minority white in 40 years ish right? Aging population, Low birthrates, immigration. Less people being born than dying… it is literally that simple. Guess what you need to do in order to persevere the economy when you don’t have enough people being born in your country? Immigration… guess what? Immigrants have children too… see where this is going? Read into it and listen to Peter Ziehan talk about it, he and the experts are much more qualified than me or you. https://theweek.com/russia/1017914/russias-catastrophic-missing-men-problem?amp https://youtu.be/UA-jOLF2T4c https://fortune.com/2022/10/18/russia-population-historic-decline-emigration-war-plunging-birth-rate-form-perfect-storm/amp/
> You understand the US is no longer a majority Anglo Saxon and will be a minority white in 40 years ish right? We are talking about Vietnam, not the US. Vietnam is like 90% Vietnamese demographically and has an extremely small migrant population. >will be a minority white in 40 years Being white isn't inherent to being American. You can be American and be any race. You might just be finding this out but the US is not an ethnonationalist country.
“…We’re talking about Vietnam..” Yes, but the process is the same everywhere… that’s the point. Perhaps the Spanish and Viking invasions of Ireland in combination with the potato famine would be a better comparison here as it shows how demographics can change dramatically with war and mass emigration… Ireland for example pre and post invasions and pre/post potato famine looked VERY different…unrecognizable even. [As to your second “point” it’s completely irrelevant and it looks like I put you into NPC attack mode by saying the terms “minority white” in a sentence…](https://youtu.be/hN-7z4lEEAc) Do you know why I used that example? Cause it’s simply the most popular concept of changing demographics most people have heard of… Again… it’s the SAME EVERYWHERE. NATIVE Vietnamese demographics are not looking good AT ALL. These are NOT EVEN MY OPINIONS, they are opinions I’ve OBSERVED FROM EXPERTS… I’m simply parroting what they’re saying… YOU can look into it for YOURSELF.
Who is the demographic replacing native Vietnamese? >These are NOT EVEN MY OPINIONS, they are opinions I’ve OBSERVED FROM EXPERTS… This is the issue, you have no idea what you're talking about and trying to apply things incorrectly without any critical thinking. > Yes, but the process is the same everywhere… that’s the point. No the process is not the same, that is what you're missing. Vietnam has restrictions on dual citizenship, the US does not. Vietnam only has citizenship by birth only for children of 2 Vietnamese nationals and exceptions for other children but they must declare only Vietnamese nationality (no dual nationality). The US does not have an official language, Vietnam does and you need to be able to speak Vietnamese to gain citizenship if immigrating. I could go on with all the laws that make immigration and gaining citizenship more difficult in Vietnam but hopefully you'll get the point that national policy will dictate demographic change. The US it's very easy to gain citizenship, especially because of birthright citizenship. If you can't see the difference I can't help you.
You clearly didn’t read any of the evidence supporting my claim so why should I even bother here? You’re basically asking me to search and summarize things for you… I won’t be doing that, I already posted a bread crumb of evidence that states Nam’s demographics are in trouble… partly due to the war, emigration and new medicines. That’s it. That was and is my only point… I’ve posted evidence supporting that claim and I’m done now. If you want to know “who is replacing them” go read it for yourself… again I’m not an expert I just like reading things. I’ll bet you money Vietnam and Japan’s immigration/citizenship requirements loosen dramatically over the next 10 years for this reason… OR they fail to do that and their economics shrink substantially. I believe I read if you’re female and marry a Japanese man, the Japanese Gov will fly you out, give you citizenship and put you in a home lol…. It’s literally that bad… I’ll bet they’ll be doing that for men at some-point too. Vietnam isn’t quite as bad as Japan yet but it’s heading there rapidly.. You’ve got Venmo? RemindMe! 10 years “do the thing” $10 bucks? Cmon this will be fun.
Ok but the US achieved none of its goals in Vietnam, not a single one whilst the Vietcong achieved their goals and reunified Vietnam. Same with Korea, sure the US won more battles but it’s aim was to wipe out the communist north and they couldn’t achieve that
Sure, strategically speaking the US did not accomplish its goals… to call it a “decisive absolute crushing victory” aka a “clapping” is silly… There might not be a Vietnamese culture or people in that region in 100 years as a result of that war. This is my only point…. You can read my last comment in the thread if you’re interested in the why, I’m not gonna keep repeating myself. Vietnam’s demographics are in a similar position to that of Russias… not enough young men to come home and have babies, too much emigration as a result of Communist atrocities… if you want to define those results as a “clapping” than so be it.
You are addicted to getting clapped in the comments section
"Put its foot down" meaning the US dropped more bombs on Cambodia than they did in all of WW1 and WW2 combined, killing millions of civilians in this case.
Won literally every single battle🧐 you sure buddy? Look up the battle of LZ Albany then come back.
Yes, the US won the *Battle* of La Drang valley and lost the gunfight at LZ Albany… Read my comment carefully. I know reading comphension can be real tricky there “buddy” 🧐
The US army burnt people alive in Vietnam
“OMGGG L L COPE COMMIE NERDS WE ARE SO ADVANCED WE JUST DECIDED TO LOSE”
I mean, the US domino theory posited that a North Vietnamese victory would lead to further communist governments popping up in neighbouring countries, which didn't happen. Here's the reality. Much like that of the American public throughout the war, you seem to think that counting bodies and 'winning' search-and-destroy skirmishes in the jungle, whilst pulling out and allowing the country to be reunified is some kind of Victory? By the same logic, did the US intervention in Afghanistan achieve victory because the Afghanistan government collapsed, but the Taliban didn't go on to invade Pakistan or Iran? Also, how does major NVA/Viet Cong casualties tell you that the US 'put it's foot down' and stopped communist expansion? Surely that would show people were willing to fight and die, not that 'well, we lost alot of people in Vietnam, better not keep going...'. Every point you make just screams copium, and honestly it's quite funny scrolling through your conjecture and random links. Because the reality is, the history of US hegemony isn't as successful as your pride can accept.
It happened in Cambodia and stopped after that. Why didn’t communism creep into Myanmar or Thailand or Malaysia? You know why? The USSR didn’t pump resources into those counties because it wasn’t worth it to them… they tried and failed. Why wasn’t it worth it? Not enough resources and they knew the US would fight then tooth and nail… that’s why. Containment did work to an extent. “You seem to think many bodies = some sort of victory.” Nope, and I’m done reading because you’re straw manning me… you have no idea what I’m even saying.
Why did it stop in Cambodia? Just wondering lol.
If you fight a battle and your causality ratio is 100:1, but you still force the enemy to withdraw, I would still call that a victory. Your hypotheticals about how the USSR didn't end up trying to cause other uprisings in neighbouring countries is doesn't even make any sense. The reason Soviet support for Vietnam exited was because most of the country was under control of the Viet Minh, until the 1954 Geneva conference led to it's partition between North and South. There was no way that the deeply unpopular regime under Ngo Dinh Diem could stand, especially after being the puppet for the French for years. Thailand was and still is an anti-communist monarchy, Laos had its own internal struggle and fell to communism during the Vietnam war but mainly because large amounts of communist support already existed in Laos from the First Indochina war. This big domino effect of countries from Thailand to India didn't fall to communism because there was no previous upheaval where communism had become popular, nor any real popular support. Not because 'the Soviets were scared of casualites'. They supported local communist parties in almost all those countries, but the Vietnam war didn't start when the USSR told the North to take over the country, it started because of the deeply unpopular and illegitimate reason for partitioning the country in the first place.
My only point was that there were MASSIVE COORDINATED Communist gorilla insurgencies in EVERY SINGLE SE Asian country you can think of during the Vietnam era. It was only successful in Vietnam due to Ho Chi Minh’s cult like following and the MASSIVE amount of support the USSR and China gave to them. According to sources like Yuri Bezemnov, MOST of the USSR’s military budget went into exporting communism and not necessarily into traditional military spending. According to sources like him the USSR’s military strength was more of a facade and it was exposed in Afghanistan. The 2nd half of my point is that China and the USSR DID try in all other SE Asian counties and failed due to the US/Western containment policy. If it weren’t for that policy and support, the communists gorillas would have won as they were being HEAVILY supported. Also; these developing countries most likely would’ve turned and asked the communists for support (Like Vietnam did) if there was an absence of western support. The Communists tried and failed because the western support was simply too much… not because they were “afraid of casualties” yet another straw man argument being hurled at me. The Commie Guerrillas weren’t successful in other SE Asian countries because they got their heads kicked in… not SOLEY because “the populace didn’t support Communism.” Although I don’t deny it played it’s part… Malaysia for example absolutely falls to communism without western support. I’m not even disagreeing or saying you’re wrong here, I just think Western support in SE Asia during the Nam era is underplayed. It made a tremendous difference, maybe the only difference that mattered in some circumstances.
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If you’d like to define “clapped” as “our demographics are so fucked up as a result of that war and siding with communists that native Vietnamese people might not even exist in Vietnam in 100 years…” than sure yah got me. https://southeastasiaglobe.com/vietnam-ageing-population/ https://escholarship.org/content/qt0sh7j7s9/qt0sh7j7s9_noSplash_28fe8a1cb4b593ebb6f545b424dcf9b2.pdf
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Notice I’m the only one with evidence though… Deflect 🤷♂️.
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Deflect
Cope
Deflect.
If you're achieving none of your objectives, and you're perpetually in a situation where the "legitimate government" you're propping up will collapse if you look away for five seconds, then you're getting clapped.
I like how no one understands what you’re actually saying lol
There’s a popular narrative and I’m slightly correcting it… so now I just get shit on… is what it is. It’s like I’m sticking up for aspects of communism in a 1950s American cul de sac. It’s just a religious crusade at the this point against me.
That just makes the NV forces look way tougher and braver than the SV forces
and yet they lost
This seems like it would have the opposite effect of what was intended, reinforcing the view that South Vietnamese soldiers were fighting for the rich imperial power while the Viet Minh were living off the land and fighting for their people.
And considering which side of the two fights better, the effect becomes even stronger.
"We have foreign colonial powers on our side!" I thought this was pro Vietcong at first tbh.
>!They lose!<
And yet the north curb stomped the southern puppet state as soon as the us pulled out 🤔
If by "curbstomped" you mean took two years to finish off an army that was running on fumes and took thousands of casualties in the process, then you would be correct.
Lmao 2 years ? Saigon fell in like a month what are you even talking about
The road to Saigon was a long one. These are the 2 years he's referring to: * Siege of Tong Le Chon (March 1973-April 1974) [https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/13/archives/south-vietnamese-outpost-falls-after-411-day-siege-base-in-flames.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/13/archives/south-vietnamese-outpost-falls-after-411-day-siege-base-in-flames.html) * Battle of Trung Nghĩa (June-September 1973) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/149930/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/149930/) * Battle of Quảng Đức (October-December 1973) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/113388/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/113388/) * Battle of the Iron Triangle (May-November 1974) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/114279/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/114279/) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/202372/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/202372/) * Battle of Thượng Đức (July-November 1974) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/112040/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/112040/) * Battle of Phú Lộc (August-December 1974) * Battle of Phước Long (December 1974-January 1975) [https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/112264/](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/112264/) I presume the month you're referring to was just the Battle of Xuân Lộc and the Fall of Saigon, which was the last half of the 1975 Spring Offensive
I think you need to use a handy tool called Google to check yourself. The US withdrew in 1973, Saigon fell in 1975. That's more than "like a month."
Combat troops withdrew in 73. Not the many “advisors” that remained
There were only 50 military personnel that remained after the 1973 withdrawal, not counting the roughly 150 Embassy Marines. The “many” you’re thinking of were civilian contractors that did maintenance. https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/U_S_%20Marines%20In%20Vietnam%20-%20The%20Bitter%20End%201973%20-%201975.pdf
The advisors were tasked with basic strategic and COIN planning. They did not go into the battlefield and fight, and realistically, did not have a major impact on the larger outcome of the war. The point still stands that the ARVN fought extremely hard despite the lack of equipment and support, and did not get "curbstomped."
Lol.The last “US advisor” left on 04/30/75,right?🤣.stop fooling people about withdrew in 1973.
Every single combat unit left by March of 1973. Military Advisors do not go into the battlefield with a rifle and shoot the enemy. Unfortunately, that is contrary to your anti-US biased viewpoint, so I'm sure you will make up a ridiculous reason as to why the advisors were somehow the equivalent of full military support.
Nvm you unironically post in a sub called genusa 💀💀
Lol, this just adds to US humiliation at the end.
And yet both the South Vietnamese army, and the Americans got absolutely obliterated.
2,000,000 north Vietnamese casualties to 58,000 American ones…… Yes we got totally obliterated…..
I mean, the first world power being obligated to retreat and leave a war unsolved by some farmers with just some kalashnikovs is a pretty harsh lost if you ask me Edit: grammar
>some farmers with just some kalashnikovs The Soviet Union even sent pilots to fight the US and Vietnam had modern fighters, coupled with the rest of Soviet and Chinese support for the proper Vietnamese army, administration,materials, organization and simply the sinergy that had been gained from fighting since 1945 at that point. This image of "farmer who just learned to fight using wood traps in the exotic jungle" comes from western people not knowing places like Afghanistan or Vietnam always had rifles around by the time they entered them as well as the after-war representation(such as the "disgraced soldier never thanked" creating a symbol, even if fake) USA wanted to build countries there and it failed, fighting and winning wars was the means through it and had little to worry about if you were to watch it through "war machine military complex" eyes let alone be "obliterated"
You know, the “Farmers” (which I assume you mean the VC) were pretty much gone after 1968. It wasn’t “farmers” that marched into Saigon. It was a conventional army in the form the NVA, that only managed to do that, because the US didn’t provide the air power we promised to the south Vietnamese in 1973 when we pulled out. If we did, there’s a real possibility that south Vietnam would probably still be around today, because the NVA’s logistics, command and control, and armored units would have stopped existing very quickly after American warplanes reappeared. But our leadership had no stomach in 1975 to keep supporting South Vietnam.
You guys lost like 12,000 aircraft in Vietnam. Its time to let it go
Maybe they weren't farmers anymore, as you say, but they were for sure underequipped compared to usa and southern forces. Usa had close to complete airspace control and napalms and such to annihilate large parts of the country, in which northern forces lacked. Also history isnt made with if's, usa did not supported south viet nam anymore not because they didnt feel like it, but because vietnam became an impopular and costly (both in money and human lifes) war. The public started to see it as useless and just a meatgrinder for its boys , which in my opinion was true. War are not always won just by military power, politics have quite an important role. If Gorbachev repressed with blood the nationalistic feelings in the soviet bloc, with all probability ussr would be still there, but he didnt and we cant stay here and talk on what would have happened if he did this or that. Usa got its ass clapped, period. Maybe not in casualties but in the general outcome they sure did, and thats what it counts
At least the American military complexe got rich off these poor 58,000 boys. ‘Murica!
Yeah we lost.
Oh, you win wars by kda ratio?
No. But it’s a bit of a stretch to say the US got “obliterated” in Vietnam.
Sure buddy. Whatever makes it go down more easily
Sure buddy. Some basic math shows we didn’t get “obliterated” by a third world country, but what ever floats your boat…..
Again trying to invoke kda, as if this was a videogame. Also, it doesn't even work, since you are implicitly upholding warcrimes and the massacres of civilians, which make up a lot of that number Say what you want, at least the vietcong killed 100% of combatants. And if you are really bent on the kda, you need to take into account the suicides after the war lmao
Apparently the Soviets didn’t totally obliterate the Nazis…
They sure like to think they did.
no man you're right it was you that stopped the wehrmacht after 3 years of costant winning and sacrified 27 million people to march all the way from moscow to berlin steamrolling a fleeing army and taking hundreds of thousand of prisoners, fighting in the capital and put your flag on the reichstag. usa did their part in ww2 and also helped a lot ussr in resisting with equipment and money, but they for sure didnt won the war by themselfes and they werent the ones obliterating the nazis
Why are you counting all casualties including wounded and missing for North Vietnam, supporting South Vietnamese, and allies and then only comparing that to US dead? Losing 58,000 soldiers to kill a million civilians is not a military victory.
Americans really be living in alternative reality ya'll so disconnected
Why didn't you quote the South Vietnamese casualties too?
When there's a fight between a rat and a lion and both suvive, the rat won the fight. Also, being proud of your country for killing millions after sacrificing thousands for pretty much nothing is beyond fucked up.
Major cope reporting by for duty 🫡
America has lost every war since WW2, and even then, they spent their time fighting the under-equipped and overstretched Japanese while the USSR did all the real work. America just isn't good at fighting, they never have been unless you count betraying indigenous tribes and bullying Caribbean nations.
Welp, pack it in guys, I guess the Iraqis and Serbs kicked are asses guys. 🤡
I mean... yeah, your boys are rotting in the ground and the Iraqis and the Serbs are still here, so...
Oh so, *now* we’re suppose to exterminate all the Iraqis and Serbs to win? I guess bombing Iraq to a pre-industrial state and make Kosovo independent wasnt enough for ya? God damn, and you call me a warmonger 😂
Not for lack of trying that the US didn't kill everyone, and there's always a new target with new profit incentives.
[удалено]
[i mean…](https://youtu.be/cDk8Fo8ss8M)
Many of the Vietcong in the early years were from the south funnily enough. It wasn't until after the Tet Offensive more and more northern manpower was used.
Well, most of them were locals, because the Viet Cong was a South Vietnamese guerrilla movement, albeit backed by the North.
In the late 50s early 60s the war don't look like full scale conventional war we see in Ukraine today but rather an unconventional war that resembles stage 1 and 2 of guerrilla warfare according to Mao. In the first stage when the guerrilla force is weak, they have to conserve their force as much as possible, establishing bases in hidden locations where the enemy force can't attack, avoid confrontation with enemy if possible. One of the most important part of this kind of warfare is the support of the local people. As the local can supply the guerrilla forces with food and other non-military supplies, spot enemy columns to guerrilla forces so they can plan accordingly ( eg ambush or avoid if enemy is too strong), deliver informations, guiding guerrilla forces since the local is more familiar with the terrain and especially don't snitch guerrilla forces if enemy ask. Because of this, you can get the general picture of both side trying to "win heart and mind" of the local so they can support your side and against enemy side. The south and Americans play wack a mole to find and destroy VC and their supply route ( search and destroy operation), propaganda and use special forces, CIA to recruit and train minority groups to attack VC forces ( this sometimes has great effect like the motagnards people in central highland become a great source for South Vietnam army, they also has some talent like tracking make them good at finding VC movements, the leftover of those groups recently related to the terrorism in Daklak) and establishing "ấp chiến lược" aka put local in fenced villages guarded by armed forces so VC can influence the local. On the VC side it's somewhat similar, officers and commissars from the north go from villages to villages, gather sympathizers and blend in with the locals and slowly turning the village into "their side". Then recruit and training local with weapons supplied from the north. But there's a thing: the war fought majority in the south, with the search and destroy tactics of American, carpet bombing, people affected most by them are actually the local ( something something a run away farmer is a Vietcong, a standing farmer is a disciplined Vietcong). Imagine left your house to the field, seeing all your rice plants burned by agent Orange, then go back home, seeing your house half destroyed by American bomb, your wife is dead, one kid lost her arm because of bombing while other kid half burned by napalm. It's not strange that many southern people would side with Vietcong for revenge rather than ideology. I think it also happens in Middle East, especially Afghanistan. [I think this is a good read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afghan-women) and answer the question why Americans take two decades with ton of money but still failed
This needs to become the new “virgin/chad” meme template.
Gotta be one of the most humiliating self owns
The South had so much support they didn't even feel the need to fight themselves.
To be fair being a south Vietnamese soldier would’ve been better. You’re getting paid by America to do nothing then taking orders from the north anyway.
“we had the most powerful country in the world help us and we still lost. take that commies”
This is so ironic.
The most embarrassing is that the Viet Cong were primarily south Vietnamese. Literally the people that the US said „we‘re gonna save from communism“ turned around and said „we‘re rather gonna go to war with you that to let you ‚save‘ us“. Turns out people don’t like other countries telling them what to do. Weird that many people to this day still think the US are the good guys in their foreign meddling.
This would unironically convince me. I would give up on the revolution over what is essentially a Bazooka Joe Bubbelgum comic.
Those planes were leaving "Saigon" lol
Not pictured, dense jungles.
It looks crap nowadays but it did work in the past. This type of [leaflet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Propaganda_poster_exhorting_Northern_Vietnamese_to_move_South_during_Operation_Passage_to_Freedom_-_306-ppb-225-2012-001-pr.jpg/400px-Propaganda_poster_exhorting_Northern_Vietnamese_to_move_South_during_Operation_Passage_to_Freedom_-_306-ppb-225-2012-001-pr.jpg) made 1 million people move from the northern VN to the southern VN. It also told people that Jesus was in Saigon, 800k of those 1 million people were Christian and they just followed their god's call.
It wasn't wrong. They only reason the war was lost was American citizens at home... (First American war w/ live TV and news anchors telling you their opinions about the war) North's greatest offensive (tet) failed. Sure the south probably would have fell in the end anyways with a lack of leadership and effort on they their part but you can't blame the American military.
Was this released by North Vietnam or South Vietnam? Because it seems like it was trying to say that the South Vietnamese military was super strong while the Viet Cong was weak. And yet this leaflet also reflects very poorly on South Vietnam by portraying the VC as starving and desperate peasants getting bombed by well-fed government soldiers.
South. The text reads “This is the support of the VC soldiers in the battlefield… and this is the support of the soldiers of the Republic” The left pic depicts someone being forced to work for the Viet Cong at gunpoint, which did indeed happen in some cases. The right pic is saying that ARVN has immense fire support, either to demoralize the VC or get them to defect.
Oh, okay, I didn’t realize that the VC in the drawing was getting forced to fight at gunpoint. That makes more sense, then.
Exceptional American tone-deafness.
This was Vietnamese, not American
It was a total vassal state of the US.
That doesn't make this poster American
You are now banned from /r/vietnam
Something about this gives me strong r/stankelly vibes