DBWI: What if South Vietnam was conquered by North Vietnam?

I have been thinking to myself, what if South Vietnam was fell to the communists? Apparently many people during the 60s and the 70s were yearning for the collapse of the Saigon government. Some analysts ever said collapse was immediate without heavy US military aid. In spite of all the odds South Vietnam has prevailed.

Nowadays the two Vietnams sort of resemble the Korean peninsula.

South Vietnam although nowhere near as successful as South Korea. South Vietnam is doing quite good for it self. Its economy is booming. Some analysts have predicted it is set to surpass Thailand in the next 5 years or so.

North Vietnam luckily is not the cesspool that North Korea has deteriorate to. But country is having really hard time making economic progress due to most of its infrastructure being completely obliterated by US/ RVN AF. And the famine of 1988 bought the whole country down. I guess Hanoi's warmongering has caught up with it. Resembles it neighbor Laos.

Do you think if North Vietnam conquered the South and reunify the whole country under their leadership , it might do Chinese style reforms?

Greetings from Seoul. Korea is still quite celebratory over the new RVN-KOR FTA. We hope RVN certainly develops to our level one day, but it would certainly take a while to beat the Japanese GDP per capita and further to beat ours. At least RVN has become democratic - only recently did we stop saluting the flag at 6 in the evening! Korea obviously has much more to do in terms of democratisation.
But still, Korea has some tips to give South Vietnam in terms of economic and foreign policy. And here they are:

1. Find a steady and large source of foreign capital. Could be remittances, could be loans, could be aid. But finding them to invest in industry and infrastructure is essential, and it seems RVN hasn't reached that level yet.

2. Export is key to economic development. RVN doesn't have the problem of lacking food supplies, but for Korea it was a key issue - and thus trade became a huge priority. RVN needs to be as aggressive as South Korea is in expanding the foreign market.

3. International recognition. RVN more or less lost on this since they negotiated with the north to both enter the UN a few years ago, but it is a huge boost to your global prestige and economic growth if you are seen as the only representative of that nation. Note how, after loosing all territory south of the 39th parallel, North Korea has become irrelevant.

4. Strong education, health, transport and housing services. This is what you need with to do with the foreign capital. Never overinvest, of course, but RVN seems too cautious - they also overinvest in the military. Why the hell does South Vietnam need aircraft carriers, again?

5. Continue doing the 4 things above. Then in a few decades I am quite certain South Vietnam will reach the levels South Korea has achieved right now.

No "information wars" across the border because both VBC Television and Vietnam Central Television would under a single state broadcasting organization.

And also, no North Vietnamese accusations that RoV is not "pure Vietnamese" territory because of the fact that much of its geography was once held by the Chams.

zeppelinair said:

Greetings from Seoul. Korea is still quite celebratory over the new RVN-KOR FTA. We hope RVN certainly develops to our level one day, but it would certainly take a while to beat the Japanese GDP per capita and further to beat ours. At least RVN has become democratic - only recently did we stop saluting the flag at 6 in the evening! Korea obviously has much more to do in terms of democratisation.
But still, Korea has some tips to give South Vietnam in terms of economic and foreign policy. And here they are:

1. Find a steady and large source of foreign capital. Could be remittances, could be loans, could be aid. But finding them to invest in industry and infrastructure is essential, and it seems RVN hasn't reached that level yet.

2. Export is key to economic development. RVN doesn't have the problem of lacking food supplies, but for Korea it was a key issue - and thus trade became a huge priority. RVN needs to be as aggressive as South Korea is in expanding the foreign market.

3. International recognition. RVN more or less lost on this since they negotiated with the north to both enter the UN a few years ago, but it is a huge boost to your global prestige and economic growth if you are seen as the only representative of that nation. Note how, after loosing all territory south of the 39th parallel, North Korea has become irrelevant.

4. Strong education, health, transport and housing services. This is what you need with to do with the foreign capital. Never overinvest, of course, but RVN seems too cautious - they also overinvest in the military. Why the hell does South Vietnam need aircraft carriers, again?

5. Continue doing the 4 things above. Then in a few decades I am quite certain South Vietnam will reach the levels South Korea has achieved right now.

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South Vietnamese government had plans to build a memorial for the ROK soldiers killed in the defense of South Vietnam. After all Freedom is not free. Although this has erupt number of controversies in South Vietnamese society. Many families whose family members were killed by rok soldiers had vowed to protest this.

AshiusX said:

South Vietnamese government had plans to build a memorial for the ROK soldiers killed in the defense of South Vietnam. After all Freedom is not free. Although this has erupt number of controversies in South Vietnamese society. Many families whose family members were killed by rok soldiers had vowed to protest this.

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Knowing how controversial the issue is in Korea right now, upon the question of whether or not Korea committed war crimes in Southeast Asia, Central America and Sub-saharan Africa, I decide not to comment on the issue.
OOC: It is quite well-known that Korea committed massacres in Vietnam, but it's not considered a big issue.

I admit to knowing next to nothing about the two Vietnam's resources... if you combined the two nations, would they have the makings of a financially successful nation? SV survives mostly on manufacturing things for other nations, but AFAIK, they import damn near everything to do it. NV survived on Soviet and Chinese handouts for a long time, and now...? At least they never fell into a NK Kim style of successive goofball family dictators, although the ones they had weren't all that great either.
One bad thing that might happen... if NV had succeeded in conquering the south, what would have happened to the various ethnic minorities there who cooperated with the west? I'm thinking nothing good...

First I think you just butterflied away the Indochinese Federation and subsequent Asian Tiger prototype. The federation with common currency shared by Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, then later Thailand and Burma became the success story of the 1990s. See how Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines are "observers" applying for full membership. But seriously, the Westmoreland Offensive launched immediately after the Tet offensive in 1968 all but destroyed the entirety of North Vietnamese infrastructure. Certainly the casualties were horrific, we only learned decades later about the half a million people starved out per official records that may have exceeded a full million between 1968 and 1971. South Vietnam remained under the command of a military junta until the early 1980s and only then began the long climb out of its own economic hell, and its lease of Cam Ranh Bay as a US military facility was quite lucrative.

One shudders to imagine what would have happened were it not for South Vietnamese military intervention in Cambodia in 1976. The Khmer Rouge were completely out of control, seemingly trying to depopulate their own territories. It's a good thing that nightmare unleashed in Democratic Kampuecha was cut short.

Well, all of the clothing and cheap goods you see at Walmart and the like wouldn't have tags labeled "Made in South Vietnam", though where they'd be made instead is your guess as much as mine.

Without the close ties to South Vietnam, like with South Korea, would the USA still have the large Vietnamese-American Community that we do? What would have replaced some of the things like the Vietnamese food boom that was in vogue in the 90s, or all the upscale fashion takes on the Ao Dai currently on the runways?

I imagine that a lot of South Vietnamese officials would have wanted to get the fuck out of dodge in order to avoid Northern hangmen. Not sure if that would result in a larger or a smaller expat community or what, though. I guess you'll just have to use your own judgement on that one.

Well, Southeast Asia would look a lot different. We wouldn't see Da Nang being a USAF base, or Cam Ranh being a port for the US Navy as a trip wire force. If South Vietnam goes, then so would Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge wouldn't have been stopped. I know some people like to bash ARVN for their summary executions, but who honestly misses Pol Pot?

I doubt a united communist Vietnam would have the same kind of economic miracle. Saigon definitely gained a lot of tutoring from ties with South Korea and Taiwan, and of course continued US investment. Cambodia's gained a lot as a result too, especially since they got additional investment for taking in the royal court of Laos and all of the anti-communist Laotians as refugees. As for the Indochinese Federation, let's call a spade a spade; it's South Vietnam's neighbors free-riding on them by pegging themselves to the RVN Dong.

Overall, it's surprising how hostilities between the two have been so muted. Sure, there's the information wars as previously stated, calling South Vietnam impure and an imperialist crony, and North Vietnam as a puppet of China ever since they invaded and got rid of the Soviet faction in 1979.

Speaking of which, does anybody else still find it utterly amazing how Nguyen Cao Ky's seizure of Dong Hoi didn't reignite the war? Thieu had to have been steaming when Ky made his famous "Reclaimed Province" statement about doing more to free Vietnam than anyone else. I loved "The Tiger's Gamble", it's such a great cheesy 80s war film. I heard Ky used to give out VHS copies to people who visited him, what an ego! They just declassified documents from the State Department showing that despite the public backing of the annexation by the United States, that the ambassador was apoplectic about it. Seems like Washington was as shocked as everyone else!

More importantly, what do you think would happen in the US if the war in Vietnam was a failure? I mean, I know the public says they're happy to have an ally, but deep down everyone knows how bad it was starting to get.

Well, it's worth noting that the Soviets and Chinese deliberately withheld aid from the North because they grew to see Vietnam as being more useful. United, you just get a bombed-out farming country dependent on economic aid. Divided, you get something that can force the US to commit disproportionate resources to defend it, thus drawing more forces away from the Central Front. You can make a point about how counterproductive the strategy was when SVN grew economically, but that was the thinking.

M79 said:

But seriously, the Westmoreland Offensive launched immediately after the Tet offensive in 1968 all but destroyed the entirety of North Vietnamese infrastructure. Certainly the casualties were horrific, we only learned decades later about the half a million people starved out per official records that may have exceeded a full million between 1968 and 1971.

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Not this Big Army apologism. All the offensive did was kill another 20,000 Americans, temporarily destroy the north's artificial infrastructure, and bring about really blatant Chinese intervention and another near nuclear-war. The aid reductions did much more-if Moscow and Beijing wanted to bring North Vietnam back up, they could have done so fairly easily.

There's a myth of the Big Army and the modern chevauchee that emerged from the Vietnam War, and it is one of the most destructive ones.

GoldenKhanate said:

One shudders to imagine what would have happened were it not for South Vietnamese military intervention in Cambodia in 1976. The Khmer Rouge were completely out of control, seemingly trying to depopulate their own territories. It's a good thing that nightmare unleashed in Democratic Kampuecha was cut short.

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I don't know why Pol Pot gets such a bad wrap, he was taken out of power really quickly. If they didn't kill the US journalists, I doubt the US would have even pressured South Vietnam to intervene.

I think that the US did a better job of propping up Cambodia in order to be a buffer against North Vietnam (and Laos, their puppets) then they did South Vietnam. South Vietnam remained a military dictatorship and corruption, stifling economic growth while Cambodia quickly subverted Sihanouk when he came back and became decently democratic and free market. I don't want to vacation there anymore, because though beautiful it's way too expensive. South Vietnam has equivalent resorts now for much less.

If you want to take a trip back through time, take the bus from Phnom Penh into Laos, and then into Vitenam. Hanoi is not a very fun city, though you can do a lot of cool shopping at the Russian Market on Russian Confederation Blvd. I think the River Front is way overrated, off of Mao Tse Tung Blvd, but it sort of reminds me of a bad version of Bangkok.

pattersonautobody said:

I don't know why Pol Pot gets such a bad wrap, he was taken out of power really quickly. If they didn't kill the US journalists, I doubt the US would have even pressured South Vietnam to intervene.

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He was trying to commit genocide before we intervened; I say that's good reason for a bad "rep".

Kaiser K said:

He was trying to commit genocide before we intervened; I say that's good reason for a bad "rep".

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To quote Sideshow Bob, "What is attempted murder? Do you win a Nobel Peace Prize for attempted science?"

Pol Pot emptied out Phnom Penh, killed US journalists in the process, and they ousted him fast. Yet, tons of much larger, real genocides took place in Rwanda, Sudan, and Kosovo and the US and Europe did nothing. Then, between the 80s and 90s, the famines created by US-led trade sanctions probably killed 2 million people between Iran, North Vietnam, then Iraq.

I just don't know why we talk about Pol Pot so much, but I don't even know the name of anyone in Rwanda.

I guess the infamous DC massacre of the pro North Vietnamese protesters, known as Bloody Tuesday, wouldn't have led to Richard Nixon's assassination in '75. Of course, I have a hard time believing he'd tolerate it anyway.

That did lead to the "good times" under Gerry Ford. He really got the nation back on track.

zeppelinair said:

Never overinvest, of course, but RVN seems too cautious - they also overinvest in the military. Why the hell does South Vietnam need aircraft carriers, again?

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To be fair, when South Vietnam bought the first aircraft carrier, I could see that it was them trying to project strength. Then they bought the second carrier, and announced the construction of a submarine fleet. And of course, we all remember when the VNAF started buying F-14s by the squadron when the last of the Phantoms they ordered were yet to be delivered. As the saying goes when defense contractors lose bids, "There's always Saigon!" Vietnamese people are nice, but South Vietnam's government is still paranoid. It's like a national case of Doomsday prepper! Sure they always talk about Hanoi, but they never bothered trying to start an arms race. It's really China they're worried about. I mean, hell, they are more heavily armed than many NATO states, and this is a SEATO member! They're lucky because with all of their rampant arms purchases, they could have blown up the economy. They essentially had to have a miracle!

At the very least you can say ARVN provided a basic education for the masses, and employment. Still, as others noted Cambodia is a great example of what the RVN could be if they didn't have corruption, and the biggest, baddest army in SE Asia. We are starting to see them follow Japan, Taiwan's and Korea's lead though. The emergence of the Tap Doan is all the talk on Wall Street, the Vietnamese Zaibatsus or Chaebols. It'll be a while before they start shifting over from heavy industry to consumer goods. Anybody hear the joke, "What's the difference between Korea and Vietnam?" "20 degrees and 20 years!"

Coiler said:

Not this Big Army apologism. All the offensive did was kill another 20,000 Americans, temporarily destroy the north's artificial infrastructure, and bring about really blatant Chinese intervention and another near nuclear-war. The aid reductions did much more-if Moscow and Beijing wanted to bring North Vietnam back up, they could have done so fairly easily.

There's a myth of the Big Army and the modern chevauchee that emerged from the Vietnam War, and it is one of the most destructive ones.

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Well, Westmoreland's Offensive did achieve its goals. It disrupted the flow of weapons and fighters to the south, and allowed ARVN to pacify the country after the Viet Cong got gutted at Tet. Obviously, he fell into the same trap MacArthur did and pushed too far north. It might have been better just to have camped out in Laos and just north of the DMZ until a settlement was reached.

Having US troops in North Vietnam did give Nixon a lot of leverage in Paris. Does anyone think Hanoi would be willing to uphold a peace when they still were in South Vietnam? I do feel sorry for his death, he really was like that annoying uncle that gives you advice you don't want to hear, but you know is right. Then poor Pat drinking herself to death.... At least they have the clinic in her honor.

OOC: Looks like everyone missed that Hanoi's street names became the same at Phnom Penh's.. IOTL.