AH Challenge: Make The Vietnam War Last Until The Late 80's

I was going to make it until present day, but I figure that would be to hard what with the decline of communism, although you're free to try that.:)

So you're challenge is, with a POD 1967 or after, have the OTL war between North and South Vietnam last until the late 80's, and have the US play an active military role all the way through.

Any takers?
 
If a Korean-style ceasefire (the only solution that can preserve an independent SVN) can take hold by the late 1970s, which requires Nixon without Watergate and Reagan succeeding him in '76, then US forces might have permanent bases in SVN until the present day. You can't have active US military involvement much past the late 1970s, even confining that solely to USAF activities. It is ASB for political reasons.
 
If a Korean-style ceasefire (the only solution that can preserve an independent SVN) can take hold by the late 1970s, which requires Nixon without Watergate and Reagan succeeding him in '76, then US forces might have permanent bases in SVN until the present day. You can't have active US military involvement much past the late 1970s, even confining that solely to USAF activities. It is ASB for political reasons.
I agree somewhat. The best you're gonna get out of Vietnam is a Korea-style stalemate following any combat (in TL's where the US gets involved like the OTL). The US can't fight the war forever. There's too much dissent at home for that.

However, I'm not sure Nixon keeping 'til 1976 will ensure South Vietnam survives. Certainly Ford's being....Ford may have made getting the US reinvolved in one of the most unpopular wars in history difficult after the North broke treaty and steamrolled South, but I'm not sure Nixon can work any magic there himself.
 
I could be wrong about this, but wasn't the Vietnam War also terrifically expensive for the US government? Assuming it was, that would be an effective break on continued full involvement even if you could wave away the dissent.
 
Korea is not Vietnam. It's a rugged peninsula that is ideal for the concentration of firepower against an invasion of the ROK. TODAY the maniacs in Pyong-Yang have a gun a the head of Seoul, but apparently that's to sooth their hyper-paranoid fantasies.

Vietnam is an infiltrator's dream, except on the north/south border. As if the North Vietnamese would ever stop using the Ho Chi Minh Trail. "It's the fanaticism, STUPID!":eek:
 
LBJ doesn't lose his nerve and grants Westmoreland 200k more troops. Unpopular, certainly, but that's where convictions and political will are most obviously tested.
 
Then McCarthy wins 60% or more, not 42%, in New Hampshire. Not that the results, at least for a couple of days, will be overly different from OTL.
 

Blair152

Banned
I was going to make it until present day, but I figure that would be to hard what with the decline of communism, although you're free to try that.:)

So you're challenge is, with a POD 1967 or after, have the OTL war between North and South Vietnam last until the late 80's, and have the US play an active military role all the way through.

Any takers?
All right, if you take the NLF, (Vietcong), out of the picture, and have it as conventional war between the United States, Australia, North Vietnam, and
South Vietnam, here's the scenario: You'll need a Korean-style cease-fire.
No peace treaty. That would mean that American, Australian, and South Vietnamese troops, on the 54th Parallel. Then over the next few years,
South Vietnam could grow into a capitalist's dream. Maybe you'd have people driving Vietnamese cars today the same way people are driving Japanese and Korean cars today. Maybe even have those Vietnamese cars made right here in the good old US OF A. :)
 
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