An America without Vietnam

Also, with the war ending much earlier, the Soviets and Chinese will be able to give more aid to other revolutionaries in the Third World. Given their success in gaining control of Southeast Asia, they'll most likely be emboldened to do so.

Unless Red Vietnam goes on some kind of conquering and/or subversion spree, no Vietnam War means Laos and Cambodia could avoid a Communist takeover, at least in the short run.
 
What does communism mean? Ho Chi Minh had been a great admirer of the United States and indeed was influenced by the declaration of independence.
The North Vietnamese essentially saw the war as a civil war of unification rather than an ideological struggle. Forms of socialism were popular in many third world countries as a response to colonialism derived handicaps. However, the notion and reality of communism as a powerful monolithic entity was already in decline. Yugoslavia had broken away successfully, Hungary had had its failed uprising, cracks were showing with China.

The Vietnamese loathed the Chinese and vice versa. Russia was too far away to exercise power directly.

Truth is that a unified Vietnam under Ho would be up for grabs. With a little flexibility and a little astute bargaining Vietnam could have entered the American orbit of influence, downplayed its socialism slightly and everyone would have been happy.

Without the steady expansion of the war into Cambodia, secret bombing and CIA Coups, the Cambodian government would have remained functional and the Khmer Rouge would have remained weak flakes. Laos would have continued to be an obscure inland buffer state between Thailand, China and Vietnam that no one would have cared much about.

Meanwhile, America could probably have afforded the great society, if it wasn't paying for a ruinous war. Without the impetus to a runaway military industrial complex that the Vietnam war pushed, more of America's consumer manufacturing economy might have remained viable, and America might still be an industrial power today, rather than a colossal ponzi scheme.
 
Lyndon Johnson wins election in 1968 over Nixon, but not by a landslide. His win is probably similar to the margins that Nixon won over Humphrey in OTL's 1968. Johnson's second term is wrought with him dealing with inflation, which probably leads to a scaling back of the Great Society as Republicans increase their margins in the 1970 midterm elections.

1972 sees Hubert Humphrey run against Ronald Reagan. Reagan attacks the Johnson administration's domestic spending priorities and promises to 'Whip Inflation Now'. Humphrey loses to Reagan by a hefty margin.

The seventies are probably too early for mass supply-side economics, but with a Republican Congress (which could be possible), he probably does manage to significantly cut back on some of Johnson's programs and get a tax cut through. Inflation subsides a bit, and Reagan runs on his successes and wins over a Democrat like Scoop Jackson, who probably tries to out hawk Reagan (if that's possible).

Come 1980, the Democrats probably take back the White House with someone like RFK.
 
I don't think Angola would be as difficult as Vietnam because:

1. I would assume the US would intervene on the side of UNITA or that anti-Communist faction that died out pretty early on, which means at least some local legitimacy. Bonus points if the US intervenes after the Cubans intervene (although this could cause problems with #2, since the Cubans came in force AFTER the South Africans).

2. There's always the threat of South Africa. One of the reasons Abdul said the occupation of Germany and Japan were exceptions to the "occupations will NEVER, EVER succeed EVER" dictum was the threat of abandoning them to the tender mercies of the USSR.

You'd probably have even more difficulty getting Americans to agree this was a cause worth having their sons die for than Vietnam. And sending drafted Black soldiers over to fight Black Africans brings its own huge set of problems. Expect MLK or his successors to come out vs this war much harder than Vietnam, and get far more support than IOTL.

Not certain what your point is about S Africa. They were defeated by the Cuban troops in Angola, after all.
 
What effect would this have had on the space program?
What effect would this have had on the youth movement?
Would the drug culture expand as much as it did or would it had stayed a fringe thing to do?
What effect would this have had on the rock movement(not a rock historian so not sure if no war would have made any difference)?
Would Jane Fonda's career been bigger in Hollywood?

While I'm not really qualified to speak on much else, I think no Vietnam would have a beneficial effect on the space program. OTL, the Vietnam War occupied quite a bit of aerospace talent, both in manufacturing replacement fighters and in developing new aircraft incorporating lessons learned. ITTL, they won't really have the same degree of major military projects (I suspect that the F-4 will be the main US fighter into the '80s), and the large space programs will obviously be quite appealing to them. Too, with Johnson likely more successful domestically, several of the space program's strongest advocates (Johnson himself and Webb) will remain in power longer. Together, a strong lobbying effort by Rockwell, North American, Boeing et. al. and strong high-level political support for the space program will likely conspire to keep it better funded and organized than OTL.
 
But the black soldiers would be fighting alongside other black Africans. If the US is fighting alongside UNITA, we would have Savimbi's tribe as very enthusiastic allies (and they were 40% of the population, not just a minority like the Montagnards or the Hmong).

Furthermore, the hypothetical US intervention in Angola would come much later than Vietnam, probably in the mid-1970s. The confluence of Vietnam with the Civil Rights Movement and the murder of MLK would not happen in TTL.

My point about South Africa was that the US would have the implied threat of allowing them to enter Angola or return to it (if it takes place after their OTL intervention) if the population got antsy. If much of Cuba's fighting power is expended fighting the US in Africa (assuming the US even allows them to get there and doesn't just blockade the island), counting on them to fight the South Africans is not as wise a proposition as in OTL.
 
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