DBWI AHC have Communists take over South Vietnam

Give South Vietnam more incompetent leadership after the Paris Peace Accords. Modern South Vietnam is one of the freest nations fastest-growing economies in Asia while North Vietnam remains mired in poverty and authoritarianism.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Give South Vietnam more incompetent leadership after the Paris Peace Accords. Modern South Vietnam is one of the freest nations fastest-growing economies in Asia while North Vietnam remains mired in poverty and authoritarianism.
South East Asian economic style is not a good choice for industrial development. And south vietnam economy was more similar to Malaysia and Thailand than South Korea, as their economy focused more on service and assembling finished products for foreign MNCs than genuine heavy industries, which is undesirable for LDCs.
 
Just as a sidenote, if the Paris Peace Talks had not lead to a successful coalition government in South Vietnam,

things may have gone worse in Cambodia,

and we may have been slower with the 1975 UN peacekeeping force in the eastern third of Cambodia.
 
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I heard the French planned to have a big battle at Dien Bien Phu. I checked their battle plans (were declassified last year or so) and it could have been very dangerous.

The negotiated peace treaty leaving Cochinchina separate was really the best thing that could have happened to it
 
Have JFK rather than Nixon win in 1960. I've heard that his pick for SECDEF favoured a more gradual escalation of force against the North, rather than the short, sharp, shock, Nixon's strategy used. Add that to the fact that JFK would probably not have been able to establish relations with the PRC (he'd have been accused of being 'soft' on Communism) and you'd have a recipe for a quagmire.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Have JFK rather than Nixon win in 1960. I've heard that his pick for SECDEF favoured a more gradual escalation of force against the North, rather than the short, sharp, shock, Nixon's strategy used. Add that to the fact that JFK would probably not have been able to establish relations with the PRC (he'd have been accused of being 'soft' on Communism) and you'd have a recipe for a quagmire.
where was Nixon in 1960??
 
South East Asian economic style is not a good choice for industrial development. And south vietnam economy was more similar to Malaysia and Thailand than South Korea, as their economy focused more on service and assembling finished products for foreign MNCs than genuine heavy industries, which is undesirable for LDCs.
OOC: Is this supposed to be an OOC post?
 
I heard the French planned to have a big battle at Dien Bien Phu. I checked their battle plans (were declassified last year or so) and it could have been very dangerous.

The negotiated peace treaty leaving Cochinchina separate was really the best thing that could have happened to it

I feel the capture of Võ Nguyên Giáp really damaged the Viet Minh's fighting capability beyond repair. While there were others to replace him with the expertise in guerrilla warfare, none could really compare. He could have nailed the French in one swift blow at Dien Bien Phu. Fortunately for the French, a bout of malaria and a chance encounter with a Viet Minh patrol allowed them to cut off the head of the snake.
 
Give South Vietnam more incompetent leadership after the Paris Peace Accords. Modern South Vietnam is one of the freest nations fastest-growing economies in Asia while North Vietnam remains mired in poverty and authoritarianism.

There was a effort to estimate the scope of the refugee crisis in various parts of the world had assorted nations gone Communist. Cuba, China, & Eastern Europe were used as models for the numbers and types of economic and political refugees who might flee. The study predicted a successful Communist conquest of all of Viet Nam would produce between four and eight million refugees fleeing the region in the first decade. The US did asorb over one million emigrants from Communist Europe between 1948 & 1990. I wonder if anything like that would be accepted from SE Asia?
 
Have Ho Chi Mihn become a communist rather then the nationalist he was OTL.

The man was the leader that more or less forged south Veitnam as it is today, while the north had a cadre of incompetants who had to be bailed out by the other communist states over and over again.
 
Give South Vietnam more incompetent leadership after the Paris Peace Accords. Modern South Vietnam is one of the freest nations fastest-growing economies in Asia while North Vietnam remains mired in poverty and authoritarianism.

Yes, indeed. Have someone like, oh say, that SOB Diem beat Trần Văn Hữu in the aftermath of the 1954 Paris Peace Accords.

OOC: Should sort out the POD, as well as putting more competent leadership (or at least keeping probably the worst) in office at a point in time to actually have some effect. However, realistically, a colonial era POD is probably needed.
 
Have Ho Chi Mihn become a communist rather then the nationalist he was OTL.

The man was the leader that more or less forged south Veitnam as it is today, while the north had a cadre of incompetants who had to be bailed out by the other communist states over and over again.
Trần then Uncle Ho - can you imagine if some of the clowns that tried to get into office actually had?
 
At least the big lesson that came out of this is that colonial powers cannot be beaten back by weapons but only when they deemed fit, hence the 1954 treaty.

Of course if Vietnam had been unified rather than SV staying in the indochinese union, they wouldn't have invaded Cambodia when it tried to secede...
 
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