DBWI: The US intervenes in Vietnam

kernals12

Banned
As we all know, IOTL South Vietnam fell to communist insurgents in 1968. It was one of the few black marks during LBJ's 9 year presidency which is widely considered to be one of the best in American history. What if we had intervened in Vietnam just like we did in Korea? Would we have saved Southeast Asia from communism? Would it have overshadowed the Great Society?
 
If we could kick Japans ass we could have kicked Ho Chi Min like a spooked horse kicks a slow farmhand. I don't give a shit what people say about this "Jungle Warfare" mumbo jumbo, dems are pussies when you get right down to it.
 
As we all know, IOTL South Vietnam fell to communist insurgents in 1968. It was one of the few black marks during LBJ's 9 year presidency which is widely considered to be one of the best in American history. What if we had intervened in Vietnam just like we did in Korea? Would we have saved Southeast Asia from communism? Would it have overshadowed the Great Society?

Despite the patriotic fervor of my colleague here, I would say I am grateful we did not get involved. Namely because of the elephant in the room known as China. China would've likely gotten involved in Vietnam if we did and while South Vietnam fell to communist insurgents, it was still pretty unstable because of the terrain. The Chinese soldiers sent to reinforce the new regime died in startling amounts and South Vietnamese insurgents used guerrilla tactics to the fullest. When you look into it, it's a surprising amount of people that died. Things did sort themselves out over the years and China pulled out, but imagine those sort of conflicts in war, especially for people not used to it like the Americans.

Beyond that, it was good we didn't get involved. The USSR Afghan War shows pretty much the political quagmire that could've happened and how the large increase of rebellion against the USSR for its policies led to its collapse. Granted the half reactionary and half liberal government they have now is still pretty uneasy, but it seems like things are getting better, especially since that KGB thug Putin was not elected.

Had we invaded Vietnam, I imagine it would set off a large anti-war protest, given how the Soviet people reacted to the horrors of the afghan war and the atrocities committed by the soldiers. This would've tarnished American reputation and have a lot of good men die for what reason exactly? Even going beyond the Cold War affiliations, places like Southeast Asia and such weren't fond of us because they saw us as extensions of imperialism that f*cked them over in the past. Granted, China's behavior toward them is a twisted reflection of American-Mexican relations (which has improved vastly since marijuana was decriminalized as part of the Great Society thing among other reasons) and is reminiscent on how the US exploited the Caribbean and Central America. Heck, it's why we're having better relations with them now than in the past.

Heck, our outstanding global reputation was why we were able to involved in the Middle East in the first place, especially after the death of the Shah. While we shouldn't have done Operation Ajax in the first place, at the very least, LBJ did help the new regime and we have better relations with Iran now, which is helping keeping the fragmented Arabia in peace.

But lastly, Vietnam itself is doing pretty all right and we're doing good with them. The two Koreas remain an issue, but the dynasty in North Korea lost a good amount of credibility once South Korea revived its economy and the fact that US involvement was only because of what they did in the past.

The Great Society was successful as it was because of the funds we poured into it, funds which would have been wasted on a war in Vietnam that no side probably wanted in the first place. While I'm sure it the Great Society would still exist even if we went to war, it would not be as effective. No universal healthcare for the US, least by that point, I can tell you that.
 
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Fincially speaking we had a choice, vietnam, space travel, the great society pick 2.

We picked space and the great society.

America sacerfised vietnam in the name of the future, and it worked Id rather have our current very profitable asteroid mining operations then get stuck fighting in some jungle for 10 years.
 

kernals12

Banned
Fincially speaking we had a choice, vietnam, space travel, the great society pick 2.

We picked space and the great society.

America sacerfised vietnam in the name of the future, and it worked Id rather have our current very profitable asteroid mining operations then get stuck fighting in some jungle for 10 years.
OOC: There's no way we could make asteroid mining profitable, not with incredibly expensive rocket based launches.
 
The biggest problem with going into that place is Red China. Red China provides unreachable industrial bases to supply the Communist forces there. So, the Communist can drag the war as long as they want as long they want to if they just keep fighting. Look at the Japanese, we can beat them because we destroyed all of their industry. They no longer had the means to make the war unless it would be totally suicidal. No one in their right mind outside of McCarthy would invade China. That would be hot mess on a scale of a world war.

We can still probably win but the cost would be tremendous.
 
I was just a kid at the time, but I remembered all the talk from the warhawks about the 'Domino theory', in that if we let one country fall to Communism, they would all fall one by one. Well, in the end, there were only two dominos in the chain, S. Vietnam and Laos. Neither place seems like it was (or is now) all that important in the grand scheme of things, can't imagine that either place would be worth spending a lot of our blood and treasure on...
 
I was just a kid at the time, but I remembered all the talk from the warhawks about the 'Domino theory', in that if we let one country fall to Communism, they would all fall one by one. Well, in the end, there were only two dominos in the chain, S. Vietnam and Laos. Neither place seems like it was (or is now) all that important in the grand scheme of things, can't imagine that either place would be worth spending a lot of our blood and treasure on...

Yeah, and even with Laos, the Communist regime didn't keep the country united for very long before the civil war started up again. I'm impressed that that conflict's still dragging on as is.

But what do you guys think would've happened to the Lon Nol regime had the US intervened? I heard that infighting between Vietnam and China over which communist movement to support doomed the insurgents in Cambodia, but do you think US intervention in Vietnam would titled things even more in Nol's favor?
 

kernals12

Banned
But lastly, Vietnam itself is doing pretty all right and we're doing good with them.
But compare Vietnam to Taiwan and South Korea. Vietnam is only growing now because they've started liberalizing their economy, communism meant 3 lost decades.
 
One critical detail - Ho Chi Minh. He may have been a communist, but he was until his dying day in the mid 70s a complete fanboy of America's ideals and culture.

Unlike nearly every other Communist leader save maybe Tito, he made sure that the US Government understood that he may be a commie SOB, but he was a commie SOB who liked the US. Better a Commie who likes us than risk a replacement who belongs to Moscow or Beijing.
 
But compare Vietnam to Taiwan and South Korea. Vietnam is only growing now because they've started liberalizing their economy, communism meant 3 lost decades.

You point? For the few decades, North Korea was doing very well while South Korea was doing poorly. South Korea only recovered because some sort of miracle.
 

kernals12

Banned
You point? For the few decades, North Korea was doing very well while South Korea was doing poorly. South Korea only recovered because some sort of miracle.
It wasn't a miracle, it was a combination of strong property rights created by land reform and investment in infrastructure and education.
 
One critical detail - Ho Chi Minh. He may have been a communist, but he was until his dying day in the mid 70s a complete fanboy of America's ideals and culture.

Unlike nearly every other Communist leader save maybe Tito, he made sure that the US Government understood that he may be a commie SOB, but he was a commie SOB who liked the US. Better a Commie who likes us than risk a replacement who belongs to Moscow or Beijing.
There were many in who didn't (and don't) appreciate the nuance - a commie is a commie, and the only good one is a dead one. Many of the Asia specialists in the State Department were accused of being too soft on (or worse, sympathetic to) communism after they "lost" China. If you could essentially purge these guys and replace them with European hardliners, we might have viewed Viet Nam as the "Asian Czechoslovakia" rather than another Yugoslavia.
 
The Republic of Vietnam didn't technically "fall" to Communist insurgents. There actually was an agreement to unify Vietnam, followed by elections, the only contested elections in the country's history, which the Communists won. Yeah, the US government could have propped up the Republic of Vietnam or even invaded the North, and there were alot of calls to do that at the time, but there is a big difference between repelling an invasion such as Korea and propping up an unpopular government. And the US was finding out at the same time in Cuba that the US army was not exactly good at counter-insurgency anyway.

Anyway, its interesting to speculate but there is a problem is that there was an array of options available with Vietnam and each one is a different POD. Invade the North or other neighboring countries? Send troops to assist the South Vietnamese government? Bomb the north? Provide air support (or bomb the North) but no army commitment? Just provide tons of financial aid and training? Each has a different effect.

And there is the matter of why the US government would make the commitment. Do they do both Vietnam and Cuba? Or do you somehow get rid of the Cuban war? In that case Kennedy would likely not have been assassinated and you wouldn't even get LBJ making the decisions.
 
There were many in who didn't (and don't) appreciate the nuance - a commie is a commie, and the only good one is a dead one.
luckily, none of them were in any position to affect policy significantly. All in all, I think that the US saying 'meh' to the whole 'Vietnam goes communist' thing was a pretty good move...
 
The Republic of Vietnam didn't technically "fall" to Communist insurgents. There actually was an agreement to unify Vietnam, followed by elections, the only contested elections in the country's history, which the Communists won
Because people hated the south goverment, heck the south allowed that as they were able to buy time to allow some of their corrupt leaders to abandon ship(vietnam take years just to repatriated one for trial and didn't matter as he died in process) when was contested, was mostly the more democratic mind in both north and south, all southern 'parties' were just front for corrupt cronies who collapsed when the whole thing happened.

luckily, none of them were in any position to affect policy significantly. All in all, I think that the US saying 'meh' to the whole 'Vietnam goes communist' thing was a pretty good move...
The only winning move is not to play, sadly SU forgot that with Afganishtan.

It wasn't a miracle, it was a combination of strong property rights created by land reform and investment in infrastructure and education.
and mostly anaemic performance in new markets, koreans admit they were able to ride a boon and have done that sooner or later collapse would have been brutal, at least they changed to not be a new south korea or laos, the former collapse post SU collapse and later is still in a bitter civil war
 
As we all know, IOTL South Vietnam fell to communist insurgents in 1968. It was one of the few black marks during LBJ's 9 year presidency which is widely considered to be one of the best in American history. What if we had intervened in Vietnam just like we did in Korea? Would we have saved Southeast Asia from communism? Would it have overshadowed the Great Society?
Vietnam would have been unwinnable, invade the north and China throws two million men and possibly a few nukes at us, garrison the border with the north and they'll just go through Laos, garrison the border with the north and the border with Laos and they'll cut through Cambodia (and garrisoning the entire Vietnam-Cambodia border is a pipe dream).

Best outcome in such a war would be securing a rump state on the Mekong Delta, and that wouldn't even include Saigon, and that would hardly be worth thousands of Americans returning in flag covered caskets.
 
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