If there was no Vietnam War, what other proxy war could be a substitute?

The other factor I'm looking for is an equivalent conflict that will result in the anti-war protests back home, and the counterculture development as well.....

Then an 'internationalized' Algerian war is your best chance. OTL France's involvement in Algeria in the 1960's directly led to the counterculture there and flowed seamlessly into the street riots on May 1968. If the US actively became involved in the struggle rather then lecturing France over it until it left NATO, the same anti-war counterculture would come to the surface in heartland US as well.
 
Algeria's always a good one. Bonus points for having the same "guerrillas fighting for their homeland" spirit. Nasser could help out.

I'll put the criteria up:

  1. Has to have suitable terrain for a prolonged guerrilla conflict.
  2. Allows for large supply of Soviet and Warsaw Pact aid.
  3. Will have US involvement beginning in the 1960s and escalating until full-scale war by the start of the 1970s.
  4. The US always has to withdraw by the mid-1970s, having lost the war at home.
  5. Results in massive anti-war protests in the US.
 
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Sorry, but I beg to disagree about the draft. First, it was - as hard as it might seem in this age - quite a popular institution. It was seen, besides providing discipline, training and education, as a patriotic rite of passage to manhood. The military did appreciate the cheap manpower, it wasn't until the 1970's that they began to realize the downside of draftees, both politically and in terms of needing better trained and experienced personnel that you get from 4 years in. (Keep in mind the armed forces of the United States of that era were astonishingly low tech for the most part). And until the utter insanity of Vietnam, the military was considered one of the major professions; up there with law and medicine, accounting and divinity.

Actually, I do agree that without Vietnam, the military would not have such an undesirable image. When I mention draft reform, I refer to the disruptive nature of conscription on young men’s lives. Until the period of potential obligation was reduced to one year in 1970, young men were subject to the draft from age 18-1/2 until they turned 26. A man could graduate with a professional degree at age 22 and get drafted at 24, trading a good salary for a private’s pay for two years. For that reason, young men could not get car loans until age 26 or proof of no military obligation. Same for some jobs: employers did not want to train men who could be drafted away. Keep in mind, before 1970, the draft did not require all eligible men and it kept many young men hanging on a limb until they turned 26.
 
You could have them come in to stabilize the situation and get sucked in.
I can't see why the US would do that, considering the ever-lessening strategic importance of Ethiopia at the time - I might see it happening if the new Ethiopian government's radicals do something horrid enough with the US Embassy to trigger an American invasion.
 
Honestly, it seems like the internationalized Algerian War is the best candidate.

Algeria has:
  • Urban and mountainous terrain that have already seen guerrilla warfare.
  • A close link to Nasserist Egypt and Libya, which can easily provide supplies, airbases and potential sanctuaries while staying out of the war.
  • A determined army and guerrilla movement that are proud of their independence and will fight to preserve it.
  • Capability to have both a strong, rigorously-trained militia movement and a proper army in the fight.
  • An ethnic minority that will willingly help the foreign army invading and will be brutally persecuted postwar because of their assistance.
  • A battlefield that has already beaten and booted out the French in a war of attrition.
  • Potential for the foreign army to realize that they're fighting against people who just want independence, and while their government is Soviet-aligned, they are not a direct threat to their home nation at all.
  • Caused massive protests OTL, and will cause massive protests ITTL.
Sure, the jungle warfare might not be there, and napalm will be of little use in North Africa's less dense foliage, but otherwise, all the boxes are ticked.

EDIT: Discount all that, Iran looks much better, and there were issues I didn't see coming.
 
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Lusitania

Donor
My take on Cold War in the Americas.

A hardline Soviet Union (post Brezhnev) in 1970 goes all out yo supply weapons to communist in Columbia. While a post-Mao China supplies communist rebels in Peru.
Both communist countries (rivals) pour huge amount of resources into the Americas.

The Americans send troops in and attacks against civilians plus corrupt right wing governments attacking anyone they suspect of supporting the left pushes more people to rebels.

Plus both sides heavily involved in cocaine production to the Anger of the US people as cocaine epidemic hits America as same time as atrocities of South America hit airwaves.
 
There are probably quite few places which offer the same opportunities. Vietnam combined both conventional and guerrilla warfare, as well as hard limits on how much the US could escalate it, relating to the risk that an invasion of North Vietnam would bring in China. There are few other states which border directly, and which are zones for such violence, the Communist world. It has to be on the border of the USSR, direct overland USSR puppets, and China, or else the USA would be able to apply overwhelming force and destroy it. Preferably it will also have a state with proven nationalist credentials and victories under their belt, as well as being proved as having mettle for war - as Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam did. Preferably it will also be part of a battle for influence between the USSR and China, which had both of the Communist great powers trying to upstage the other in winning a puppet or containing the other side.

The US was able to ultimately defeat and constrain the risk of guerrilla warfare. Look at a chart of guerrillas in Vietnam at the beginning and by the end of the American intervention - they had been dramatically reduced and the Americans had essentially beaten the guerrilla warfare risk. The problem was that ultimately North Vietnam was able to engage in conventional warfare by its excellent army, which decisively crushed South Vietnam's regime. Other regions, like South America, most of Africa, anywhere not bordering the Soviet Union and China, are ultimately places where the US will win, in conjunction with the local regime. It will be bloody, it will be unpopular, but the US will smash guerrilla forces to a sufficient extent that the war becomes a non-issue, and that it can leave and provide enough support to the remaining government without popularity reaching critical mass problems internally. If it is a question of conventional warfare, the US can destroy any state with a direct invasion. There are few OTL examples of states combining both the highly competent and effective Vietnamese People's Army, with a powerful guerrilla element, and the inability for the US to stamp out the bases of power of the guerrillas.

I would say that the closest that you might get to this is Iran, with difficult geography, a society which has proven capable of fighting a competent war as an organized army (to the stark difference of most Arab nations whose conventional forces have been disastrous), possibility of supply from the USSR, the inability for the US to intervene in northern Iran, and the possibility for significant guerrilla operations in southern Iran.

Honestly, it seems like the internationalized Algerian War is the best candidate.

Algeria has:
  • Urban and mountainous terrain that have already seen guerrilla warfare.
  • A close link to Nasserist Egypt and Libya, which can easily provide supplies, airbases and potential sanctuaries while staying out of the war.
  • A determined army and guerrilla movement that are proud of their independence and will fight to preserve it.
  • Capability to have both a strong, rigorously-trained militia movement and a proper army in the fight.
  • An ethnic minority that will willingly help the foreign army invading and will be brutally persecuted postwar because of their assistance.
  • A battlefield that has already beaten and booted out the French in a war of attrition.
  • Potential for the foreign army to realize that they're fighting against people who just want independence, and while their government is Soviet-aligned, they are not a direct threat to their home nation at all.
  • Caused massive protests OTL, and will cause massive protests ITTL.
Sure, the jungle warfare might not be there, and napalm will be of little use in North Africa's less dense foliage, but otherwise, all the boxes are ticked.
The problem is that the French on their own were able to militarily defeat the Algerian rebellion, which the American army with its much larger forces could do as well. Egypt and Libya will have much more trouble shipping in supplies and supporting a rebellion. But the worst of all is that unlike in Vietnam there is no conventional army to ultimately deliver the killing blow - the US will funnel in troops, suppress the rebels to an acceptable extent, then withdraw, without the ability for the rebels to still have a win game. There won't be the combination of rebel strengths to make the war so deeply impossible and unwinnable for the Americans.
 
Thank you for the detailed explanation, and mentioning that crucial aspect I've missed. I'll take it into consideration - Iran is looking a better candidate now.

Now regarding Iran, possibly the PoD would the 1946 crisis ending in a Soviet-occupied Northern Iran with the Azerbaijan People's Republic still existing, which later has Northern Iran becoming an Iranian People's Republic, and the Anglo-American-backed Shah in the south.
 
This came about as a random thought to help others looking for a Vietnam equivalent in a timeline where it never happens. PoD doesn't matter, just that America and its allies never get into a war with Vietnam in the mid-1960s-70s.

I've already talked with a couple friends, but we could only think of Angola. And justifying that would be hell of a lot harder, and probably see even more backlash, than Vietnam.

Any other proxy wars in Cold War battlegrounds that could see American involvement?

EDIT: Here's the criteria.
  1. Has to have suitable terrain for a prolonged guerrilla conflict.
  2. Allows for large supply of Soviet and Warsaw Pact aid.
  3. Will have US involvement beginning in the 1960s and escalating until full-scale war by the start of the 1970s.
  4. The US always has to withdraw by the mid-1970s, having lost the war at home.
  5. Results in massive anti-war protests in the US.
Maybe Italy in their 60es if Communist win elections,a coup follows and the situation destabilize Into a civil war.
 
Honestly, it seems like the internationalized Algerian War is the best candidate.

Algeria has:
  • Urban and mountainous terrain that have already seen guerrilla warfare.
  • A close link to Nasserist Egypt and Libya, which can easily provide supplies, airbases and potential sanctuaries while staying out of the war.
  • A determined army and guerrilla movement that are proud of their independence and will fight to preserve it.
  • Capability to have both a strong, rigorously-trained militia movement and a proper army in the fight.
  • An ethnic minority that will willingly help the foreign army invading and will be brutally persecuted postwar because of their assistance.
  • A battlefield that has already beaten and booted out the French in a war of attrition.
  • Potential for the foreign army to realize that they're fighting against people who just want independence, and while their government is Soviet-aligned, they are not a direct threat to their home nation at all.
  • Caused massive protests OTL, and will cause massive protests ITTL.
Sure, the jungle warfare might not be there, and napalm will be of little use in North Africa's less dense foliage, but otherwise, all the boxes are ticked.
Qaddafi didn't take power in Libya until 1969. During the Algerian war Libya was still a pro-western monarchy that hosted US and British military bases. Egypt doesn't have a direct border to supply the Algerians the way the Ho Chi Minh trail eventually fed back to the PRC. Egyptian supply ships are vulnerable to blockade in a way that rail transport across a contiguous land border wasn't.
 
I did realize that a while back, yes, that Libya's pro-Western government wasn't ousted until 1969. Add into me rushing too far ahead in my eagerness, and Iran does look like the best candidate after all.
 
Would France even allow the US to military intervene in Algeria given it was considered an integrated part of France.
 
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