Thailand Vietnam war in 1980

raharris1973

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Hmm- In terms of international moves, the US is not sending troops, I wonder what kind of aid to Thailand Carter would propose and Congress would accept.

I don't see China standing aside either. They'll probably build up on the northern border to tie down Vietnamese troops, and if the Vietnamese appear too successful or committed to smashing Thailand, the Chinese will probably invade northern Vietnam and northern Laos even if they would prefer not to.

Unless the Chinese come in to save the day, I'm not sure I see how the Thai win on the Cambodian front and oust the Vietnamese from there.
 
Hmm- In terms of international moves, the US is not sending troops, I wonder what kind of aid to Thailand Carter would propose and Congress would accept.

I don't see China standing aside either. They'll probably build up on the northern border to tie down Vietnamese troops, and if the Vietnamese appear too successful or committed to smashing Thailand, the Chinese will probably invade northern Vietnam and northern Laos even if they would prefer not to.

Unless the Chinese come in to save the day, I'm not sure I see how the Thai win on the Cambodian front and oust the Vietnamese from there.

The Chinese just got spanked by the Viet's the year before.
 

raharris1973

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The Vietnamese did get the better of the Chinese tactically, but the Chinese still advanced, and if the Vietnamese are taking on Thailand they are: a) showing excessive regional ambition China cannot put up with, even if it costs a lot to stop them and b) the Vietnamese are overextending themselves and more vulnerable to a two-front war.
 
The PLA technically won the battles, but the PAVN bled them hard.

Plus they were being bled by reserve units, IIRC, because the regular forces were deployed further south for the Cambodian invasion. If the Vietnamese had got more of their regular units back in the field, things might have got even worse for China ;)
 

raharris1973

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Plus they were being bled by reserve units, IIRC, because the regular forces were deployed further south for the Cambodian invasion. If the Vietnamese had got more of their regular units back in the field, things might have got even worse for China ;)

But how many reserve and regular divisions do the Vietnamese have to go around if they are fighting Thailand, especially if they are invading Thailand?
 
But how many reserve and regular divisions do the Vietnamese have to go around if they are fighting Thailand, especially if they are invading Thailand?

They wouldn't invade Thailand. The Vietnamese were only interested in invading their neighbors in so far as such an action allowed them strategic depth to pursue their goals (in the case of the Vietnam War, that meant the North Vietnamese using sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos to wage the war). The only scenario I could see as if they were drawn in to support a local Thai Communist group. The Communists in Thailand did conflict very famously with the government, but not to the degree as in the former Indochina countries. But the late 70s, early 80s, the Thai Communists were pretty much beaten and didn't have the infrastructure to make a serious bid to take over Thailand.

Basically, you need a more successful Thai Communist movement and a more fractured Thailand that's almost as tumultuous as Vietnam War-era Laos and Cambodia.
 
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