Vietnam invades Thailand

Might I note that Vietnam's puppet regime consisted entirely of Khmer Rouge butchers, which not only explodes any shred of morality involved but also explains why matters took so long to resolve.

tallwingedgoat, no evidence is offered in your single post, a post which goes so far as to malign the US and others for sending food and medical supplies to the refugees through the World Food Program, but which utterly fails to provide one example of US aid to the Khmer Rouge, and which also falsely blames the US for the takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge.

As a communist organization first established and heavily aided until 1979 by Hanoi the true source responsible is not the US.

As I noted, no evidence or examples of US arms to the Khmer Rouge are given, although this source concludes that any arms that the Khmer Rouge gained from any source, including that notorious American puppet, the People's Republic of China, as well as Thailand(inundated with refugees and fearing invasion) and Singapore(overwhelming Chinese nationals) and hostile to Hanoi's anti-Chinese posture following 1975), could not possibly been given for any reason other than US influence.:rolleyes:

The SOLE example of US 'support' was the decision at the UN to deny the legitimacy of a regime upheld by 300,000 Vietnamese and establish that a nation could not resolve differences with a neighboring state by conquering it.
 
Mkay.

So to recap, we have a defeated Cambodian government being backed up by the Thai and US militaries. So its in this situation where the Vietnamese military makes incursions into Thailand, which prompts (greater?) escalation into conflict. Maybe we even see a declared war between the two, with Cambodia as the battleground.

How does the war go from here? The Thai military was proven pretty superior to the Vietnamese in the conflict they had, so a formal war might see a destabilization of the Vietnamese communist state? Maybe even an overthrow of Vietnam? An establishment of a republic?
 
Might I note that Vietnam's puppet regime consisted entirely of Khmer Rouge butchers, which not only explodes any shred of morality involved but also explains why matters took so long to resolve.

You might note that, but you'd be wrong. The puppet government included a number of non-KR figures. And Hun Sen (who emerged as the leader in the mid-1980s, and has run the country ever since) was KR, but very junior -- he was just 25 when he defected from the KR and ran across the border to Vietnam.


also falsely blames the US for the takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge.

...there's not much question that the US bombing campaign was the KR's best tool of recruitment. (With Lon Nol's secret police a close second, to be sure.)


As a communist organization first established and heavily aided until 1979 by Hanoi

"Heavily"? Not hardly. The Vietnamese had their own war to fight, and anyway didn't take the KR seriously until quite late in the game. In fact, the lateness and small scale of Vietnamese aid was one of the KR's first grudges against their comrades across the Mekong.

And 1975, not 1979. Relations between the two new regimes went bad almost immediately, and were already frosty cold by the end of 1975. (The first border incidents started in 1976.)


this source concludes that any arms that the Khmer Rouge gained from any source, including that notorious American puppet, the People's Republic of China

"I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the DK [Democratic Kampuchea -- the Khmers Rouges]. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could not support him but China could." -- Zbigniew Brzezinsky, National Security Advisor.

As for Singapore, google US General Ted Metaxis. Metaxis was in charge of covert aid to Lon Nol in the early 1970s. Then in the 1980s, he retired to become a military consultant in... Singapore. Where he specialized in funneling aid to the KPNLF, the KR-dominated rebel coalition in Thailand.

US aid to the KR was obvious enough that, starting in 1983, Congress passed a law saying that there couldn't be any. That was part of the reason the US government twisted arms and banged heads to create the KPNLF: aid to the "coalition" could ignore that. Congress eventually, in 1989, got around to passing a law on that too... they said humanitarian aid only. But by that time the Vietnamese occupation was ending, so it didn't much matter.

It's still an open question how much military aid the US gave directly to Pol Pot, if any. However, there's no question that (1) we gave him a lot of military aid indirectly -- i.e., by giving it to people (the Singaporeans, the Thais) who would eventually pass it along to him; (2) we encouraged the Chinese to give him aid (which, to be sure, they might have done anyhow); and (3) we gave him a lot of non-military "humanitarian" aid: food, medical supplies, housing, and clothes. That one is right there in the budgets, a matter of public record -- between $4 million and $7 million per year all through the 1980s.


Doug M.
 
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The Thai military was proven pretty superior to the Vietnamese in the conflict they had
Alas, no. The Thais had the advantage of fighting a defensive battle on their home ground, against an enemy with a long and rickety supply line across conquered and still restive territory. The Thais also had newer and better US equipment.

Even so, they couldn't stop the Vietnamese from crossing the border pretty much at will. They did give the Vietnamese a couple of bloody noses, but by all accounts at the end of it all casualties were roughly even. This suggests that the quality of the Vietnamese units was higher... which is what you'd expect, right? At that point, Vietnam had the most battle-hardened army on the planet.

The Thais were able to hold their own on the defensive, but counter-invading Cambodia would be something else again. For starters, they'd be facing Cambodian as well as Vietnamese units; while the puppet government didn't inspire much loyalty or affection, an invasion from Thailand would bring people around fast. Cambodians hate the Thais only a tiny bit less than they hate the Vietnamese. (The closest European equivalent might be Poland, squeezed between Russia and Germany and having good reason to fear and dislike them both.)

You'll notice that OTL the Thais never tried this. There's a reason for that.


Doug M.
 
Me and Doug will agree to disagree on the territorial ambitions of the Khmer Rouge.

Might I note that Vietnam's puppet regime consisted entirely of Khmer Rouge butchers, which not only explodes any shred of morality involved but also explains why matters took so long to resolve.

Are you referring to the puppet regime that mysteriously failed to kill the same number of people the Khmer Rouge had even though it had more time on its hands?

The SOLE example of US 'support' was the decision at the UN to deny the legitimacy of a regime upheld by 300,000 Vietnamese and establish that a nation could not resolve differences with a neighboring state by conquering it.

There's differences with another state and there's being repeatedly attacked by it. After 3 years of Khmer Rouge raids the Vietnamese finally decided that enough was enough and exercised their right to prosecute a war that had already been going on. They had better legal standing than the US did in most of its invasions, and of course I include the invasion of Iraq here.

If Vietnam hadn't been supported by one side in the Cold War it wouldn't have been condemned by the other. The US didn't condemn friendly's Indonesia's unilateral invasion and annexation of East Timor in 1975 (to give just one particularly egregious example) and it's ridiculously naive to believe that they cared for the legitimacy of the same commie extremist assholes they'd confronted over the Mayaguez less than a year before that. There was no such thing as principle during the Cold War.

I apologize to everyone else for derailing the discussion like this.
 
The Thai military was proven pretty superior to the Vietnamese in the conflict they had

Alas, no. The Thais had the advantage of fighting a defensive battle on their home ground, against an enemy with a long and rickety supply line across conquered and still restive territory. The Thais also had newer and better US equipment.

Even so, they couldn't stop the Vietnamese from crossing the border pretty much at will. They did give the Vietnamese a couple of bloody noses, but by all accounts at the end of it all casualties were roughly even. This suggests that the quality of the Vietnamese units was higher... which is what you'd expect, right? At that point, Vietnam had the most battle-hardened army on the planet.

The Thais were able to hold their own on the defensive, but counter-invading Cambodia would be something else again. For starters, they'd be facing Cambodian as well as Vietnamese units; while the puppet government didn't inspire much loyalty or affection, an invasion from Thailand would bring people around fast. Cambodians hate the Thais only a tiny bit less than they hate the Vietnamese. (The closest European equivalent might be Poland, squeezed between Russia and Germany and having good reason to fear and dislike them both.)

You'll notice that OTL the Thais never tried this. There's a reason for that.


Doug M.
Okay, so we don't have Cambodia as the battleground, but going along with the PoD, how would an escalation of hostilities play out? If it led to a formal war, would that perhaps mean we see a Vietnam that has overstretched its force-projection capabilities? A Vietnam that's bogged down in a Cambodian "Vietnam"?
 
Okay, so we don't have Cambodia as the battleground, but going along with the PoD, how would an escalation of hostilities play out? If it led to a formal war, would that perhaps mean we see a Vietnam that has overstretched its force-projection capabilities? A Vietnam that's bogged down in a Cambodian "Vietnam"?

Heh. -- But I have trouble believing it. No offense to the OP, but this requires both the Vietnamese and the Thais to be really stupid.

Neither side had an interest in escalating hostilities. The Thais had no great love for the various Cambodian rebels; they were one part insurance policy, three parts sucker bait to get aid from the US and China. The Vietnamese, meanwhile, just wanted to set up their puppet state and get on with business.

OTL matters were complicated by the US and -- especially -- China, which was harshly hostile to Vietnam. Beijing had been very friendly to the Khmers Rouges, after all, and then they'd gotten a nasty humiliation during the Sino-Vietnamese war. So the spent the 1980s funding the Cambodian rebels and leaning on the Thais to "unleash" them.

But it went, OTL, about as far as it could reasonably go. IMO. The Thais in particular were reluctant participants, being half nagged, half bribed into backing the rebels but never all that committed. I have trouble seeing a plausible POD that changes that.

-- There is another route to a Thai-Vietnamese war, though. OTL, Thailand and Laos had a nasty border conflict in 1987; casualties have never been revealed, but were significant, probably on the order of hundreds dead on both sides.

Unlike the Cambodian border conflict, this did involve serious interests of both states: it was a classic old-fashioned border dispute. SE Asia history fans will recall that Thailand has always considered Laos a bunch of breakaway provinces populated by hillbillies speaking a backwards dialect of Thai; Bangkok attacked the French colony in 1941, clawed off a large chunk of Laos, and hung on to it until 1946. So the Lao tend to get hysterical about perceived territorial threats from Thailand.

OTL, the border conflict de-escalated after both sides realized it was pointless: the weak Lao military couldn't win a real battle, while the Thais discovered that there wasn't much international support for their proposed "border correction".

But I could imagine a Thai government thinking it could snitch some border territories from Laos with US and maybe Chinese support -- it's sort of what happened OTL -- and then things escalating out of control, with the Lao calling in the Vietnamese. This scenario is IMO still improbable, but not as improbable as Vietnam and the Thais fighting over Cambodia... a country that, in the final analysis, neither of them really had much interest in.


Doug M.
 
Doug, first responsibility for the disruption of Cambodia goes to the NVA units moving through Cambodia at will, not the US response.

Also, you again accuse the US of arming the Khmer Rouge even though you admit that you can't offer one example of this. @$75 million in non-military aid over a ten year period? I had no idea US involvment was so minor.

You also continue to hold the US responsible for any actions on the part of any other nation which armed or otherwise aided the Khmer Rouge, as if none of them had their own reasons and interests in play.

It is doubtful that the US, short of a full breach, could have stopped Thailand, worried about Hanoi conquering a third neighbor and having 300K troops bordering Thailand, plus a sudden refugee problem, or Singapore, seeking to rally ASEAN(and what better way than a common threat).

It is nothing short of absurd to hold the US responsible for the PRC supporting an ally(Khmer Rouge) against an enemy(Vietnam) let alone to offer the nonsense that only US advice and encouragement convinced Beijing to do this. Indeed, it is virtually impossible to imagine any way the US could have stopped Beijing.

One powerful argument trying to build up Lol Non and Prince Sihanouk was that the Khmer Rouge were going to get support from Beijing regardless so failure to support the other factions left the Khmer Rouge and the puppet regime which couldn't hold out without several hundred thousand Vietnamese.



Dr Pervez, first, the regime consisted of Khmer Rouge which, having taken part in the horrors from 1975-1979, then proceeded to sell out to a foreign invader, one reason that the Khmer Rouge actually had a certain and quite shocking level of domestic support for some time. As hideous as that sounds.

Your second comment ignores the point I made and also avoids the historical reality that Vietnam's condemnation had little to do with the Cold War, save that NO GOVERNMENT outside the Soviet block was willing to support them in the UN. It's fair to say that between a third and a half of the few regimes which did vote with Hanoi were themselves propped up by foreign soldiers.
 
Doug, first responsibility for the disruption of Cambodia goes to the NVA units moving through Cambodia at will, not the US response.

...the "US response" was consistently stupid; it did little or nothing to disrupt the NVA, but did kill a lot of Cambodian peasants and recruit many more for the KR.

If a burglar breaks into my house, I call the cops, and the cops respond by dropping a bomb on my house and blowing it sky-high, who's responsible?


Also, you again accuse the US of arming the Khmer Rouge even though you admit that you can't offer one example of this. @$75 million in non-military aid over a ten year period? I had no idea US involvment was so minor..

As every observer commented at the time, the distinction between military and humanitarian aid was largely moot; a dollar given to the KR for food and shelter was a dollar more they could turn around and spend on guns.

As to "minor", shrug. As I pointed out, the US was giving aid to the KR through multiple channels. The few million per year was the open, publicly acknowledged portion of it. How big the rest of the iceberg was... well, papers have been written on that. You could google them.


offer the nonsense that only US advice and encouragement convinced Beijing to do this.

No offense, but you're getting yourself worked up over something that only exists in your head. I nowhere said that "only US and advice and encouragement convinced Beijing to do this". Rather, I specifically said they might have done so anyway.

I did say that we strongly encouraged China to give military aid to the KR. That's a matter of historical record. To what extent that makes it our responsibility... shrug. I didn't touch that issue, so I don't know why you're going on about it.


One powerful argument trying to build up Lol Non and Prince Sihanouk

Lon Nol was drinking himself to death in Honolulu at this point. He played no significant part in the post-1979 resistance.


puppet regime which couldn't hold out without several hundred thousand Vietnamese.

I'm sorry, but that's factually incorrect. Hun Sen had no problem staying in power after the Vietnamese left. They left in 1990, and he's still in power today.


Doug M.
 
OTL, Thailand and Laos had a nasty border conflict in 1987; casualties have never been revealed, but were significant, probably on the order of hundreds dead on both sides. Unlike the Cambodian border conflict, this did involve serious interests of both states: it was a classic old-fashioned border dispute.

Not really (There was a good article that went into the background of the whole mess in Far East Economic Review). What happened was that there was a major illegal logging operation going on in the area in question jointly run by the Thai and Lao militaries. Basically the Lao Army cutting the timber and the Thai Army selling it. There was a falling-out over dividing the profits (which were excessive) and the fighting was essentially over that. Both sides were grossly overstating the casualties in order to persuade their own governments that they were actually fighting in the national interest not to line their own pockets (that's why casualty figures are still secret, its not to hide how many, it's to hide how few) It all ended when a new agreement on splitting the profits was put in place.

SE Asia history fans will recall that Thailand has always considered Laos a bunch of breakaway provinces populated by hillbillies speaking a backwards dialect of Thai; Bangkok attacked the French colony in 1941, clawed off a large chunk of Laos, and hung on to it until 1946. So the Lao tend to get hysterical about perceived territorial threats from Thailand.

Again, its a bit more complex than that. The areas of Laos and Cambodia that were occupied in 1941 were actually Thai territory for hundreds of years prior to the French seizing them in 1903. Western Cambodia is heavily Thai (in the 1970s it was more than possible to find Cambodians who had been born Thai). So Thailand actually has a very good claim to those particular areas. The part of Laos seized in 1941 wasn't large, it was actually quite a small area that was west of the Mekong. The area retaken in Cambodia was much larger but the net effect was to restore the pre-1903 border. Given French conduct in the area, its certainly possible to argue that the Thai attack in 1941 was more that justified.
 
Doug M, so you consider that any aid given to any group at any time constitutes indirect military support? I think you've just damned every humanitarian group on the planet.;)

Your comparison of (North) Vietnam's many divisions of troops and a major military supply line to a burglar ignores that if one side launches a major new effort in time of war you can not credibly place full blame on the side which responded months later.

And we continue to not see any examples of US arms to the Khmer Rouge, despite many sources allegedly being so easy to google.:rolleyes:

One of the two rival movements which was supported by the US was founded by Lol Non and referred to as 'his' movement throughout the 1980s so the reference remains correct.

As noted, it took a decade of fighting backed by 300K Vietnamese followed by years of negotiations for that government to survive. If the current Iraq regime lasts are you going to claim that this means it was always completely legitimate and correct?

You also offer no evidence that the US encouraged China to aid the Khmer Rouge while admitting that China might have done this without US involvment. Chinese support for the Khmer Rouge was entirely of Beijing's choice and had nothing to do with the US being involved or not. Possibly a less interested US might even have led to more Chinese aid as a balance against Vietnam. In this matter the US bears no responsibility.
 
Again, its a bit more complex than that. The areas of Laos and Cambodia that were occupied in 1941 were actually Thai territory for hundreds of years prior to the French seizing them in 1903. Western Cambodia is heavily Thai (in the 1970s it was more than possible to find Cambodians who had been born Thai). So Thailand actually has a very good claim to those particular areas. The part of Laos seized in 1941 wasn't large, it was actually quite a small area that was west of the Mekong. The area retaken in Cambodia was much larger but the net effect was to restore the pre-1903 border. Given French conduct in the area, its certainly possible to argue that the Thai attack in 1941 was more that justified.

The land retaken from Cambodia during WWI had been Cambodian until the late 18th century. Angkor was there.

You also offer no evidence that the US encouraged China to aid the Khmer Rouge while admitting that China might have done this without US involvment.

You're grasping at straws here.

"I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the DK [Democratic Kampuchea -- the Khmers Rouges]. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could not support him but China could." -- Zbigniew Brzezinsky, National Security Advisor.

It's still an open question how much military aid the US gave directly to Pol Pot, if any. However, there's no question that (1) we gave him a lot of military aid indirectly -- i.e., by giving it to people (the Singaporeans, the Thais) who would eventually pass it along to him; (2) we encouraged the Chinese to give him aid (which, to be sure, they might have done anyhow); and (3) we gave him a lot of non-military "humanitarian" aid: food, medical supplies, housing, and clothes.

OTL matters were complicated by the US and -- especially -- China, which was harshly hostile to Vietnam. Beijing had been very friendly to the Khmers Rouges, after all, and then they'd gotten a nasty humiliation during the Sino-Vietnamese war. So the spent the 1980s funding the Cambodian rebels and leaning on the Thais to "unleash" them.
 
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