WI: No Watergate, Nixon gives all possible aid to S. Vietnam *except* reintroducing ground troops

Back in the 1990s I started encountering the first generation born from the Viet who made it here. I always have to wonder if I'd crossed paths with their parents in the processing camp at Camp Pendelton 1975. I spent a week or two on working party at the tent city where the refugees were brought from Guam for processing.
 

jahenders

Banned
The Paris Peace Accord was not quite as favorable as the video makes it out to be, but we probably gotten a better one if they had really tried given North Vietnam was really buckling because of the Linebacker raids. There was a good reason South Vietnam opposed the Accord for so long.

Thiệu knew the US wouldn't keep to the terms, once the troops are pulled out then so too does support political and economic much like the idea the Obama WH had we could pull out from Iraq and still provide enough support from afar to avoid a conventional invasion on Iraq. When the troops leave the war emotionally 'ends' for the public and political class.

If Nixon was going to keep economic and air support coming for the South he needed to leave a few thousand troops behind in a base. Even without Watergate once the troops were gone it was going to be almost impossible to keep Congress from cutting the budget.

True, though it's certainly another example of why allies should be cautious of trusting our promises if they're not ones they can believe we'll keep/enforce. I'm sure Ukraine has that firmly in mind since, when we convinced Ukraine to return their nukes to Russia, both the US and Russia agreed to guarantee Ukraine's (then) existing borders. That didn't last long -- Russia essentially seized the Crimea from Ukraine and is fomenting civil war in other regions of the Ukraine it wants.
 
True, though it's certainly another example of why allies should be cautious of trusting our promises if they're not ones they can believe we'll keep/enforce. I'm sure Ukraine has that firmly in mind since, when we convinced Ukraine to return their nukes to Russia, both the US and Russia agreed to guarantee Ukraine's (then) existing borders. That didn't last long -- Russia essentially seized the Crimea from Ukraine and is fomenting civil war in other regions of the Ukraine it wants.

To be fair, that agreement was made when Russia's leadership was still relatively sane.
 
To be fair, that agreement was made when Russia's leadership was still relatively sane.

Any agreement to back up the territorial integrity of another country not backed up by ground troops isn't worth the piece of paper it's printed on.

America might do it, but then again might say screw it.

Even if we had a full on treaty with Ukraine you would have Washington hemming and hawing about if this meets the criteria of an 'invasion'. US troops are the only real tripwire guaranteeing an American response not a piece of paper.
 
Any agreement to back up the territorial integrity of another country not backed up by ground troops isn't worth the piece of paper it's printed on.

America might do it, but then again might say screw it.

Even if we had a full on treaty with Ukraine you would have Washington hemming and hawing about if this meets the criteria of an 'invasion'. US troops are the only real tripwire guaranteeing an American response not a piece of paper.

Hence the US military presence in South Korea. They're utterly dwarfed in size by the ROKA, but then again the purpose of the US troops is not really added military strength but as a tripwire to guarantee US military intervention should the need arise.
 
I think they can hold on, but to what end?

South Vietnam would have been basically like Chiang's Taiwan: a corrupt and kleptocratic nationalist state without the benefit of an ocean to keep enemies away and without a strong leader to forestall constant coup-related instability.

US Airpower is a powerful thing, sure. But it can't fix inherent issues of poor governance, nor can it end a war in which South Vietnam is already infiltrated by the NVA. The Viet Cong were basically destroyed by the US, but the NVA could infiltrate the country and take up old Viet Cong positions almost at will until Nixon expanded the war, and after the US drawdown, they could become bolder.

I would have to disagree on that as far as South Vietnam being a second Taiwan, more a possible South Korea in the making. I don't what you've read for sources but most of the Orthodox historiographic literature does not touch on the later period of the war, even some of well more known books cover largely up till 68/69. I hope to god this isn't ranting.

By the early 70's The South was in a better military position then the North having more troops and better equipment, all they needed was sufficent air support, the North, in contrast, had greatly suffered from a combination of the Tet and Mini-Tet offensives being failures and a prolonged bombing campaign. Since Thieu had also pacified the hamlets with the aid of General Abrams, guerilla tactics would be hard to try to because there is no more of a local insurgency to use. The next NVA offensive would have been their last, they would either to succeed or give up.

Politically and domestically the South had been under President Thieu who had least ruled for 10 years, which was longer than Diem who lasted for 8 and much longer than the previous merry-go-rounds of military leaders who lasted a month or two. Also, Thieu had actually managed to bring security to the countryside and wasn't as stupidly divisive as Diem was. So The South had somewhat decent governance.

As for the North, they cycled between the Pro-Soviet North-First and Pro-Chinese South-First, which also meant the Sino-Soviet Split kept the government divided and fighting with itself. Also both the Soviets and Chinese sent military aid when the North needed soldiers, and to top if the Chinese sabotaged Soviet aid and lied about its effectiveness. The Chinese government then diplomatically was not too different today, basically, if you do something they don't like expect to hear a lot of angry and some persona abuse. Even with someone Le Duan at the head of the North who was a South-Firster and pro-Chinese, when he called the Soviet Union a second fatherland, that earned no end and criticism that he angrily stormed off.

That said if Nixon does keep all possible measures save ground troops and there still is the rapprochement with China, it would only hasten the North's full embracing of the Soviets over the Chinese, and eventually isolation at least within the second world with Albania abandoning China over its rapprochement with the U.S.
 
South Vietnam would have been basically like Chiang's Taiwan: a corrupt and kleptocratic nationalist state without the benefit of an ocean to keep enemies away and without a strong leader to forestall constant coup-related instability.

Chiang Kai-Shek's rule in Taiwan was neither corrupt nor kleptocratic. It was generally clean and technocratic. Chiang wasn't just top dog in Taiwan, he was the only dog. There were no warlords or other political factions he needed to contend with or make deals with. He didn't even allow Du Yueshang of the Green Gang to come into Taiwan - he had to spend his exile in Hong Kong. Without the need to negotiate with political opponents in Taiwan, Chiang ran things the way he wanted. There was a stable currency, a land reform program, and industrial investment and development. By 1965 all economic aide to Taiwan ceased, and Taiwan became one of the Asian Tigers. It had high human capital. By the 1970s, Taiwan was the fastest growing economy in Asia behind only Japan. Chiang continued to rule Taiwan until his death in 1975 (although by the end, he had delegated many of the ordinary tasks of governance to his son).

You can say it was authoritarian and politically repressive, but that is not the same as corrupt or kleptocratic. There was huge corruption in the Republic of China when it ruled the mainland durings its last five years, but that was mainly a result of the economic stress building up in China in the last years of WWII and bad policy decisions made postwar. In the Nanking Decade of 1927-1937, the Nationalists were noticeably less corrupt than the other major factions, and Chiang himself favored the more technocratic factions within the KMT.

South Vietnam was different and had many more challenges than Chiang did in Taiwan. However, South Vietnam by 1972 or so was much more politically stable than it was in the 1960s, and several reforms had been enacted. Corruption was definitely an issue. At the same time, everyone also knew what it would mean if they lost, and this concentrated everyone's attention at what they needed to do to survive. South Vietnam did not fall to guerrillas, but to a conventional army invading from the North. The South Vietnamese Army actually fought very bravely despite immense supply shortages. A combination of plentiful supplies and American airpower would have prevented a defeat.

At the same time, people need to consider the challenges facing North Vietnam. The bombing had caused a lot of damage, and the North had its own casualties and war weariness. There was dissent in the Politburo at continuing the war. Not enough to stop it based on what the majority perceived as major weaknesses in the US and South Vietnam. However, the peace faction would have been greater if they saw a very firm US commitment to South Vietnam. They still believed they would win "eventually", but North Vietnam had its own rebuilding needs. None foresaw that by 1986 Communism would be on its last legs. So if given a respite, I think South Vietnam would have survived until the time when North realized they had too many problems of their own to worry about invading the South again.
 
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