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The expectation however is that unless you got out in 1975 that the Vietnamese government would have seen the war similar to the American general public as THE even of the post WWII era and it would be taught like President Washington and the founding fathers are taught in American elementary and high schools.
It hurts us, the Americans who if anything are way over sensitive about our failure, that the winners don't make a big a deal out of their victory as we do our defeat.
That's partly because the rest of the world has rushed to help the Vietnamese communists build their country, enrich their rulers, and permanently impose totalitarian rule, while vilifying the United States as if it were Nazi Germany. It hasn't helped that Hollywood early on established the narrative of Vietnam vets as psychotic murderers, a narrative whose odor lingers in this thread, and throughout any discussion of Vietnam by those who never served there -- with the exception of hypocritical turncoats and craven opportunists like our current Secretary of State.
One wonders if, had the US withdrawn from Korea before the Chinese had been driven back across the 38th parallel, the world would be in full-throated celebration of the psychotic Kim family as rulers of the entire Korean peninsula. After all, it was the internal affair if the Korean people. America had no right to impose our will on them, and force them to enjoy one of the highest standards of living in Asia, with a booming economy and highly advanced educational system. They could be enjoying a starvation diet and giant parades to celebrate the holy Kims, firmly closed off from the outside world, like their Northern countrymen.
That's partly because the rest of the world has rushed to help the Vietnamese communists build their country, enrich their rulers, and permanently impose totalitarian rule, while vilifying the United States as if it were Nazi Germany. It hasn't helped that Hollywood early on established the narrative of Vietnam vets as psychotic murderers, a narrative whose odor lingers in this thread, and throughout any discussion of Vietnam by those who never served there -- with the exception of hypocritical turncoats and craven opportunists like our current Secretary of State.
The Eisenhower Republicans and Kennedy Democrats established a phony doctrine of limited, "defensive" war. When put into practice it meant out troops were left as sitting ducks for the enemy. They could barely, if at all, fight back. Ironically this doctrine started when Macarthur, under Truman, was not allowed to engage the Communist Chinese troops. Things got quite a bit worse under Ike, JFK and LBJ. The bottom line is that the country lost patience with a war with no strategy and no path to victory.
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
One wonders if, had the US withdrawn from Korea before the Chinese had been driven back across the 38th parallel, the world would be in full-throated celebration of the psychotic Kim family as rulers of the entire Korean peninsula. After all, it was the internal affair if the Korean people. America had no right to impose our will on them, and force them to enjoy one of the highest standards of living in Asia, with a booming economy and highly advanced educational system. They could be enjoying a starvation diet and giant parades to celebrate the holy Kims, firmly closed off from the outside world, like their Northern countrymen.
Very good point. It took Reagan to reestablish the idea that victory was permissible.
That's partly because the rest of the world has rushed to help the Vietnamese communists build their country, enrich their rulers, and permanently impose totalitarian rule, while vilifying the United States as if it were Nazi Germany. It hasn't helped that Hollywood early on established the narrative of Vietnam vets as psychotic murderers, a narrative whose odor lingers in this thread, and throughout any discussion of Vietnam by those who never served there -- with the exception of hypocritical turncoats and craven opportunists like our current Secretary of State.
One wonders if, had the US withdrawn from Korea before the Chinese had been driven back across the 38th parallel, the world would be in full-throated celebration of the psychotic Kim family as rulers of the entire Korean peninsula. After all, it was the internal affair if the Korean people. America had no right to impose our will on them, and force them to enjoy one of the highest standards of living in Asia, with a booming economy and highly advanced educational system. They could be enjoying a starvation diet and giant parades to celebrate the holy Kims, firmly closed off from the outside world, like their Northern countrymen.
Much of this ground has been covered in other posts and other threads. What I detect your part is an unwillingness to accept that there were practical considerations that prohibited the USA from using full weight of its power in Vietnam.
The doctrine of "containing" communism was developed in the early stages of the Cold War following World War II. The background is that the United States lost 400,000 soldiers fighting World War II. The tally would have been much higher if the USSR had not done a good job of killing German soldiers for us. Neither President Truman, nor anyone else wanted to take the risk that we would become embroiled in another large scale conflict so soon after the end of World War II and lose an equally high (or greater) number of soldiers. Ambassador George Kennan was sent to to the Soviet Union and quickly understood that in the power vacuum following the end of the war that the USA and USSR would soon be involved in their own struggle. Kennan wrote a long telegram to President Truman essentially outlining his notion that the key to prevailing against the USSR--without another war--was to engage in a strategy of containment. Essentially, we would not allow communist forces to take over any additional territory and we would engage in economic and trade policies that would--over time--undermine the communist system. To that end, the U.S. undertook a number of measures ranging from forming the NATO alliance in Europe, to sending arms to Greece to fight communist rebels, extending economic aid through the Marshall Plan, and beefing up forces in the Korean Peninsula to stop the North Korean invasion of South Korea.
The first misconception is that there was anything "humanitarian" about our actions. We simply acted to prevent the spread of a rival power, or ideology, communism. There may have been humanitarian aspects to our actions, but the motives were political.
In the late 1940's and through the 1950's this made a great deal of sense. The limits of our policy were tested by the Vietnam Conflict. Essentially, the government in South Vietnam lacked something that was present in Western Europe, Greece, and South Korea. In those countries, something resembling a majority of people were willing to stand by imperfect governments because they knew communism would be worse. That was not true in South Vietnam and it manifested itself in different ways. Also, there was a nationalist impulse in both North Vietnam and South Vietnam that sought unification of the entire country as one nation. What was never understood in America is that this was a greater driving force than communism was for many who lived in the region.
Both President Truman and President Johnson understood there were limits to what they could do. Use of atomic weapons could easily have resulted in World War III. Korea had common borders with both China and the USSR. Vietnam had a common border with China. Both countries had developed nuclear weapons. Essentially, the president walked a tightrope where he used the military to prevent these countries from being overrun by opposing armies, yet did not take actions which could have resulted in a wider more dangerous war.
The policy worked in Korea. It did not work in Vietnam. Its failure has much less to do with American policy than simply the fact that South Vietnam was by modern definitions a "failed state" that didn't enjoy the respect or support of the people it was supposed to be governing.
All these posts aren't going to change many minds. There is a certain mentality out there that holds "We could have won in Vietnam if we had just fought harder!" I think there is more than abundant historical evidence that the purveyors of this position are wrong, or that even if they were right, the cost of doing so would not have been worth the benefits of any "victory" we could have obtained.
Communism pretty much did collapse on its own ultimately. China is more capitalist than communist. It is a repressive state, but that was true before Mao Ze Dong came along. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. North Korea is a pariah state despised by almost everyone. The regime in Vietnam is repressive, but not really communist in the Cold War sense. I'd say--overall--our policy of containment was followed and worked pretty well.
The policy worked in Korea. It did not work in Vietnam. Its failure has much less to do with American policy than simply the fact that South Vietnam was by modern definitions a "failed state" that didn't enjoy the respect or support of the people it was supposed to be governing.
Good points so I'm repping this post even though I don't agree with it. In the final analysis there was always the option of recolonization. I don't know that Vietnam had ever existed as an independent nation before. I do recollect strongly that the South Vietnamese government was failed. I don't know if Diem would have failed but Thieu certainly did.
I adhere to the view, though, that the U.S. war effort did buy precious time for Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to gain some viability and ultimately attain varying degrees of success.
I adhere to the view, though, that the U.S. war effort did buy precious time for Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to gain some viability and ultimately attain varying degrees of success.
And this is true, too, which was part of the containment policy.
No one country won the war, it was a group effort, the soviets wouldn't have won the war if not for the other fronts that the western powers fought and vice versa. How ever the soviets had the largest casualties by far and inflicted the most casualties on the Germans. The soviets also played a critical point in Japan's surrender since the soviets marched through Manchuria with ease. Some people speculate that the biggest reason why the us used the atom bombs was because they were afraid that Japan would fall under soviet hands and become a commie puppet state.
Ive read that in deciding to use nukes, one of the secondary reasons was to show Russia what we could do...Russia was already showing signs of claiming other territories in Europe, and were acting more and more defiant with the other allies...war with Russia after Germany and japan fell was a definite possibility...we rid Europe of one evil, and let in another...
Germany came very close to defeating Russia...had she put all her forces there instead of fighting a two front war, it might have been very different
Ive read that in deciding to use nukes, one of the secondary reasons was to show Russia what we could do...Russia was already showing signs of claiming other territories in Europe, and were acting more and more defiant with the other allies...war with Russia after Germany and japan fell was a definite possibility...we rid Europe of one evil, and let in another...
When Truman was leaving Potsdam he wrote Bess and told her he had achieved his one goal there, to get the Great Stalin to commit to join the other Allies in the Pacific War. We weren't really interested in showing off for the Russians, we were trying to end the war. So a barn-yard estimate would give "Impress the Russians" about 5% of the total "Why we used the bombs."
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Germany came very close to defeating Russia...had she put all her forces there instead of fighting a two front war, it might have been very different
It's true that on D-Day the Germans had 95 division stationed along the coast from Norway to Greece. Wehrmacht scholars have calculated that was equivalent to 50 divisions of full strength troops. So, yes, a two-front war cost the Germans in man-power.
However, the Russians were trading space for time. Their heavy industry was pulled back behind the Urals, the natural defense line for central Russia, and had resumed production in record time. Also, the Japanese move into 南方資源地帯 Nampo shigen chitai (The "Southern Resources Area", Malaya, Indonesia, etc.) freed up the Soviet troops that were watching in case the Japanese tried to go north to reinforce their western front. Germany, with eighty million people, was trying to defeat the USSR, who had one hundred and fifty million people. As long as the logistics held out the Russians were never going to lose.
When Truman was leaving Potsdam he wrote Bess and told her he had achieved his one goal there, to get the Great Stalin to commit to join the other Allies in the Pacific War. We weren't really interested in showing off for the Russians, we were trying to end the war. So a barn-yard estimate would give "Impress the Russians" about 5% of the total "Why we used the bombs."
I know you're knowledgeable in this area. However, I think that Truman had serious second thoughts about letting the USSR anywhere near Japan. Thus, I think that it ranked a small amount higher than 5% in the reason for the use of the bomb. The biggest reason of course was the huge number of likely casualties on both sides with a Normandy-style invasion. Frankly the resistance to such an invasion would have made Normandy look like a walk on the beach since the French people were not especially pro-German. The Japanese people were pro-Japanese.
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Originally Posted by OpanaPointer
Germany, with eighty million people, was trying to defeat the USSR, who had one hundred and fifty million people. As long as the logistics held out the Russians were never going to lose.
I think meteorology played a bigger role than number of people. The U.S. didn't make much headway against British Canada for similar reasons both in Benedict Arnold's attack on Quebec City during the Revolutionary War, and in the War of 1812. The Russian people were largely drunk and disorderly and the Germans disciplined. I suspect that General Winter helped the USSR out a lot.
You can source Truman's second thoughts, please? I seemed to have missed them.
As for the Russian winter, at least one Russian field marshal got very incensed when General Winter was given the credit for the defeat of the Germans. "We both fought in the same weather! It was as cold for us as for them." and so on.
You can source Truman's second thoughts, please? I seemed to have missed them.
I really can't. But I suspect that one of the reasons for dropping the bomb was the USSR's serious misbehavior in Poland after V-E Day.
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Originally Posted by OpanaPointer
As for the Russian winter, at least one Russian field marshal got very incensed when General Winter was given the credit for the defeat of the Germans. "We both fought in the same weather! It was as cold for us as for them." and so on.
I'm sure the Russian marshal disagrees. But the Russians were fighting on the home front so had some more access to warmth. And they were used to the climate. The Germans were used to temperatures barely below -10C, 14F.
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