Korea vs. Vietnam (WW2, war, bomb, 60's)

[robertpasa]

The US was able to save half of Korea but Vietnam was lost.

One of the main reasons is that most Korean people wanted America to be there. But most Vietnamese didn't want America to be there, and sympathized more with the communists. Why was there such a difference?

[markg91359]

Originally Posted by robertpasa

The US was able to save half of Korea but Vietnam was lost.

One of the main reasons is that most Korean people wanted America to be there. But most Vietnamese didn't want America to be there, and sympathized more with the communists. Why was there such a difference?

What America didn't understand in the beginning is that the conflict in Vietnam was not a conflict between the communist world and the non-communist world. Rather, it was a civil war that had been going on for decades.

Vietnam is one of the hardest historical events to explain. This is primarily because it was a like wave slowly building out in the ocean. Many people paid no attention to this "wave" until it reached gigantic size and smashed onto the beach. As early as 1919, Ho Chi Minh attended the Paris Conference in which the great nations of the world put together the Treaty of Versailles. Ho Chi Minh thought that he might be able to get Woodrow Wilson and others to recognize the rights of the indigenous Vietnamese people to their own independent state. He was not well received though and this came to nothing.

Ho Chi Minh was slowly drawn to communist countries like the USSR because they were willing to give him some financial assistance and pay lip service to the notion of an independent Vietnam.

The French governed Vietnam (all of French Indochina) during this period. During World War II, the Japanese seized rice and other raw materials in Vietnam. Following the end of the war, the U.S.A. and other allied countries made a decision to allow Indochina to remain a colony of France. Ho Chi Minh lead a struggle for independence that culminated in 1954 in the Battle of Dien Ben Phu. Ho's forces laid siege to the French forces at Dien Ben Phu and forced them to surrender. This resulted in talks in Geneva, Switzerland that lead to a treaty in which the French gave North Vietnam to Ho and his people immediately. A plan was made for a UN supervised election to take place to determine whether South Vietnam would join North Vietnam as one nation. President Eisenhower was caught up in the Cold War in the 1950's. He and Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, did their math and realized that there since there were more people in North Vietnam than in South Vietnam an election determined by majority rule would give Ho (and the communists) complete control of Vietnam.

During the Cold War, yielding one speck of land to anyone affiliated with the communists was unthinkable. Therefore, Eisenhower simply canceled the scheduled election and broke the Geneva Accords. The Vietnam War resulted. After years of American involvement, we finally saw the conflict for what it was and got out in 1973. South Vietnam was overrun by forces from the North and surrendered in 1975.

Constant guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and attacks on American forces in South Vietnam were a pretty good indication that the population was not very pro-American. These kinds of things rarely happened in South Korea during the Korean conflict. Undoubtedly, a segment of South Vietnam wanted to be free of the North. I was never convinced it was really a majority.

In essence, nationalism was a stronger force among the Vietnamese than it was among the Koreans. Many Vietnamese wanted one independent country. In Korea, the people in the south, rightfully feared the north and were willing to suffer casualties and deprivation to have their own country.

[McBain II]

Originally Posted by markg91359

What America didn't understand in the beginning is that the conflict in Vietnam was not a conflict between the communist world and the non-communist world. Rather, it was a civil war that had been going on for decades.

Vietnam is one of the hardest historical events to explain. This is primarily because it was a like wave slowly building out in the ocean. Many people paid no attention to this "wave" until it reached gigantic size and smashed onto the beach. As early as 1919, Ho Chi Minh attended the Paris Conference in which the great nations of the world put together the Treaty of Versailles. Ho Chi Minh thought that he might be able to get Woodrow Wilson and others to recognize the rights of the indigenous Vietnamese people to their own independent state. He was not well received though and this came to nothing.

Ho Chi Minh was slowly drawn to communist countries like the USSR because they were willing to give him some financial assistance and pay lip service to the notion of an independent Vietnam.

The French governed Vietnam (all of French Indochina) during this period. During World War II, the Japanese seized rice and other raw materials in Vietnam. Following the end of the war, the U.S.A. and other allied countries made a decision to allow Indochina to remain a colony of France. Ho Chi Minh lead a struggle for independence that culminated in 1954 in the Battle of Dien Ben Phu. Ho's forces laid siege to the French forces at Dien Ben Phu and forced them to surrender. This resulted in talks in Geneva, Switzerland that lead to a treaty in which the French gave North Vietnam to Ho and his people immediately. A plan was made for a UN supervised election to take place to determine whether South Vietnam would join North Vietnam as one nation. President Eisenhower was caught up in the Cold War in the 1950's. He and Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, did their math and realized that there since there were more people in North Vietnam than in South Vietnam an election determined by majority rule would give Ho (and the communists) complete control of Vietnam.

During the Cold War, yielding one speck of land to anyone affiliated with the communists was unthinkable. Therefore, Eisenhower simply canceled the scheduled election and broke the Geneva Accords. The Vietnam War resulted. After years of American involvement, we finally saw the conflict for what it was and got out in 1973. South Vietnam was overrun by forces from the North and surrendered in 1975.

Constant guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and attacks on American forces in South Vietnam were a pretty good indication that the population was not very pro-American. These kinds of things rarely happened in South Korea during the Korean conflict. Undoubtedly, a segment of South Vietnam wanted to be free of the North. I was never convinced it was really a majority.

In essence, nationalism was a stronger force among the Vietnamese than it was among the Koreans. Many Vietnamese wanted one independent country. In Korea, the people in the south, rightfully feared the north and were willing to suffer casualties and deprivation to have their own country.

Excellent post as usual, Mark.

[tpk-nyc]

It was also about the bumbling ineptitude and corruption of the South Vietnamese government. It’s rather like contemporary Afghanistan under Karzai and. A majority of the people don’t want the Taliban in power, but no one is able to create a viable alternative. Propping up idiots and criminals is a fool’s errand.

[robertpasa]

Thanks for the responses. There may have been resentment in Vietnam against the French.

Korea and Vietnam had both been conquered by Japan, to varying lengths of time. I don't know how most Koreans felt about it.

When a large population hates the current govt, they might side with the new govt without knowing all about it.

[Frihed89]

My own belief is that the differences arise from the unusual circumstances that led to UN intervention, not US or US + allies intervention in Korea, and, later, to the direct involvement of Chinese combatants in the conflict in large numbers. POtentially, this became a far more potentially dangerous conflict to regional political stability than the conflict in Vietnam and this helps to explain why the Korean conflict "ended" as it did.

The situation in the two Koreas and China is so different today then it was in the early 1950s, it is hard for younger Americans to comprehend how crazy and dangerous this conflict became. The conflict in Vietnam, if the younger generation even thinks about it today, is regarded at best as a tragic and at worst as a pathetic chapter in American foreign relations.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by robertpasa

The US was able to save half of Korea but Vietnam was lost.

One of the main reasons is that most Korean people wanted America to be there. But most Vietnamese didn't want America to be there, and sympathized more with the communists. Why was there such a difference?

Vietnam was a proxy conflict in the Cold War. In the 1960's, with SEATO in effect, a decision to NOT defend RVN against communism would have required an explanation. In today’s world, the United States could go to war if China attacks Taiwan or if North Korea attacks South Korea. So, the use of U.S. military force to defend South Vietnam against North Vietnam at the height of the Cold War seems less puzzling. And it attests to the baggage left over in Asia from the Cold War even today.

The South Vietnamese government wasn't popular with the people and thus they were not able to present a clearly better option to their people in place of communism. They had the absolute worst president for the time period. Those people really suffered. They were caught between two juggernauts. But ultimately, the idiocy of the RVN leadership pushed the populace straight into the arms of Ho Chi Minh.

The US might have won that war quickly if they had made it an all out offensive air war and Naval blockade against the North, rather than fighting defensively in the South and creating an agonizing situation for the people they ostensibly wanted to defend. On the other hand, Johnson's reluctance to escalate out of fear of causing a war with China/Russia might have been the prudent thing to do.

But then again, if Truman had listened to MacArthur in Korea about the Chinese, they might not have been involved in Vietnam. Ditto for Russia after WW2.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by markg91359

Ho Chi Minh was slowly drawn to communist countries like the USSR because they were willing to give him some financial assistance and pay lip service to the notion of an independent Vietnam.

During the Cold War, yielding one speck of land to anyone affiliated with the communists was unthinkable. Therefore, Eisenhower simply canceled the scheduled election and broke the Geneva Accords. The Vietnam War resulted. After years of American involvement, we finally saw the conflict for what it was and got out in 1973. South Vietnam was overrun by forces from the North and surrendered in 1975.

Ho Chi Minh was a communist as early as 1920, during his time in Paris. He was "slowly drawn" to communism long before he took up the struggle in Vietnam. He was a committed communist in 1959.

Eisenhower didn't break any accords. The USA never signed them and the RVN government outright rejected them. Thus, they were not binding on these two nations.

It is interesting to note - which you didn't - that North Vietnam and the USSR rejected an American proposal for UN supervised elections to be added to the accords. So, contrary to the notion that Eisenhower just "cancelled" the elections, what actually happened is that the elections idea collapsed on both sides because fairness would not or could not be ensured. And thus, neither RVN or the US would sign the accords.

Fair elections couldn't even be guaranteed in the free South, during the referendum of 1955. More ballots were counted then there were people in the country, with about 98 percent voting for a Republic. I'd be willing to bet that at least 65 percent voted for a Republic and most of the rest voted for Monarchy.

It is also interesting to note that over 1 million Vietnamese fled the North during the post-Accords transition period 54-55, while about 50,000 fled the South for the North.

It is quite telling that the Vietnamese have turned their backs on every critical plank of the communist revolution: communal property, collectivized agriculture, central planning, and militarism, among other things, and adopted something similar to China. Not the best, but working in the right direction.

[slowlane3]

Also a factor, was South Vietnamese President Diem's favoritism for hiring Catholics over Buddhists in the government, forbidding Buddhist holidays, etc. There was a very famous photo of a Buddhist monk setting himself on fire in a protest.

The U.S. could have won the war quickly if they had quarantined and blockaded war supplies from coming into the northern port of Haiphong in the first place, from which they were continually carried south by porters on the Ho Chi Minh Trail - which the U.S. tried to stop by spraying Agent Orange herbicide on the trail, which has caused thousands of deformities and birth defects to innocent civilians (and allied troops).

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by slowlane3

Also a factor, was South Vietnamese President Diem's favoritism for hiring Catholics over Buddhists in the government, forbidding Buddhist holidays, etc. There was a very famous photo of a Buddhist monk setting himself on fire in a protest.

The U.S. could have won the war quickly if they had quarantined and blockaded war supplies from coming into the northern port of Haiphong in the first place, from which they were continually carried south by porters on the Ho Chi Minh Trail - which the U.S. tried to stop by spraying Agent Orange herbicide on the trail, which has caused thousands of deformities and birth defects to innocent civilians (and allied troops).

Personally, I think the USA would have won the war quickly if we had bombed the North continuously until they surrendered, for as long as it took. All those Vietcong going South would have been needed to put out the fires in Hanoi and the ports. We should have invaded from the beach and turned it into an offensive war against the North. Our mistake was trying to fight defensively within RVN borders. We should have put up an iron curtain across the border that nothing could penetrate and pushed into the North from the 17th and from the sea, bombing Hanoi and the ports from aircraft carriers and Guam day and night.

In short, we should have treated Vietnam like a battle, not a war, and we could have won in 6 months. There's no way the Vietcong were tougher than the Germans on D-Day. No way. And we had less technology in WW2 to rely on than the enemy did. God, what would we have done if Uncle Ho had V-2 rockets and a Tiger Tank?

I swear to you, it almost seems to me like the USA was TRYING to lose the war. At the very least, stalemate it until public opinion demanded a withdrawal. I think Johnson didn't have the stomach for the SEATO arrangement. It's not at all amazing that SEATO was disbanded either. Contrary to the Leftist myth of the rabid Cold War fanaticism of the Vietnam era. Disbanding SEATO was a step backwards for the Cold War.

Technology was primitive in Vietnam. The Ho Chi Minh trail wouldn't have worked today, in the age of drones, FLIR, and computer controlled fire systems. A chipmunk wouldn't have been able to make it down that road.