Was it inevitable that the US lost the Vietnam war?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MrFun
Who besides me is objective enough to see the bad of both sides and refuses to blindly praise and become all giddy with neither side?

Do you enjoy patting yourself on the back?

[sprucemoose3311]

How did the US lose the war when a peace treaty was signed jan 3, 1973, all us troops were out april 1, 1973...

and south vietnam fell april 25, 1975



and dont cite that video that shows the helicopters taking people off of the us embassy...
in reality that video shows us copter landing on civilian buildings picking up south vietnamese delagates...

maybe thats why they always show those images to a music soundtrack rather than the original audio.



best single source for all things vietnam:

Stanley Karnov: Vietnam

PBS also has a good vietnam war section on their website. however I must ask them the same qeustion i started this reply with.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by sprucemoose3311
How did the US lose the war when a peace treaty was signed jan 3, 1973, all us troops were out april 1, 1973...

Because our goal was to defeat the communists in South Vietnam, and we didn't.

...Although to partially agree with you: Our military was not defeated; our nation was.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
It depends if we are dealing with a straw man domino theory, or a realistic one. A realistic one would posit that the political evolution of a given state is a function of whats going on in neighboring states AND of a variety of internal factors. Thus a fall of Saigon in 1965 would have increased the probabilities of communist success in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.

And why wopuld what is happening in South Vietnam have anythin to do with what was happening in Thailand or Malasyia, neither sharing a border with Vietnam, nor a culture, nor even a common history, ditto for Indonesia? After all, all these states "survived" the "fall of China". If China going communist in 1950 did not all of a sudden force all of Asiua communist, why should the unification of Vietnam all of a sudden do it??

Whether any would in fact have become Communist, and which ones, would depend on the nature of the politics in each state. For example its possible that a victorious Viet Nam would have supported the Communist insurgency in Thailand, and this would have been enought to tip the balance, while at the same time the events in Indonesia might have proceeded as they did in OTL. Again, to determine that, one needs to analyze Thai politics in 1965 in detail, to see how close the knife edge the situation actually was. Clearly by 1975 the situation was NOT close the knife edge, which is why the dominoes did NOT fall in 1975. Its not possible to read the situation back to 1965 without analysis. A realistic domino theory does NOT posit all states are identical - which is why folks worried about communists winning a civil war in Thailand, but not in, say, Australia.

Why would Vietnam do it, but not, say, China? The USSR? (both of which had much more resources anyways)

So its just coincidence that a revolution occured in Romania, which wasnt even part of the Soviet block, a couple of months after the changes in Hungary, Czecho, etc?

The Romanian communist dictatorship was as much a foreign import as in all the other Waswa Pact members, so Romania was NOT as independent of the changes in other parts of Eastern Europe as you would make it seem. That only in Romania was the revolt violent is what shows the greater indegenous power of the Romanian regime.

Its just a coincidence that there democratic changes occured in S. Korea and Thailand shortly after the people power revolution in the Phillipines? Its just a coincidence that a revolution occured in Georgia, which its leaders frankly admit was inspired by what happened in Serbia, and had advice from Serbian students?

And yet why South Korea and Thailand, but not Indonesia and Burma (Myanmar?) Why not Cuba and Vietnam after Eastern Europe?

I would posit that NO, the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship in '86 was NOT a crucial event for the end of authoritarian rule in either SKOrea nor Thailand. That similar economic forces might have been in play that exerted pressures on these authoritarian regimes at the same time might have revelaed the different abilities of regimes to survive.

In fact there are cultural and geographic groupings of states that have much in common politically, culturally, economically etc. and in which political actors routinely look across borders for political inspiration, and even form cross border alliances.

And yet, there is no actual method to the madness from which one can posit a worthwhile theory like a "Domino theory". Costa Rica survived the violence all its neighbors had, and the early Costa Rican example did not radiate to any of its neighbors either.

Overall, Southeast Asia is not anywhere as culturally cohesive as say Eastern Europe, so even if one admits (which I am willing to do) some sort of weak interconnectiveness, which does not amount to anything enough to posit a "Domino effect" in which change in one place forces similarly radical change elsewhere (which is exactly what happens to Dominoes), South East Asia is a very weak place to posit this, given that all these states have very distinct cultures and histories that as not so intertwined. The fate of Viet Nam has had little i anything to do historically with the fate of Java, for example.

while they were getting the vast amounts, they held. The material edge apparently balancing the NVA advantages. They lost the subsidy, then they lost the war.

They were still getting significant amounts in 1974-5. That they were seemingly utterly incapable of investing aid into things that would help them, survive long term is a huge indictment on the very Viability of South Vietnam.