11 ms·

There's a lot of people in the comments saying that Vietnam didn't really "win" the war. Their political and military objectives were ultimately successful, tho

There's a lot of people in the comments saying that Vietnam didn't really "win" the war. Their political and military objectives were ultimately successful, those of the US/South Vietnam were not. That's what a victory is. The cost of victory was very high, but it was a pretty unambiguous success for the Vietnamese.

ska 5y ago
It's impressive how deep some of these psychological things run nearly 50 years on. It was such a blow to self-image that, let alone all the related domestic political fallout, people still have a hard time accepting what happened. The sheer amount of ink and celluloid spent trying to come to terms with this is awesome, and a little depressing.
- enraged_camel 5y ago
  I'm not a native-born American and don't feel like I have skin in that game. I just feel like in war, there may be victors, but there are no winners. Especially in the modern age, if you get in a war, all sides lose. Victory is just a matter of who manages to lose less.
  - xenophonf 5y ago
    In war there are no winners, only widows.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    This is a cliche understanding. Wars can and have been won since warfare started. However, the actual people doing the fighting aren't winning, they're just dying and mostly (unless defending their own country) giving up their most valuable asset (life) so that rich men can play Axis and Allies.
  - stolen_biscuit 5y ago
    I think WW2 had pretty decisive winners and losers
    - ant6n 5y ago
      Although some of the victors were also losers (like the Soviet Union). Basically the only decisive winner was the US.
- nine_k 5y ago
  How many wars did the US win (as in "achieved the political goals") since WWII? Korean war: half won, half lost. Vietnam war: lost. Grenada invasion: sort of won. Gulf war 1991: I'd say won, despite Saddam staying in power. Gulf war II: I'd say lost, despite Saddam deposition. Afghanistan: lost, despite the killing of bin Laden. Syria: can't tell yet. It's a pretty depressing tally. With that, I'd say that the US was on the winning side of a number of wars before that: WWII, WWI, Mexican war, Spanish war.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I'd say we won Gulf war II, we've definitely lost Syria by now, Afghanistan probably lost. That said, many of the well-known, long haul conflicts that the US are involved in are the ones they are most likely to lose. The ones they win they usually win quickly and are less well known. There are plenty of interventions post-WWII that have been quick successes for the US, esp. in Latin America.
    - dillondoyle 5y ago
      Yeah Syria is interesting The problem with all these conflicts is winning is so poorly defined or multi-goal. What's winning in Syria? Getting rid of assad and then leaving? We could probably do that in a week or less and utterly demolish the country if we wanted. The consequences of 'winning' that war under that definition would probably be pretty horrible. But that doesn't seem to be the goal right now? There's the wider goal of not wanting to poke the Russia bear too much while simultaneously not letting Russia run too wild (arguably they are..). Though Afghanistan is pretty simple imho. there aren't nearly as many global power stakes... The taliban explicitly does not want Democracy so if that is 'winning' it's doomed to a loss by default.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        > We could probably do that in a week or less Eh - I'm not sure. Getting aircraft overhead would be difficult east of the euphrates when they have lots of anti-aircraft guns and they are also supported heavily by Russia. The only Western power currently conducting airstrikes east of the euphrates is Israel and they have had planes shot down by Syria & Russia. The US has a preponderance of military power, but I do think people are quick to assume that this means the US could easily topple lots of foreign nations. For some, that is definitely true, for others, like Iran, I think that is a misplaced confidence.
- afterburner 5y ago
  I think many people forget that it took until the Gulf War (90-91) to dispel those demons.
vmception 5y ago
Yeah I dont really understand the cognitive dissonance people have over that war. Vietnam has a single party Communist Party that teaches Marxist ideals while having upgraded to state capital patches like every other marxist ideology worshipping party. They are geopolitically irrelevant enough for that never to bother anyone. The US was there to stop that specific thing from happening and didnt. US lost, Vietnam was unified and the control was consolidated under Vietnamese representatives of the communist party and for them they won. That’s the same standard we use for any conflict. Why single out that one to a higher standard where we point out the loss of life? Doesnt make sense. Vietnam won a unified country, and it is under communist rule. There once was a side that didnt want communism and they lost, too!
- yossarian1408 5y ago
  Depends on what you think the objectives were. Did the USA want to add another star to the Star Spangled Banner? Then yeah, they lost. But if the objective of the USA was to prevent a domino of communism taking over all of South-East Asia, we can pretty clearly see where the advance of communism was stopped. And if an American and a North Vietnamese communist from 1955 could see into the future 70 years, taking a tour around Hanoi or Saigon, I don't know if either would be so certain on their verdict of who 'won' or 'lost'. It might have been the North, but it certainly wasn't the communists.
  - vmception 5y ago
    I don't think anybody indoctrinated with marxist teachings is satisfied with any current or attempted version of communism. So in that regard I would agree, I still say its an impossible standard not used for other conflicts. Even the last massacre in China was because the protestors wanted to democratically have more communism instead of the liberalization of the markets and private ownership. That gets reduced to “students wanted democracy”, geopolitically it would have even been worse. (It is sad they were killed and that unity in that country relies on never mentioning it or any other strife)
  - afterburner 5y ago
    > But if the objective of the USA was to prevent a domino of communism taking over all of South-East Asia, we can pretty clearly see where the advance of communism was stopped. But Communism flourished in Vietnam. So if you want to argue domino theory (which was wrong anyways), they certainly didn't stop the Vietnamese domino. So they didn't win in Vietnam.
VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
I think if you're talking about the acute win/loss of the Vietnam war, then absolutely the North Vietnamese won. If the USA really wanted to win the war then they could have done it outright in 1967. But that would have been very ugly. Not an option. Did the Vietnamese people win the war? No. They've been living in poverty for 50 years and most of them still are in 2021, 50 years later.
- drzaiusapelord 5y ago
  Maybe their soceity would have been more successful if it wasn't bombed to hell and back by the Americans then made a soft client state of the USSR and then boycotted by the West. If left to develop its communist government by itself, it could be like China today - a superpower that's going to overtake the USA by important measures. Lets stop pretending that years of war against a superpower didn't come at a cost for them and the US should have left them alone.
  - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
    Are the Vietnamese people winning in this scenario? Are the Vietnamese people winning right now?
    - bawolff 5y ago
      Are you asking if the vietnamese people are winning in the crazy scenario drzaiusapelord suggested where viet nam is a super power - i think the answer is an obvious yes. But that's an unrealistic scenario. Would they have been better off if france agreed to decolonize instead of trying to hold on to their failing colonial empire with force (leading to everything that came to follow)? Maybe we'll never know. But i don't think there's any particular reason to assume that if the south won they would be any better off. South Vietnam hardly seems like it was the most stable/well run of governments - they were into fixing elections and persacuting buddhists, etc. Hardly what i would call an ideal state.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    Various countries which were "bombed to hell and back" are doing well now. Various Europe countries, Korea, Japan, etc
AzzieElbab 5y ago
50 years of misery ongoing, Vietcong won bigly.
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
People in the US misunderstand the Vietnamese perspective on the war pretty badly. Interestingly enough one of the best sources you can look at to learn about this is the documentary interview with McNamara, Fog of War. He's surprisingly frank about his own mistakes in perspective, as well as talking about conversations he had with his counterparts in later years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YONEXPMVaQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YONEXPMVaQM
- postalrat 5y ago
  The fog of war is an incredible documentary. I'd suggest it to anyone who is willing to watch it.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
    It and Iraq in Fragments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiu8cXhjpX4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiu8cXhjpX4) are the two most incredible documentaries I've ever seen on this topic.
stolenmerch 5y ago
Completely agree with you about Vietnam reaching its military objectives. However, I only see a couple of commenters disagreeing with that, which is not "a lot". Only curious about this because I wonder how prevalent that viewpoint is versus the perception of that viewpoint being prevalent. Perhaps this is off-topic but it seems this disparity between perception is central to so much of America's hangups with this war 50 years later.
abrookewood 5y ago
Wikipedia is pretty unambiguous: "Following Vietnamese victory against the French in the First Indochina War, which ended in 1954, the nation was divided into two rival states: communist North and anti-communist South. Conflicts intensified in the Vietnam War, which saw extensive American intervention in support of South Vietnam, while the Soviets and the PRC supported the North, which ended with North Vietnamese victory in 1975. After North and South Vietnam were reunified as a communist state under a unitary socialist government in 1976"
- jollybean 5y ago
  I'm doubtful that this is really the best way to put it. The US escalated it's involvement until the early 1970's when via strategic bombing of the North (which the US was unwilling to do previously), decisively destroyed the North Vietnamese ability to fight. Then, the Americans left. A couple of years later, the North Vietnamese rehabilitated their forces, and invaded the South. The reality is such different perspective than 'North Vietnam Won' to the point wherein it's basically almost misinformation to just state it like that. Finally, the tactical and strategic advantage of the US bombing with Nixon was enormous. The US could have feasibly stayed for a long time - after shedding their fears of 'Bombing the North' and just 'doing it', they finally gained the 'obvious advantage' that a major power should have had. But Nixon ran on a platform of 'Getting out of Vietnam', and the folks back home lost interest in a miasma of populism. I think those nuances are important, because I think it demonstrates how tactics, politics and populism fuelled the outcome. The lessons of 'Fight to Win Only' and 'A long grinding war will turn your population against you' are straight out of the Art of War. Those lessons informed the 1st US invasion of Iraq (and 2cnd), which was led by Vietnam vets. 'Overwhelming Force and Boots on the Ground to Unambiguously Overwhelm Enemy Forces', though the 2cnd occupation didn't go quite as well. Finally, literally one day after Barack Obama ordered the last US units out of Baghdad, then Iraqi PM Malaki ordered a purge of Sunnis from his party and government. The Sunni Tribes, in fear of their lives from the then-emboldened Shia dominated Iraqi Army ... invited ISIS in. This very well could have been avoided by keeping a few units, neatly tucked away 'behind the wire' in Baghdad - just enough ongoing oversight and leverage to keep people like Malaki from self-destructing. It would have been better in hindsight to take a longer view of that situation as well. It's hard to say if there is a direct parallel with Vietnam but it kind of looks like that.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
It’s just how we Indians keep telling ourselves we didn’t really lose those wars against China. But we literally were thrashed at will and when they (China) kind of got tired or thought they taught us a lesson they stopped. Exactly the same way our close neighbours Pakistan keeps thinking they didn’t really lose any wars against us. Even the people who were not even a foetus during those wars. Emotion trumps facts it seems. Being in denial for so long.
- kumarvvr 5y ago
  Totally agree. The narrative about China is mostly political tomfoolery, as the party that faced the war, was in power for decades after the war, giving it a tremendous opportunity to re-write history. They conveniently blamed some scapegoats and shut down the discussion, more or less. Nehru was more interested in appeasement than long term strategic thinking, when it comes to international affairs. I think it stems from the deep seated inferiority complex that the British left in the elite and intellectuals of the country. Most of the leadership during the initial decade of Indian independence were heavily influenced by the British and looked up to them for guidance.
  - crossroadsguy 5y ago
    I agree to some extent but since you referred to the past I’m kinda doubtful where you’re going with it. Nehru was quite a long-term thinker and a statesman. Hell it’s a miracle he navigated the country through the hell hole the cold war was. Sad thing is he inherited a country and the people who just couldn’t rise above a certain level and that was where the Brits left us. On top of that the Brits ensured they left us broken and finished and deliberately at that I believe. I maybe wrong but I just can’t bring myself to look at the colonisers in any positive light. Trust me I’ve tried. Again since you mentioned Nehru (while I’m not accusing you but it’s a pet “But Nehru” phrase used by the ultra nationalist right wing India of today[1]) and the past Govts, and yes they had their own follies and drawbacks, I just want to set the record straight that the current Govt has set India even further back by decades and I don’t see it recovering. Especially so as I majority will again elect current party for religious bigotry and things like temple. While the past Govts could’ve done a lot lot better the current Govt has been successful in delivering the final blow. [1] To others who aren’t familiar with the country and its pilots and scene today it’s actually funny. If something BJP the ruling ultra right wing party does and it fails and harms the public ;usually the case) the national chorus becomes “but what about Nehru”. Even if the intention was to fail or harm the public the chorus remains the same. Also Nehru died in 1964.
coliveira 5y ago
Many people in the US never accepted that they were defeated. And the US media did a good job of never making this point (the defeat against Vietnam) clear. It is a version of the "lost cause" phenomenon of the US south.
- dleslie 5y ago
  It's not simply accepting defeat that poses difficulty; it's being anything but the best, and first, and most able. American exceptionalism isn't just a cliche, it's a cult of identity, a nationalist truth that cannot be abridged without violent opposition.
  - coliveira 5y ago
    Well, exceptionalism is a cult that is part of American education and media since early childhood. It is not just nationalism (loving your country), it is ultra-nationalism that preaches the idea that they're superior to other countries.
- kumarvvr 5y ago
  Yeah. The downfall of great nations begins with denying the reality. That slowly seeps into every nook and corner of the society, leading to rot from within. You can see this already happening in the US. The drive is politics, the lube is the media. The denial of reality and the rejection of truth is more prominent than ever and it is showing its face everywhere in US politics. As on date, for the last decade, no politician has ever resigned for lying or cheating, personally or professionally. The character and integrity of those in power is off the table for discussion (what he/she does in personal life is not for discussion) Here is the fact. Perhaps in other jobs, white or blue collared ones, personal life may not affect the job. But when it comes to jobs that move the nation, political positions, powerful bodies, and what not, the personal character and integrity of the person ought to be the scale of foremost importance.
  - ant6n 5y ago
    Then again, denying reality has been ingrained in the us for what, 200 years?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wolverine876 5y ago
> The cost of victory was very high, but it was a pretty unambiguous success for the Vietnamese. N. Vietnam won, but that doesn't make war a success.
- afterburner 5y ago
  It was for the northern regime. They took control of the south, by force. That's pretty straightforward war-winning.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    As I said, > N. Vietnam won, but that doesn't make war a success Wars are disasters. 500,000 - 1 million (?) people died, the country was physically destroyed. That's not a good outcome.
kumarvvr 5y ago
The worlds most advanced, wealthiest and militarily powerful country did not obtain it's primary objective in the war, stopping the spread of communism.
- darksaints 5y ago
  What's really amazing is that we could have done nothing, and it still would have failed eventually. There aren't any communist regimes that have been truly successful. The Soviets succeeded in industrialization, but then ate itself from within. The Chinese succeeded in industrialization, but only after transitioning away from maoist communism and more towards state capitalism. Everything else basically failed outright.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The Chinese succeeded in industrialization, but only after transitioning away from maoist communism and more towards state capitalism. Leninism and all its descendants, including Maoism, are, ab initio, state capitalism. What the CCP moved toward is more of xenophobic totalitarian corporatism than state capitalism; essentially fascism without, or at least with less, overt expansionism.
    - darksaints 5y ago
      I guess I can see that, but whatever it was, it wasn't communism.
open0 5y ago
That's not how anyone who matters thinks of "winning". For the people pushing these wars, who I could name very specifically, "victory" happened when they made a boatload of money, and that's it.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Maybe a nitpick, but it's weird to call "Vietnam" the winner in the civil war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam.

ska 5y ago

It's impressive how deep some of these psychological things run nearly 50 years on. It was such a blow to self-image that, let alone all the related domestic political fallout, people still have a hard time accepting what happened. The sheer amount of ink and celluloid spent trying to come to terms with this is awesome, and a little depressing.

enraged_camel 5y ago
I'm not a native-born American and don't feel like I have skin in that game. I just feel like in war, there may be victors, but there are no winners. Especially in the modern age, if you get in a war, all sides lose. Victory is just a matter of who manages to lose less.
- xenophonf 5y ago
  In war there are no winners, only widows.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  This is a cliche understanding. Wars can and have been won since warfare started. However, the actual people doing the fighting aren't winning, they're just dying and mostly (unless defending their own country) giving up their most valuable asset (life) so that rich men can play Axis and Allies.
- stolen_biscuit 5y ago
  I think WW2 had pretty decisive winners and losers
  - ant6n 5y ago
    Although some of the victors were also losers (like the Soviet Union). Basically the only decisive winner was the US.
nine_k 5y ago
How many wars did the US win (as in "achieved the political goals") since WWII? Korean war: half won, half lost. Vietnam war: lost. Grenada invasion: sort of won. Gulf war 1991: I'd say won, despite Saddam staying in power. Gulf war II: I'd say lost, despite Saddam deposition. Afghanistan: lost, despite the killing of bin Laden. Syria: can't tell yet. It's a pretty depressing tally. With that, I'd say that the US was on the winning side of a number of wars before that: WWII, WWI, Mexican war, Spanish war.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I'd say we won Gulf war II, we've definitely lost Syria by now, Afghanistan probably lost. That said, many of the well-known, long haul conflicts that the US are involved in are the ones they are most likely to lose. The ones they win they usually win quickly and are less well known. There are plenty of interventions post-WWII that have been quick successes for the US, esp. in Latin America.
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Yeah Syria is interesting The problem with all these conflicts is winning is so poorly defined or multi-goal. What's winning in Syria? Getting rid of assad and then leaving? We could probably do that in a week or less and utterly demolish the country if we wanted. The consequences of 'winning' that war under that definition would probably be pretty horrible. But that doesn't seem to be the goal right now? There's the wider goal of not wanting to poke the Russia bear too much while simultaneously not letting Russia run too wild (arguably they are..). Though Afghanistan is pretty simple imho. there aren't nearly as many global power stakes... The taliban explicitly does not want Democracy so if that is 'winning' it's doomed to a loss by default.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      > We could probably do that in a week or less Eh - I'm not sure. Getting aircraft overhead would be difficult east of the euphrates when they have lots of anti-aircraft guns and they are also supported heavily by Russia. The only Western power currently conducting airstrikes east of the euphrates is Israel and they have had planes shot down by Syria & Russia. The US has a preponderance of military power, but I do think people are quick to assume that this means the US could easily topple lots of foreign nations. For some, that is definitely true, for others, like Iran, I think that is a misplaced confidence.
afterburner 5y ago
I think many people forget that it took until the Gulf War (90-91) to dispel those demons.

vmception 5y ago

Yeah I dont really understand the cognitive dissonance people have over that war. Vietnam has a single party Communist Party that teaches Marxist ideals while having upgraded to state capital patches like every other marxist ideology worshipping party. They are geopolitically irrelevant enough for that never to bother anyone. The US was there to stop that specific thing from happening and didnt. US lost, Vietnam was unified and the control was consolidated under Vietnamese representatives of the communist party and for them they won. That’s the same standard we use for any conflict. Why single out that one to a higher standard where we point out the loss of life? Doesnt make sense. Vietnam won a unified country, and it is under communist rule. There once was a side that didnt want communism and they lost, too!

yossarian1408 5y ago
Depends on what you think the objectives were. Did the USA want to add another star to the Star Spangled Banner? Then yeah, they lost. But if the objective of the USA was to prevent a domino of communism taking over all of South-East Asia, we can pretty clearly see where the advance of communism was stopped. And if an American and a North Vietnamese communist from 1955 could see into the future 70 years, taking a tour around Hanoi or Saigon, I don't know if either would be so certain on their verdict of who 'won' or 'lost'. It might have been the North, but it certainly wasn't the communists.
- vmception 5y ago
  I don't think anybody indoctrinated with marxist teachings is satisfied with any current or attempted version of communism. So in that regard I would agree, I still say its an impossible standard not used for other conflicts. Even the last massacre in China was because the protestors wanted to democratically have more communism instead of the liberalization of the markets and private ownership. That gets reduced to “students wanted democracy”, geopolitically it would have even been worse. (It is sad they were killed and that unity in that country relies on never mentioning it or any other strife)
- afterburner 5y ago
  > But if the objective of the USA was to prevent a domino of communism taking over all of South-East Asia, we can pretty clearly see where the advance of communism was stopped. But Communism flourished in Vietnam. So if you want to argue domino theory (which was wrong anyways), they certainly didn't stop the Vietnamese domino. So they didn't win in Vietnam.

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago

I think if you're talking about the acute win/loss of the Vietnam war, then absolutely the North Vietnamese won. If the USA really wanted to win the war then they could have done it outright in 1967. But that would have been very ugly. Not an option. Did the Vietnamese people win the war? No. They've been living in poverty for 50 years and most of them still are in 2021, 50 years later.

drzaiusapelord 5y ago
Maybe their soceity would have been more successful if it wasn't bombed to hell and back by the Americans then made a soft client state of the USSR and then boycotted by the West. If left to develop its communist government by itself, it could be like China today - a superpower that's going to overtake the USA by important measures. Lets stop pretending that years of war against a superpower didn't come at a cost for them and the US should have left them alone.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
  Are the Vietnamese people winning in this scenario? Are the Vietnamese people winning right now?
  - bawolff 5y ago
    Are you asking if the vietnamese people are winning in the crazy scenario drzaiusapelord suggested where viet nam is a super power - i think the answer is an obvious yes. But that's an unrealistic scenario. Would they have been better off if france agreed to decolonize instead of trying to hold on to their failing colonial empire with force (leading to everything that came to follow)? Maybe we'll never know. But i don't think there's any particular reason to assume that if the south won they would be any better off. South Vietnam hardly seems like it was the most stable/well run of governments - they were into fixing elections and persacuting buddhists, etc. Hardly what i would call an ideal state.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  Various countries which were "bombed to hell and back" are doing well now. Various Europe countries, Korea, Japan, etc

AzzieElbab 5y ago

50 years of misery ongoing, Vietcong won bigly.

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago

People in the US misunderstand the Vietnamese perspective on the war pretty badly. Interestingly enough one of the best sources you can look at to learn about this is the documentary interview with McNamara, Fog of War. He's surprisingly frank about his own mistakes in perspective, as well as talking about conversations he had with his counterparts in later years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YONEXPMVaQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YONEXPMVaQM

postalrat 5y ago
The fog of war is an incredible documentary. I'd suggest it to anyone who is willing to watch it.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  It and Iraq in Fragments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiu8cXhjpX4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiu8cXhjpX4) are the two most incredible documentaries I've ever seen on this topic.

stolenmerch 5y ago

Completely agree with you about Vietnam reaching its military objectives. However, I only see a couple of commenters disagreeing with that, which is not "a lot". Only curious about this because I wonder how prevalent that viewpoint is versus the perception of that viewpoint being prevalent. Perhaps this is off-topic but it seems this disparity between perception is central to so much of America's hangups with this war 50 years later.

abrookewood 5y ago

Wikipedia is pretty unambiguous: "Following Vietnamese victory against the French in the First Indochina War, which ended in 1954, the nation was divided into two rival states: communist North and anti-communist South. Conflicts intensified in the Vietnam War, which saw extensive American intervention in support of South Vietnam, while the Soviets and the PRC supported the North, which ended with North Vietnamese victory in 1975. After North and South Vietnam were reunified as a communist state under a unitary socialist government in 1976"

jollybean 5y ago
I'm doubtful that this is really the best way to put it. The US escalated it's involvement until the early 1970's when via strategic bombing of the North (which the US was unwilling to do previously), decisively destroyed the North Vietnamese ability to fight. Then, the Americans left. A couple of years later, the North Vietnamese rehabilitated their forces, and invaded the South. The reality is such different perspective than 'North Vietnam Won' to the point wherein it's basically almost misinformation to just state it like that. Finally, the tactical and strategic advantage of the US bombing with Nixon was enormous. The US could have feasibly stayed for a long time - after shedding their fears of 'Bombing the North' and just 'doing it', they finally gained the 'obvious advantage' that a major power should have had. But Nixon ran on a platform of 'Getting out of Vietnam', and the folks back home lost interest in a miasma of populism. I think those nuances are important, because I think it demonstrates how tactics, politics and populism fuelled the outcome. The lessons of 'Fight to Win Only' and 'A long grinding war will turn your population against you' are straight out of the Art of War. Those lessons informed the 1st US invasion of Iraq (and 2cnd), which was led by Vietnam vets. 'Overwhelming Force and Boots on the Ground to Unambiguously Overwhelm Enemy Forces', though the 2cnd occupation didn't go quite as well. Finally, literally one day after Barack Obama ordered the last US units out of Baghdad, then Iraqi PM Malaki ordered a purge of Sunnis from his party and government. The Sunni Tribes, in fear of their lives from the then-emboldened Shia dominated Iraqi Army ... invited ISIS in. This very well could have been avoided by keeping a few units, neatly tucked away 'behind the wire' in Baghdad - just enough ongoing oversight and leverage to keep people like Malaki from self-destructing. It would have been better in hindsight to take a longer view of that situation as well. It's hard to say if there is a direct parallel with Vietnam but it kind of looks like that.

crossroadsguy 5y ago

It’s just how we Indians keep telling ourselves we didn’t really lose those wars against China. But we literally were thrashed at will and when they (China) kind of got tired or thought they taught us a lesson they stopped. Exactly the same way our close neighbours Pakistan keeps thinking they didn’t really lose any wars against us. Even the people who were not even a foetus during those wars. Emotion trumps facts it seems. Being in denial for so long.

kumarvvr 5y ago
Totally agree. The narrative about China is mostly political tomfoolery, as the party that faced the war, was in power for decades after the war, giving it a tremendous opportunity to re-write history. They conveniently blamed some scapegoats and shut down the discussion, more or less. Nehru was more interested in appeasement than long term strategic thinking, when it comes to international affairs. I think it stems from the deep seated inferiority complex that the British left in the elite and intellectuals of the country. Most of the leadership during the initial decade of Indian independence were heavily influenced by the British and looked up to them for guidance.
- crossroadsguy 5y ago
  I agree to some extent but since you referred to the past I’m kinda doubtful where you’re going with it. Nehru was quite a long-term thinker and a statesman. Hell it’s a miracle he navigated the country through the hell hole the cold war was. Sad thing is he inherited a country and the people who just couldn’t rise above a certain level and that was where the Brits left us. On top of that the Brits ensured they left us broken and finished and deliberately at that I believe. I maybe wrong but I just can’t bring myself to look at the colonisers in any positive light. Trust me I’ve tried. Again since you mentioned Nehru (while I’m not accusing you but it’s a pet “But Nehru” phrase used by the ultra nationalist right wing India of today[1]) and the past Govts, and yes they had their own follies and drawbacks, I just want to set the record straight that the current Govt has set India even further back by decades and I don’t see it recovering. Especially so as I majority will again elect current party for religious bigotry and things like temple. While the past Govts could’ve done a lot lot better the current Govt has been successful in delivering the final blow. [1] To others who aren’t familiar with the country and its pilots and scene today it’s actually funny. If something BJP the ruling ultra right wing party does and it fails and harms the public ;usually the case) the national chorus becomes “but what about Nehru”. Even if the intention was to fail or harm the public the chorus remains the same. Also Nehru died in 1964.

coliveira 5y ago

Many people in the US never accepted that they were defeated. And the US media did a good job of never making this point (the defeat against Vietnam) clear. It is a version of the "lost cause" phenomenon of the US south.

dleslie 5y ago
It's not simply accepting defeat that poses difficulty; it's being anything but the best, and first, and most able. American exceptionalism isn't just a cliche, it's a cult of identity, a nationalist truth that cannot be abridged without violent opposition.
- coliveira 5y ago
  Well, exceptionalism is a cult that is part of American education and media since early childhood. It is not just nationalism (loving your country), it is ultra-nationalism that preaches the idea that they're superior to other countries.
kumarvvr 5y ago
Yeah. The downfall of great nations begins with denying the reality. That slowly seeps into every nook and corner of the society, leading to rot from within. You can see this already happening in the US. The drive is politics, the lube is the media. The denial of reality and the rejection of truth is more prominent than ever and it is showing its face everywhere in US politics. As on date, for the last decade, no politician has ever resigned for lying or cheating, personally or professionally. The character and integrity of those in power is off the table for discussion (what he/she does in personal life is not for discussion) Here is the fact. Perhaps in other jobs, white or blue collared ones, personal life may not affect the job. But when it comes to jobs that move the nation, political positions, powerful bodies, and what not, the personal character and integrity of the person ought to be the scale of foremost importance.
- ant6n 5y ago
  Then again, denying reality has been ingrained in the us for what, 200 years?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wolverine876 5y ago

> The cost of victory was very high, but it was a pretty unambiguous success for the Vietnamese. N. Vietnam won, but that doesn't make war a success.

afterburner 5y ago
It was for the northern regime. They took control of the south, by force. That's pretty straightforward war-winning.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  As I said, > N. Vietnam won, but that doesn't make war a success Wars are disasters. 500,000 - 1 million (?) people died, the country was physically destroyed. That's not a good outcome.

kumarvvr 5y ago

The worlds most advanced, wealthiest and militarily powerful country did not obtain it's primary objective in the war, stopping the spread of communism.

darksaints 5y ago
What's really amazing is that we could have done nothing, and it still would have failed eventually. There aren't any communist regimes that have been truly successful. The Soviets succeeded in industrialization, but then ate itself from within. The Chinese succeeded in industrialization, but only after transitioning away from maoist communism and more towards state capitalism. Everything else basically failed outright.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The Chinese succeeded in industrialization, but only after transitioning away from maoist communism and more towards state capitalism. Leninism and all its descendants, including Maoism, are, ab initio, state capitalism. What the CCP moved toward is more of xenophobic totalitarian corporatism than state capitalism; essentially fascism without, or at least with less, overt expansionism.
  - darksaints 5y ago
    I guess I can see that, but whatever it was, it wasn't communism.

open0 5y ago

That's not how anyone who matters thinks of "winning". For the people pushing these wars, who I could name very specifically, "victory" happened when they made a boatload of money, and that's it.

BurningFrog 5y ago

Maybe a nitpick, but it's weird to call "Vietnam" the winner in the civil war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam.