That’s what Americans claim to save face. I’m a Vietnamese American and Asian history tends to suck in other nations. America used that narrative to justify invading another country and then dipping out when it was too hard.
I’m still going to overgeneralize, but here’s the actual history they don’t teach you. (History is much more interesting outside of school).
From the Vietnamese perspective, they initially didn’t want/need American help, but about HALF of Vietnam didn’t want communism. Similar to Korea, it was kinda like North vs South. America knew that Vietnam has potential to be another booming nation so they saw an opportunity to “help” Vietnam for profit and claim they’re fighting communism in the process. America doesn’t just “help” for the sake of good, we’re a nation of profit and greed.
During this war, South Korea’s involvement and then eventual American alliance actually helped South Korea flourish from all this new money they were getting. When Nixon saw that Vietnam was a losing war, he pussied out and ended up moving on to help Korea since that was the next “profitable” nation; even helping in “fighting communism” during the Korean War. Vietnam took a huge L after Nixon pumped and pulled resources so he partially caused the loss, too. Looking back now, America made the “right” call on South Korea as it’s now both rich AND has good US relations.
Most of the Vietnamese population today prefers a less communistic government but not much can be done. Government is just stupid powerful BECAUSE of communism in the first place. Like some long domino effect.
TL:Dr America is a sneaky country and does things that only benefit them. They couldn’t benefit from Vietnam so they moved onto Korea in “I’m done playing with you” style.
Geographically it was half the country, but population wise it was closer to 2/3rd pro communist vs 1/3rd anti communist. US involvement wasn’t really justified to start and mostly sunk cost fallacy with how they tried to support the French rule before France pulled out and US was holding the bag and a doctrinal choice of stopping the spread of communism even when there was little to nothing to gain and only save face. Vietnam was going to have a civil war no matter what but US definitely made it worse and drew out the conflict and ramped up the death toll with nothing to show for it. If the US had any intentions of taking advantage of Vietnam modernising and industrializing they’d have setup southern cities that were more friendly to US investments with trafe and infrastructure. But just like in Korea that wouldn’t happen for decades later, US presence there was entirely military and some very bare bones humanitarian aid.
That’s what Americans claim to save face. I’m a Vietnamese American and Asian history tends to suck in other nations. America used that narrative to justify invading another country and then dipping out when it was too hard.
I’m still going to overgeneralize, but here’s the actual history they don’t teach you. (History is much more interesting outside of school).
From the Vietnamese perspective, they initially didn’t want/need American help, but about HALF of Vietnam didn’t want communism. Similar to Korea, it was kinda like North vs South. America knew that Vietnam has potential to be another booming nation so they saw an opportunity to “help” Vietnam for profit and claim they’re fighting communism in the process. America doesn’t just “help” for the sake of good, we’re a nation of profit and greed.
During this war, South Korea’s involvement and then eventual American alliance actually helped South Korea flourish from all this new money they were getting. When Nixon saw that Vietnam was a losing war, he pussied out and ended up moving on to help Korea since that was the next “profitable” nation; even helping in “fighting communism” during the Korean War. Vietnam took a huge L after Nixon pumped and pulled resources so he partially caused the loss, too. Looking back now, America made the “right” call on South Korea as it’s now both rich AND has good US relations.
Most of the Vietnamese population today prefers a less communistic government but not much can be done. Government is just stupid powerful BECAUSE of communism in the first place. Like some long domino effect.
TL:Dr America is a sneaky country and does things that only benefit them. They couldn’t benefit from Vietnam so they moved onto Korea in “I’m done playing with you” style.
The Korean War took place before the Vietnam War, and Nixon wasn’t President at the time.
If the majority of Vietnamese didn’t want communism, why didn’t the anti-communists win even without the US’s help? Your narrative is nonsense.
The majority NOW. I should have specified.
Geographically it was half the country, but population wise it was closer to 2/3rd pro communist vs 1/3rd anti communist. US involvement wasn’t really justified to start and mostly sunk cost fallacy with how they tried to support the French rule before France pulled out and US was holding the bag and a doctrinal choice of stopping the spread of communism even when there was little to nothing to gain and only save face. Vietnam was going to have a civil war no matter what but US definitely made it worse and drew out the conflict and ramped up the death toll with nothing to show for it. If the US had any intentions of taking advantage of Vietnam modernising and industrializing they’d have setup southern cities that were more friendly to US investments with trafe and infrastructure. But just like in Korea that wouldn’t happen for decades later, US presence there was entirely military and some very bare bones humanitarian aid.