[mc32]

Interestingly, before it went downhill, US advisors told the S. Viet gov that the one thing they had to do to stave off revolution was land redistribution, in the least in the Mekong Delta, (I believe land redistribution was done to some extent in SK), but the S Vietnamese refused, and so the NVA had an “in”.

[magduf]

Sounds like one of those scenarios where the side we picked to support was itself corrupt, so the general population saw no good reason to support our side over the opposing side.

[mc32]

Yes, but it’s not so much the side we “picked” but the team that was given to us. Just as the Soviets often times had no choice but to work with truly bad people.

[magduf]

It seems like, in that case, you should just opt out. We didn't have to get involved in that war.

[mc32]

Hard to say, but given the realpolitik of the time, there doesn’t seem to have been much choice. The world was hostage to an indeological foe which took no prisoners and was looking to aggressively take over control of the world. That was their stated objective.

[Retric]

That’s mostly surface talk. They invaded fewer countries than the US has, sticking mostly to supporting rebellion.

The US and Europe squashed home grown communism mostly through things like social security, unemployment insurance, and a helping of good old propaganda. Yet, we where suckered into fighting ideology on foreign soil with military force.

I don’t think it was obvious at the time, but going forward we need to learn from these mistakes.

[mc32]

I think you’re missing some history there.

[nostrademons]

This scenario seems distressingly common in post-WW2 U.S. foreign policy.