[otherme123]

Sure! USA won a lot of wars just by not fighting: spreading wealth and culture via commerce is a far more effective way to _conquer_ countries than obliterating them.

And USA defeated the whole communist block using the same weapons. Also, don't dismiss tourism as a _weapon_: it's would be more effective to send millions of frienly tourists to Cuba than to embargoe them for decades.

But that's disgressing. Vietnam was only used as a sample of strategic millitary defeat albeit losing less people. I don't think anyone in the Whitehouse has planned the vietnamese frienship ahead.