I love the joke about Vietnam sending advisors to the US. Reminds me of the Barry Goldwater theory that once communism collapsed, formerly communist countries would become the new Free World, while the former Free World would devolve into socialism).
Hey, if Jim moved to Ho Chi Minh City, would he become “Ho Chi Minh Jim” instead of Baghdad Jim, and mindlessly parrot a pro-capitalist party line? Just wondering.
When I visited Viet Nam in 2011, I found them to be some of the most business minded people I’d ever seen. It seemed every farmhouse was growing and selling produce and crafts. My guide said (as near to an exact quote as possible), “Following Reunification, we were a socialist country. Do you know what socialism is? It’s where if I work hard and you don’t, we both get the same thing. So no one worked hard. Several years ago, the government changed the policy. If you work hard, you get more. Things are much better now.”
Perhaps we need to send some so-called intellectuals to Viet Nam. Some of them might be able to learn from the experience.
So Vietnam is embracing a form of Capitalism and being somewhat less doctrinaire in their Socialism?
The question is whether “we” had to sacrifice the over 50,000 lives on that Wall in Washington along with many more lives of our South Vietnamese ally not to mention the uncounted people who lost their lives fighting us to make us leave.
Before someone piles on with a glib answer, either yes or no, it is hard to say. When we left, many in South Vietnam, who helped us or not, were victims of an initial Stalinist phase. But who is to say that Vietnam went down this Capitalist Road path instead of emulating something closer to North Korea?
Did the collapse of Soviet Communism along with the liberalizations in China direct Vietnam down this path? Did these events have anything to do with the U.S. at least fighting Communism in South East Asia to some kind of stalemate?
These questions are unknowable and especially undiscussable when everyone has a partisan political interest in a “correct answer.”
Did we really substantially change the ultimate outcome in Vietnam? Perhaps not. Perhaps Vietnam would have gone this way anyway with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In some ways, one could even question whether stalemate, which is what our goal unfortunately was – not victory, would not have been worse than defeat. We might have two crazy dictatorial hellholes instead of just the one in North Korea.
But, then there is the question of whether the Berlin Wall would have fallen had we not resisted Communist aggression during the post-War ascendancy of the USSR. Might the Domino Theory have actually been validated, had the foe not been exhausted by our resistance?
Everyone can have an opinion, but nobody can say for certain. Personally, mine is that it did have that effect, and that many more countries, possibly to critical mass, would have fallen had we not shown any resolve to stem the tide.
I started rambling, and lost sight of what you had written. In some ways, I just repeated it. We seem to be substantially in agreement.
Or, at least, to have similar thoughts on the matter.
I love the joke about Vietnam sending advisors to the US. Reminds me of the Barry Goldwater theory that once communism collapsed, formerly communist countries would become the new Free World, while the former Free World would devolve into socialism).
Hey, if Jim moved to Ho Chi Minh City, would he become “Ho Chi Minh Jim” instead of Baghdad Jim, and mindlessly parrot a pro-capitalist party line? Just wondering.
When I visited Viet Nam in 2011, I found them to be some of the most business minded people I’d ever seen. It seemed every farmhouse was growing and selling produce and crafts. My guide said (as near to an exact quote as possible), “Following Reunification, we were a socialist country. Do you know what socialism is? It’s where if I work hard and you don’t, we both get the same thing. So no one worked hard. Several years ago, the government changed the policy. If you work hard, you get more. Things are much better now.”
Perhaps we need to send some so-called intellectuals to Viet Nam. Some of them might be able to learn from the experience.
So Vietnam is embracing a form of Capitalism and being somewhat less doctrinaire in their Socialism?
The question is whether “we” had to sacrifice the over 50,000 lives on that Wall in Washington along with many more lives of our South Vietnamese ally not to mention the uncounted people who lost their lives fighting us to make us leave.
Before someone piles on with a glib answer, either yes or no, it is hard to say. When we left, many in South Vietnam, who helped us or not, were victims of an initial Stalinist phase. But who is to say that Vietnam went down this Capitalist Road path instead of emulating something closer to North Korea?
Did the collapse of Soviet Communism along with the liberalizations in China direct Vietnam down this path? Did these events have anything to do with the U.S. at least fighting Communism in South East Asia to some kind of stalemate?
These questions are unknowable and especially undiscussable when everyone has a partisan political interest in a “correct answer.”
Did we really substantially change the ultimate outcome in Vietnam? Perhaps not. Perhaps Vietnam would have gone this way anyway with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In some ways, one could even question whether stalemate, which is what our goal unfortunately was – not victory, would not have been worse than defeat. We might have two crazy dictatorial hellholes instead of just the one in North Korea.
But, then there is the question of whether the Berlin Wall would have fallen had we not resisted Communist aggression during the post-War ascendancy of the USSR. Might the Domino Theory have actually been validated, had the foe not been exhausted by our resistance?
Everyone can have an opinion, but nobody can say for certain. Personally, mine is that it did have that effect, and that many more countries, possibly to critical mass, would have fallen had we not shown any resolve to stem the tide.
I started rambling, and lost sight of what you had written. In some ways, I just repeated it. We seem to be substantially in agreement.
Or, at least, to have similar thoughts on the matter.