# Did anything good come out of the Vietnam War? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 16, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437 "2012-07-16T19:49:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/101 "2012-07-18T03:41:07Z")
It’s not as though Thailand was a vibrant, wealthy democracy from 1960 to 1990, though… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/102 "2012-07-18T03:45:23Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > That was the Korean War. Or have I been whooshed? _MASH_ was set during the Korean War but it was about the Vietnam War. Sort of the way _The Crucible_ or _High Noon_ (both of which were produced in 1952) are about McCarthyism even though they’re set in an earlier time. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/103 "2012-07-18T03:47:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _MASH_ was set during the Korean War but it was about the Vietnam War. Sort of the way _The Crucible_ or _High Noon_ (both of which were produced in 1952) are about McCarthyism even though they’re set in an earlier time. Ah yes, of course. I stand corrected. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/104 "2012-07-18T14:19:47Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Now, you may agree that this was the case or not agree, but the Thais genuinely believe and credit the US with this, although these days it tends to be the older generation. Younger folks may not be quite so aware of it anymore. But it helps explain why Thailand has always been such a pro-American place. I thought it was because of that charming [movie](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049408/) we made for them… ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/105 "2012-07-18T14:58:50Z")
Whatever the merits of the war, the united government that emerged from it was thoroughly unpleasant, at least for the next decade or so. In the ‘80s my mother employed in her pottery studeo a couple of very nice women who were “boat people” of ethnic Chinese descent, and their stories of escaping from post-war Vietnam following the Sino-Vietnamese war strongly resemble my mother’s relatives’ stories of escaping from Nazi Germany - so they had a lot in common! > **[Vietnamese boat people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boat_people#Vietnamese_boat_people)** > > Vietnamese boat people (Vietnamese: Thuyền nhân Việt Nam) were refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its highest in 1978 and 1979, but continued into the early 1990s. The term is also often used generically to refer to the Vietnamese people who left their country in a mass exodus between 1975 and 1995 (see Indochina refugee crisis). This article uses the term "boat people" to apply only to those who f... ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/106 "2012-07-18T16:40:40Z")
Who knew that kind of thing happened after civil wars. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/107 "2012-07-18T17:07:58Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > Who knew that kind of thing happened after civil wars. I didn’t realize that in addition to supporting dictatorships you were cool with ethnic cleansing as well. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/108 "2012-07-18T17:24:08Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > Who knew that kind of thing happened after civil wars. Well, for one, the ethnic Chinese Boat People fleeing wasn’t as I understand it itself a result of the civil war, but of a different war a few years later - the border war with China. Plus, I understand, some long history of ethnic tensions re China. I don’t think you can lay that one on the Yanks, the Vietnamese have had issues with the Chinese for centuries. Though I guess one can make the case that the conflicts were somewhat related in that they dealth with the situation left by the Vietnam War, this one I think had much more to do with tensions between the various communist countries involved (the Soviets, China, Vietnam, Cambodia) and with long-rooted ethnic and national conflicts between China and Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/109 "2012-07-18T17:32:37Z")
> [@greenslime1951](#): > > Ah, so the US saw the future! Why would any sane Vietnamese have voted for Ho Chi Minh in a fair election (not that any fair election ever took place in North Vietnam)? And was the “made-up” country of North Vietnam somehow more valid in your mind because it was a communist dictatorship? > > It’s a rather insane piece of revisionist propaganda to blame the US for the North Vietnamese’s invasion of South Vietnam! Ho Chi Minh wasn’t satisfied with his half of Vietnam; he wanted it _all_. He was like the bigger and more violent of two siblings who isn’t satisfied with getting half the cake, and beats up his brother to take the other half, too. The Vietnam war gets painted by “historians” as a war of liberation. It was no such thing—it was an aggressive war of conquest, started by North Vietnam. The mass slaughter of the “liberated” South Vietnamese proved what Ho Chi Minh’s aspirations truly were, if there had been any real doubt up to that point. You fail to understand the mindset of the “average” Vietnamese citizen at that time. The vast majority wanted two things. They wanted to raise rice in peace, and honor their ancestors. They weren’t resisting the NV invasion, they could care less. The resistance was a French, then US fostered effort to prevent unification of Vietnam. They could care less about politics and government. I’d suggest reading Stanley’s Karnnow’s Vietnam, A History. Start reading after Dienbienphu, at about page 215 or so. You’ll gain an understanding of the problem as it was seen by Eisenhower with respect to Southeast Asia. You’ll understand what Kennedy felt and why the relationship between McNamara and Johnson helped poison a successful war effort. The lesson we should have learned is simple. If it’s necessary to go to war, let the generals run the war. Politicians should never micromanage a war. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/110 "2012-07-18T17:36:21Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Well, for one, the ethnic Chinese Boat People fleeing wasn’t as I understand it itself a result of the civil war, but of a different war a few years later - the border war with China. Plus, I understand, some long history of ethnic tensions re China. There were also ideological tensions. Just as the Chinese and the Soviets argued over whose version of communism was the best, so did the Chinese and the North Vietnamese. Mao felt Ho was doing it all wrong. The disputes were bad enough that during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards attacked the North Vietnamese Embassy. (Of course, they also attacked the embassies of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Mongolia, Indonesia, Kenya, and Sri Lanka. Those Red Guards were quite the scamps.) ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/111 "2012-07-18T17:40:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There were also ideological tensions. Just as the Chinese and the Soviets argued over whose version of communism was the best, so did the Chinese and the North Vietnamese. Mao felt Ho was doing it all wrong. The disputes were bad enough that during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards attacked the North Vietnamese Embassy. (Of course, they also attacked the embassies of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Mongolia, Indonesia, Kenya, and Sri Lanka. Those Red Guards were quite the scamps.) I’d have assumed everyone would have agreed that the Cambodian version was the worst, if it were not for the fact that the Chinese were supporting them. 😉 But yeah, what a rat’s nest. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/112 "2012-07-18T18:26:27Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > You fail to understand the mindset of the “average” Vietnamese citizen at that time. The vast majority wanted two things. They wanted to raise rice in peace, and honor their ancestors. They weren’t resisting the NV invasion, they could care less. The resistance was a French, then US fostered effort to prevent unification of Vietnam. They could care less about politics and government. > I’d suggest reading Stanley’s Karnnow’s Vietnam, A History. Start reading after Dienbienphu, at about page 215 or so. You’ll gain an understanding of the problem as it was seen by Eisenhower with respect to Southeast Asia. You’ll understand what Kennedy felt and why the relationship between McNamara and Johnson helped poison a successful war effort. > > The lesson we should have learned is simple. If it’s necessary to go to war, let the generals run the war. Politicians should never micromanage a war. I earlier recommended Karnow and Buttinger, but he apparantly prefers Conservapedia. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/113 "2012-07-18T18:32:01Z")
Interestingly, during WW2 the US supported the Vietnamese nationalists against the French. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/114 "2012-07-18T22:01:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _MASH_ was set during the Korean War but it was about the Vietnam War. Sort of the way _The Crucible_ or _High Noon_ (both of which were produced in 1952) are about McCarthyism even though they’re set in an earlier time. Hooker’s book was not an anti-war book, and the Hawkeye in Hooker’s subsequent MASH books would have punched Alan Alda in the snoot. Altman’s movie (which follows the book reasonably closely) was considered a Vietnam War/anti-war movie, but so were any war movies made then which did not star John Wayne. People called **Patton** an anti-war movie, which is bizarre. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/115 "2012-07-18T22:08:27Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Ending the draft and for the US gaining a new fairly educated immigrant population. I think you came up with the only good positives - said as someone with a draft lottery number of 11 in 1970. Tricky Dick kept me out of war. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/116 "2012-07-18T23:02:07Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I’d have assumed everyone would have agreed that the Cambodian version was the worst Yes, the Cambodian version of communism was essentially half Karl Marx and half Charlie Starkweather. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/117 "2012-07-19T14:35:17Z")
> [@greenslime1951](#): > > Lunacy. North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam almost the day after the Geneva accords were signed. There was no such country as South Vietnam so stop saying there was. [Geneva Agreements and response](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conference_%281954%29) > [@](#): > > The Geneva Agreements, which were issued on July 21, 1954,[11] carefully worded the division of northern and southern Vietnam as a “provisional military demarcation line”,[12] “on either side of which the forces of the two parties shall be regrouped after their withdrawal”.[12] To specifically put aside any notion that it was a partition, they further stated, in the Final Declaration, Article 6: “The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the agreement relating to Vietnam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary” [12] > > Then U.S. Under-Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith said, “In connection with the statement in the Declaration concerning free elections in Vietnam, my government wishes to make clear its position which it has expressed in a Declaration made in Washington on June 29, 1954, as follows: ‘In the case of nations now divided against their will, we shall continue to seek unity through free elections, supervised by the United Nations to ensure they are conducted fairly.’” The USA interfered in a Civil War, backed a weak, corrupt dictatorship against a vietnamese hero who fought the Japanese occupation and then kicked the French out. The USA then got its ass kicked. Get over it. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/118 "2012-07-19T14:40:09Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > That was the Korean War. Or have I been whooshed? 😕 > > As I’ve stated elsewhere on the Board before, it is generally accepted by the Thais that the Vietnam War saved them from communism. After Vietnam fell, then Cambodia and Laos, the Thais were getting more than a little nervous, especially considering the inroads made in northeastern Thailand by the local Communist Party. Laos and Cambodia were directly destabilised by the spillover of the war. The VC ignored their borders and the USA bombed the shit out of them while interfering in internal politics in a destabilising manner. None of those circumstances applied to Thailand. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/119 "2012-07-19T14:58:49Z")
BTW, I ran a thread back in 2007: [“Is Vietnam better off today than it would have been if the U.S. had not pulled out?”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=422789) Only one Vietnamese (as in, actually living in Vietnam) Doper chimed in, **Geekmustnotdie,** and his answer was an unqualified yes. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/120 "2012-07-19T15:28:39Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Laos and Cambodia were directly destabilised by the spillover of the war. The VC ignored their borders and the USA bombed the shit out of them while interfering in internal politics in a destabilising manner. None of those circumstances applied to Thailand. The feeling is that if the US had not kept the communists busy in Vietnam, it would have spead much farther than Laos and Cambodia. When the Thais saw what happened to the Lao royal family, they became especially convinced that they would have been next. Again, this is what is – or was, what with the passage of time – commonly believed and is one reason Thailand has been such a fairly staunch American ally. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437.md?page=7)