# 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:** 14\ **Page:** 7
**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, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/121 "2012-07-19T15:36:29Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > 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. I should also mention that the communist insurgencies of Malaya and Burma were still fresh in everyone’s minds, and the fall of China was also not too far in the past at the time. Thailand was biting its nails for a while there, feeling itself surrounded. It largely viewed the US as something of a hero savior. ---
**Author:** ![Coastal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/94ad74/32.png) [@Coastal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coastal)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/122 "2012-07-19T16:04:24Z")
Laos and Cambodia got a lot of [free] kgs of scrap metal. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/123 "2012-07-19T16:06:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 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. Perhaps the “re-education” camps await any in Vietnam who give a different answer. 😉 ---
**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, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/124 "2012-07-19T16:09:49Z")
> [@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. Really? Then how was the Viet Cong **always** able, and so easily, to find more recruits to make up their losses? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/125 "2012-07-19T16:22:10Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Really? Then how was the Viet Cong **always** able, and so easily, to find more recruits to make up their losses? After the Tet offensive? ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/126 "2012-07-19T16:29:14Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s pho sure! What the Pho?! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/127 "2012-07-19T16:55:52Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > 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 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. Just to pick up on this point, how much did the Vietminh actually fight the Japanese in World War II? I’ve been unable to find specific references to casualties or even battles. In the past I’ve read that, seeing which way the wind was blowing and that the Japanese were living on borrowed time engaged them a bare minimum - that the Vietminh essentially ‘strung along’ the OSS to get equipment and techniques for booting out the French (the Vichy regime tolerated by the Japanese) after the Japanese Empire was history. Lessons they put to good use, judging by Dien Bien Phu. On Vietnam being a decent place - well, don’t misinterpret me, Vietnam has a great deal of problems. What I mean is, a decent enough place to make the US losing the war not the total nightmare that would have justified the killing and carnage. It’s democracy index is pretty poor, but better than neighbouring Laos, and who would suggest that tens of thousands of Americans should die for the sake of Laotian liberty? Its HDI too is pretty comparable to the rest of SE Asia, India and China, so US involvement didn’t seem necessary on that front either. ---
**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, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/128 "2012-07-19T17:03:44Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > 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. Probably inevitable in this case. The Vietnam War was (from the American POV) only one theater in the Cold War, which was the most political war ever – a **global** hearts-and-minds struggle, each side fighting not only for strategic advantage in a material sense, but to convince everybody they were the Good Guys. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/129 "2012-07-19T17:52:49Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Just to pick up on this point, how much did the Vietminh actually fight the Japanese in World War II? I’ve been unable to find specific references to casualties or even battles. In the past I’ve read that, seeing which way the wind was blowing and that the Japanese were living on borrowed time engaged them a bare minimum - that the Vietminh essentially ‘strung along’ the OSS to get equipment and techniques for booting out the French (the Vichy regime tolerated by the Japanese) after the Japanese Empire was history. Lessons they put to good use, judging by Dien Bien Phu. > > On Vietnam being a decent place - well, don’t misinterpret me, Vietnam has a great deal of problems. What I mean is, a decent enough place to make the US losing the war not the total nightmare that would have justified the killing and carnage. It’s democracy index is pretty poor, but better than neighbouring Laos, and who would suggest that tens of thousands of Americans should die for the sake of Laotian liberty? Its HDI too is pretty comparable to the rest of SE Asia, India and China, so US involvement didn’t seem necessary on that front either. I’m not so sure the last point is obviously true. Vietnam is no hell-hole today, but the war was nearly four decades ago. The government in the aftermath of the war was pretty abysmal. Granted that the experience of the war itself probably radicalized the Vietnamese Communists more than they would otherwise have been, the experience in Vietnam for the decade of so after the war was unpleasant, what with reprisals, re-education, and ethnic cleansing of the Chinese. Of course, the Americans could not foresee (for good or bad) what a future Vietnamese government would be like, but the evidence of other successful communists in Asia - the main one being the Chinese - would not be encouraging at all, what with the “great leap forward” and the “cultural revolution”. However, that is slightly beside the point, as saving the Vietnamese from the horrors of Communism was only part of their motivation for the war, and probably not the major part. The primary issue was “containment” of communism, and the largest failing on the American side was the initial failure to realize that the communist world had just as many fissures internally as there were differences between communist and non-communist - Nixon of course later exploited this, wooing China. ---
**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 19, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/130 "2012-07-19T18:29:41Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The primary issue was “containment” of communism, and the largest failing on the American side was the initial failure to realize that the communist world had just as many fissures internally as there were differences between communist and non-communist - Nixon of course later exploited this, wooing China. Ironically, Nixon and Kissinger missed how this was a factor in Vietnam itself. When they wanted to negotiate an end to the war they approached Moscow and Beijing rather than Hanoi. They apparently regarded North Vietnam as just a puppet regime (which probably reflects their true views on the American relationship with South Vietnam). The reality was that the Soviets and the Chinese knew they couldn’t give orders to North Vietnam. Hanoi had its own agenda and it would accept foreign aid but not foreign control. If the Soviets or the Chinese made an agreement that Hanoi didn’t like, it would just publicly denounce the agreement. But China and the Soviet Union didn’t want to admit this. They liked the fact that the United States believed they had full control over their satellites. So they made agreements with the United States even as they knew there was no way they could make those agreements stick. So Kissinger made what he thought was a deal that the Americans would withdraw from South Vietnam and the North would wait a “decent interval” before exploiting that opportunity and invading the South (presumably after the 1976 election when Nixon and Kissinger would have left the White House). But Kissinger made this agreement with Zhou En-lai, who had no way of holding back Hanoi. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/131 "2012-07-20T00:41:22Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > There was no such country as South Vietnam so stop saying there was. Sure seemed like a country. Had its own government, its own laws, its own currency, sent and received ambassadors and such. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/132 "2012-07-20T09:15:18Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Sure seemed like a country. Had its own government, its own laws, its own currency, sent and received ambassadors and such. Shame it didn’t have anyone who could be bothered to fight for it. Ho and his lot forced the French out and as the victorious national liberation movement held more legitimacy than the bunch of catholic French collaborating kleptocrats defying the Geneva Agreement and strutting around in the trappings of statehood. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/133 "2012-07-21T06:22:46Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Shame it didn’t have anyone who could be bothered to fight for it. Ho and his lot forced the French out and as the victorious national liberation movement held more legitimacy than the bunch of catholic French collaborating kleptocrats defying the Geneva Agreement and strutting around in the trappings of statehood. While you’re being sarcastic, you’re right. It is a shame that they didn’t have enough people willing to fight for it. It’s a shame that people like Ho Chih Minh and Le Duan took over and did the stuff they did. ---
**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 21, 2012, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437/134 "2012-07-21T14:36:22Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Shame it didn’t have anyone who could be bothered to fight for it. Ho and his lot forced the French out and as the victorious national liberation movement held more legitimacy than the bunch of catholic French collaborating kleptocrats defying the Geneva Agreement and strutting around in the trappings of statehood. Well, 250,000 people died fighting as part of the ARVN. That’s certainly a significant number. That said, it was really only a country in the way Vichy France, Northern Cyprus and East Germany were countries, though just based on longevity, East Germany had a bit more legitimacy than the others. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anything-good-come-out-of-the-vietnam-war/628437.md?page=6)