I think for the most part, neither. A lot of really bad people ended up getting in charge in a lot of M-L regimes and I think it had more to do with the internql power-dynamics of both the revolutionary movements and the subsequent regimes than anything inherent to the ideology or to western economic strongarming.
Right, I got it backwards, but got the accurate meaning despite my confusion. I was thinking “it’s a mistake to underestimate the impact a bogus fear of communism had.”
Speaking of which, the same is true about the dedication to democracy on both sides. While anti-westerners rag on the cancellation of country-wide elections because they were scared that the Communists would win a fair election, and pro-westerners claim that there is no way there was going to be a fair election, both could be true – the Communists could have been so popular that they would have won a countrywide election, yet they would never take the risk of allowing such a fair election. Or allow the results to take effect peacefully if they lost, at any rate.
I suspect that Ho downplayed his communist ideology in order to appeal to non-communist Vietnamese and public opinion in the western world. He was willing to act as the leader of a coalition while he was working to gain control of Vietnam. But I feel that once he had gained control, he would have solidified his power by purging non-communists and rival communist factions.
I agree except I feel this mistaken belief continued much later. Nixon and Kissinger still thought in the seventies that they could negotiate an agreement about Vietnam with Moscow and Beijing and then those two powers would tell Hanoi to accept the terms they had agreed.
Your mention of Tito and Yugoslavia suggest what I feel would have been the best policy regarding Vietnam, if we had had perfect foreknowledge. We should have accepted the 1954 Geneva accords and then worked on getting Vietnam to be a non-aligned country, even under a communist regime, which stayed out of neighboring countries’ affairs.
If you are speaking specifically about Vietnam and the 1955 country wide elections that never happened because Diem held a sham referendum on the future of South Vietnam that he won with 98.9% of the votes, the way you describe it isn’t a way I’ve ever seen it pitched. It isn’t a question of there being pro-western and anti-western camps and their feelings about the legitimacy of the ‘fairness’ of a national election reuniting Vietnam and its inevitable results. Ho Chi Minh was the hero and leader of the Viet Minh which had fought the French, then the Japanese and then the French again and had forced France to quit the country. He was a shoo-in to win the national elections with or without any rigging. To quote Eisenhower’s famous statement on the matter:
I am convinced that the French could not win the war because the internal political situation in Vietnam, weak and confused, badly weakened their military position. I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the populations would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. Indeed, the lack of readership and drive on the part of Bao Dai was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for. As one Frenchman said to me, ‘What Vietnam needs is another Syngman Rhee, regardless of all the difficulties the presence of such a personality would entail.’
Bao Dai was the emperor and nominal puppet leader of Vietnam when France was still around; the referendum Diem held in 1955 on deciding the future of South Vietnam only had two choices. A republic, which meant a de facto vote for Diem or a monarchy which meant Bao Dai’s regency.
You can quickly end up chasing your own tail deciding between the chicken or the egg, but I will note that the world’s first successful communist revolution in Russia in 1917 was birthed in purges of counter-revolutionaries and class enemies both as soon as it took power and while it was in the process of taking power.
In what way is that disingenous? Almost every American source cites that as a motivation, from the lowliest grunt to LBJ.
It all boils down to was all that death and destruction (far far more in Vietnam and of the Vietnamese, than Americans) worth it for delaying a communist takeover of Vietnam from 1965 to 1975.
To me its quite clearly was not, no amount of revisionism can possibly make it so (most of all because it was done against the wishes of the Vietnamese). So it is correct to say those deaths (from the American point of view at least) in vain. From the Vietnamese point of view they were in the cause of ensuring the self-determination of Vietnamese people, so maybe not? (though its a bit of hard sell to claim the murder of the families of South Vietnamese officials at the behest of an autocratic North Vietnamese rulers was some how for the greater good)
But what dominoes were prevented from falling by those 100s of thousands of deaths? Vietnam “fell” but it was always going to. Cambodia and Laos also fell (one to the one of the most horrific regimes in history) despite (some would say because of) all the violence and death. Thailand was never in danger of falling (if it was in danger, why didn’t it fall in 1975 when the US withdrew, and made it quite clear they were not going to be in the business of sending ground troops to fight in Asian anti-communist wars any time soon)
What would have been different if the US did not decide to kill 100s of thousands to prevent Vietnam from choosing the “wrong” form of government?
Don’t ask me, not my theory. Just one of the most prominent ones for those who do think it was the right thing to do.
And come right down to it, most of those people are probably dead by now. They were generally WWII vets and older.
Republicanism has demonstrably led to democratic rule. If we had historical exceptions of communism not leading to brutal, authoritarian regimes, then perhaps we could examine whether authoritarianism is inherent in communism. We don’t, even though the various historic models of national communism are quite diverse.
Few things globally are more sure than North Korea being a failure of a communist, authoritarian, brutal dictatorship from the start.
The US was never very happy about non-aligned countries remaining unaligned; I think it underestimates the US’s quest for hegemony to argue it would have been happy with a bulk of neutral countries in the Cold War. I agree, your solution would have been a good one, but I think it had no chance of being taken up by the US.
But the OP was asking with the benefit of hindsight, whether the deaths were in vain, not what the motivation was at the time (or at least thats how I read it)
In 2023 with the benefit of half a century of hindsight does the domino theory still justify the horrors of the Vietnam war? Absolutely not IMO
This is the last line of the OP.
I responded to that. Are we good?
Hate to flog a dead horse here but, in the interests of keeping the debate about the OP, I should point the critical word there was today.
I get the domino theory was crucial to America going to war in the 1960s but is anyone today still touting it as a reason the war was not fought in vain?
With the advantage of hindsight sure, but it wasn’t obvious from the start. North Korea was on par with and at times ahead of South Korea economically until the 1970s. Up until then it looked like North Korea would be the more developed of the two with its advantage in natural resources.
South Korea was hardly a model of democracy during those years. It didn’t free itself of dictatorship until the late 1980s.
Having economic success is possible under despots, but real growth is far more difficult. If you look at South Korea’s GDP, you see that it was essentially flat until the 1980s and only then took off to become the country we know today.
Henry Kissinger?
That’s not what your link says. It might appear that way at first because the starting values are so low, but looking at you link, South Korea’s GDP went from $3.96 billion in 1960 to $66.95 billion in 1979, a 16.9-fold increase. Per capita went from $158 in 1960 to $1,784 in 1979, an 11.3-fold increase. Notably the years of greatest percentage economic growth covering the entirety of 1960-2023 are 1973 with a growth of 14.9% and 1969 with 14.56% growth. South Korea and the other Four Asian Tigers started their economic explosion in the mid-late 1960s, not the 1980s:
By the end of the 1960s, levels in physical and human capital in the four economies far exceeded other countries at similar levels of development. This subsequently led to a rapid growth in per capita income levels. While high investments were essential to their economic growth, the role of human capital was also important.
As you noted, South Korea was anything but a democracy during the 60s and 70s, and even if the economic boom hadn’t occurred until the 80s, again as you note it wasn’t until the end of the 80s that South Korea became anything like a functioning democracy. For that matter, neither were Singapore or Taiwan during this time period of rapid economic expansion, and Hong Kong, the last of the Four Asian Tigers was still part of the British Empire.
Henry Kissinger who ended the war in Vietnam?
Walt Rostow (1916-2003) maintained that we won the Vietnam War, and I lack the regional expertise to disagree. Vietnam itself had low strategic significance but the countries of ASEAN (particularly Thailand) were thought to be weak at the time. Staying in Vietnam from 1965-1975 gave them an opportunity to grow economically. This version of the domino theory is appropriately specific to a given point in time: it doesn’t pretend to represent any general principle.
Wiki: Rostow sketched this argument in a 1986 book: Walt Rostow - Wikipedia
When McNamera wrote his regrets during the mid 1990s, Rostow provided a spirited reply: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1806&context=parameters
Rostow’s argument isn’t purely retrospective justification. He is also the 1956 author of the takeoff hypothesis of economic growth. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/85169 Rostow appeared to believe that Thailand in 1965 was substantially more vulnerable to Communist takeover than it was 10 years later.