With all the Iraq-Vietnam comparisons flying around, I think it’s timely to debate this question in hindsight: Should we ever have been involved in Vietnam or not? If the U.S. had never gotten involved in Vietnam in the first place, how would history most likely have gone? How would that have affected the course of history for Vietnam? Or for the Cold War as a whole? Was there ever any solid substance to the “domino theory”?
I’ve wondered if the stand-down from the Cuban Missile Crisis really did signal a new era in US-Soviet relations, and that the Kennedys would peruse a more sophisticated method than the brinksmanship of the Eisenhower administration.
It may not have been, if you agree that JFK was more of a hawk than dove, and that, as bad as the Vietnam War was, it prevented World War Three by diverting one superpower in a nasty but less dangerous proxy war.
The best-case scenario would have been for Vietnam vote itself into unison under the North as anticipated at Geneva, then, when the American Right went nuts with “First you lost China; now you’ve lost Vietnam!” a cagey US president would emerge and say “you’re right! Let’s counter the Soviets with better equipment than they could ever hope to match,” (as Reagan would do) “and pass more social legislation to undercut their claims that we exploit the poor” (as Johnson & Nixon did); “and enjoy an economy that they could never manage” (as we might have done if you buy the argument that the 1970’s malaise & stagflation was a result of Vietnam).
As (in that hypothetical case, soon united) Vietnam would have welcomed allies for protection against its historic enemy, China, would it have been possible for the US to take on Vietnam as a client, like South Korea? As a country that was nominally Communist but not aligned with the Soviet/Chinese bloc (as it was at the time)?
Vietnam (or North Vietnam, anyway) was aligned with the Soviets. They had been providing Ho Chi Minh with aid since 1955.
Good point tschild, - I’d modify it only by noting that the Sino/Soviet rift was already wide open by then, and Hanoi would have asked assistance from the Russians against China more readily than from the US.
So another reason for the US to stay out of Vietnam was that is gave the Soviets and the Chinese a reason to work together, rather than leaving a division that the US could exploit.
Well, I wonder if without the Draft and Vietnam if the social aspects that were called into being in our world would have taken place? Rock N Roll, folk music (to the level it reached) and the Drug Culture I kind of doubt it without Vietnam. I think the men would all be wearing pennyloafers, high-water slacks and white socks well until 1980ish
Without the radicalism that Vietnam called into being would we see the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party? I’m guessing No. MLK runs as Mondale’s VP in 1984 
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Mainly though, the true effects I bet would be in what those 57,690 Americans (about the size of Carson City Nev., more than the population of Harrisburg PA or Cheyenne, Wyoming; or Charleston, West Virginia; or Bismark, North Dakota) would have brought to the table – and their sons, and parents and wives and daughters and grandkids would be able to do having them around. Don’t get me started on what 2-4million Vietnamese could mean in the world.
I guess I’m saying w/o Vietnam we would have been a little less mean, nasty and “over the top” and the unknowable piece is on human costs is tragic and immeasurable. be as wise)
Its really a bad comparison done, IMHO more to attempt to link the two wars in peoples minds…Vietnam being so deeply ingrained in our collective psyche.
Anyhoo…
Definitely not. It was a mistake to let our French buddies get us involved. The whole concept of containing communism at the time was flawed…as we have seen in retrospect.
Well, Vietnam would have been unified much earlier. I’m unsure to be honest if this would have been such a good thing for them…a lot of the communist states from way back there sort of went tits up. It was the whole struggle and fight that I think had the effect of bringing Vietnam together into what it was today. That aside, from OUR perspective it certainly would have been a good thing in the short term…we whould have had 50k+ less deaths, we wouldn’t have been scarred psychologically by the conflict…and we probably would have done a hell of a lot more in space than we ended up doing. 
In the long term though I’m not sure…certainly we wouldn’t have reformed our military as we did, and we would probably still be a conscription based military with crappy gear and poor training (at least on the ground side).
Gods knows what this might or might not have done to our relations with the Soviets, or what a quick and easy victory in Vietnam would have done for their prestige vs the Wests…or what it might have embolden them to do next. Its too difficult to judge what all the permutations MIGHT have been there. Maybe countries that resisted communism wouldn’t have…or maybe some countries that the Soviets never screwed with would have been under more pressure. Certainly in Asia I think things would look much different today than if this all would have happened. Laos and Cambodia for instance I think would have had much different histories…perhaps Korea as well.
Not sure to be honest. I can see how it MIGHT have had an effect. In the end though I think the whole thing would have collapsed just as it did. Perhaps though had communism had a bigger high water mark the crash might have been worse with more dead in the long run before things settled out.
-XT
Never fear, BrainGlutton. The neo-cons have resurrected the domino theory and are now applying it to Iraq.
In his book Vietnam: The Necessary War, Michael Lind argues that is precisely why the war was necessary – not to stop the dominoes from falling in Southeast Asia, but to present a show of American determination at a period of the Cold War when many countries were wavering as to whether to support or oppose the Soviets. IOW, it was a prestige thing, in geopolitical-strategic terms.
The Khmer Rouge would never have got up, consequently no Pol Pot. There would be 2 million more Cambodians alive and it may have ended up as one of the wealthier states in SE Asia instead of one of the poorest.
I suppose one of the big problems is how ‘Communist’ were the supposedly ‘Communist movements’ ?
A friend of mine was doing a post grad in Far Eastern politics, and the question was always ‘was X a Nationalist or a political idealist ?’
My feeling is that we ought to abolish ‘uman rites’ and set up a list of ‘Disgusting Behaviour’ - if people manage to score below 10 points on the Disgusting Behaviour list, then they are automatically members of a mutual defence pact, but if they go over that, then they are open season.
The North Vietnamese sorted out Cambodia, and nobody uttered a word, the Chinese would have appreciated some quiet advice on how to use water cannon in Tiannemen Square.
Well, the Vietnam fiasco cost about 183 billion (1973 dollars), not counting the ongoing care of 300,000+ seriously injured veterans. also, there are about 60,000 headstones in national cemetaries-plus probably a million vietnamese lives lost. But heck, the Johnson family and General Dynamics got rich off this war, and biilons of in wrecked materiel got written off. Which is why I find Robert Macnamara’s "mea culpa’ so pathetic-the man doesn’t realize the enormity of the calamity he caused! :eek:
Obviously, General Dynamics made money off the war…munitions companies always do. But how did Lyndon Johnson or his family “get rich” off it?
I heard once that Lady Bird’s family was in the defense industry . . . no cite, tho. I heard this from a guy named Jim who was once my housemate in Port St. Lucie, FL, while I was doing a newspaper internship for my journalism degree. He said, when he was a teenager – in the early years of the Vietnam War – he had a job sweeping up at the local VFW hall. Some old WWII vets were watching 'Nam field footage on TV. It showed some GIs patrolling the jungle.
VET: That’s chickenshit.
JIM: What?
VET: They’re too close together. They’re gonna get killed.
JIM: Well, why are we there?
VET: 'Cause there ain’t no more Indian wars out West! Lady Bird’s family has gotta make money off defense!
JIM: [nervously] Well, what should I do?!
VET: Join the Navy. It ain’t a Navy show.
So he did.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I’d be surprised. Bird’s father made his money in owning a general store, real estate deals, and sharecropped land. He died in 1960.
Lyndon and Lady Bird made their money when she invested her inheritance (from her mother, who died when she was five) in a radio station, and LBJ used his political influence to help her with the FCC.
Now, I’m not saying that she had some family that might have had some investment in the defense industry, but the claim you’ve related sounds like an old soldier’s story.