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But Russians aren't retiring to Afghanistan.

Curiously enough, South Vietnamese in Vietnam have repeatedly told me that they would be better off if Americans would have won, that there is no grudge against Americans in S. Vietnam, and that they "never asked N. Vietnamese to liberate them".

If South would not have lost, we would have another country as prosperous as S. Korea.

Any war to fight communism was a waste. If a country wants to make themselves poor and famished...let them. Less competition for us.

theoakman says

Less competition for us.

more illegal immigration and crime tho...no one from S. Korea or Japan tries to sneak into US illegally.

Ho Chi Minh was the George Washington of Vietnam, definitely more nationalist than communist.

rd6B says

theoakman says

Less competition for us.

more illegal immigration and crime tho...no one from S. Korea or Japan tries to sneak into US illegally.

There's an ocean between us and vietnam. Illegal immigration was the farthest threat. Not worth sacrificing thousand of American lives.

I'd written about this some time back.

The US did not need to keep a high troop presence after "Vietnamization". In fact, if arms were regularly re-supplied, the South Vietnamese could have held off the north on their own but rationing kicked in soon after the US army left ...

https://patrick.net/post/1325271?offset=40#comment-1598886

"I knew a South Vietnamese officer who was among the lucky ones to get out before the '75 collapse and later settled down in the Boston area.

His experience was that by mid '74, the average soldier had up to 3 magazines per week vs the usual of 7-8 when the US army was still there prior to the closure of "Vietnamization".

In effect, he echoed let's call it the Republican spiel, that the South was reduced to a poor man's war whereas the North was armed to the teeth. And the North did take their time, throughout '74, testing the South incrementally, making sure that they didn't have enough counter firepower before the grand offensive in the spring.

So I'm sure when 'rationing' kicked in, the ones who already had the pre-existing armory, didn't share it and thus, the fact that funds were getting cut from above, did abet the collapse of the South's defenses."

The North had the majority approval. For whatever reason, the Vietnamese took to Communism hard, and this was tough to fight. But their capitalist roots remained. Even today the country runs itself like a robber baron state rather than a communist one. No freedoms though. So the worst of both worlds.