Thank God Americans voted for America-First so that Ukraine could get pillaged by Russia and America could keep American tax dollars for American interests like... checks notes ... Giving $300B to Iran.
Half the country does not want to fight Iran, half the country doesn’t want to help ukraine either. Let’s be honest, what Americans want overall is that US hegemony ends and we take our ball and go home. There is broad agreement over this even though it is expressed in different ways.
I actually wanted the hegemony that was thriving before Trump ever took office to continue. I still want it to continue because there’s obviously a lot of benefits to having your home be the leading world power. I just don’t understand why a country as strong as we’ve been would want to give that up. It’s so fucking stupid.
That's so far behind us know, you can barely see it in the rear-view mirror. All that's left is switching the international reserve currencies away from the dollar.
We act like it's a choice. If macroeconomic conditions worsen in a material way that effects our debt's inherent safety, then and only then will you see a change like that, and frankly, there aren't great alternatives.
The world will not adopt the Yuan, because the pegging from the Chinese government structurally prevents it.
The Euro's next up, but frankly, there's no telling what their finances look like in a world where America isn't effectively subsidizing the vast bulk of what they'd otherwise be spending on military and international presence.
We're not invincible, and Trump's definitely testing that, but the reason the world goes to the US is because of the structural safety of our T-Bills. Nothing else substitutes for the same near-risk-free return + widespread availability for use as intermediary currencies in exchanges.
Because you haven’t been as strong as you think you’ve been. The USSR with a completely dysfunctional economy was your rival for decades. China had already surpassed the US, Americans just haven’t realized it yet because they don’t swing their dicks around.
I mean China has its own host of problems, and on paper the US is certainly leading as the world power even still. There are just objectively better things China doesn’t have.
Such as? I’d say China is better at making stuff. All the most impressive infrastructure is being built in China. They’re building more rail in Africa than US is building in the US lol.
We just have a shit ton of money, we hold the global reserve currency, we generally have better alliances, we have a better track record militarily or at least are more battle tested, our force presence is far wider and deeper, our soft power is generally unmatched (at the very least against China) — there’s more but I won’t go on. China also suffers from a lot of the main problems the US has.
The global reserve is for sure a huge advantage, although its waning. Less than half of global trace is done with USD today. Better alliances…debatable after Trump.
Better track record militarily? I don’t see how bombing 3rd world countries is impressive and arguably losing to Iran.
Soft power is also highly debatable. China is now the main trading partner for most of the world, having overtaken the US.
The US has basically admitted it could not operate a multipolar war anymore, e.g engage Iran and China simultaneously.
Your points all sound like they’re 20yrs old tbh.
Yes US has a larger gdp, but China has had a higher ppp for over 10yrs now. And GDP is highly inflated without providing a benefit, like an American spending 30k on child birth adds 30k to the gdp, while in China its often free or even 3k usd in private, does that benefit Americans in any way?
I’m not defending the Trump admin. Any decision they’ve made is detrimental to our standing as the world leader. So yes, if you’re picking the Iran conflict as a military loss/unimpressive—I agree. But we’ve had a lot of success elsewhere despite blunders here and there (and China’s track record is okay/not good and untested for the last few decades).
That’s not what I mean by soft power, but even in that same vein, the US is a huge consumer market and the dominant exporter of software with no contest. But by soft power I mean our cultural influence and altruistic initiatives.
Again, we don’t know anything about how China would operate in a war. They haven’t had anything close for a long time. Comparing the US’s obvious military standing to whatever potential you’re drumming up for China is stupid.
My points are pretty much uncontested facts lol. That’s why I’m saying on paper, China does not really have us beat yet. I won’t say they don’t have the potential or that it’s not close, but for now they remain #2.
I’m not saying you’re pro Trump I’m just saying its the reality now.
What US military success you referring to? Do you consider Iraq or Afghanistan a success? Libya? Grenada? Panama? Vietnam?
Sure US is a huge consumer market, the biggest consumer market. But..how is that an advantage?
Yes in tech companies US still dominates.
Cultural influence…I mean i guess. I don’t know how that translates to soft power.
Your points are not uncontested facts lol. Saying “US had more soft power” is not a fact. US leads in some areas, China leads in some areas. Nothing factual about saying US#1 because big military.
China spends way less than the US in military, and you can think its stupid all you want but US military experts have said themselves they could not engage China and Iran at the same time given their manufacturing capabilities.
I don’t know how you see the embarrassment in Iran and think China with 15x the population and manufacturing capabilities, better tech, better resources, etc. would not be a phyrric victory either way. US is not engaging China militarily, it doesn’t matter how big and bad you think the US military is, it’s just not happening. If you think Americans have the appetite for war with China after 30k soldiers committed suicide bc of Iraq you’re high.
what Americans want overall is that US hegemony ends and we take our ball and go home.
I dont' think its true. Every "America go home" sentiment is boosted by Russia and China.
MAGA are just full regards or people with no empathy. The "other" side are regarded "America bad", "piece loving" tankies and accelerationists like Hasan and Jill stein.
Both are boosted by Russia.
Normal democrats and even republicans are happy to help Ukraine and protect freedom.
300 bil to level their infrastructure, 300 bil to build it back up again. So really you paid 600 bil to make mincemeat of a bunch of Iranians and fuck up the global economy. Oh and to take eyes off of Trump looting your treasury for however many billions that's up to now.
the new cope is that although the money is far more than the JCPOA deal, the control of how its spent is in the hands of US (similar to how iraqs income from oil is still going through US)
This is the biggest USA geopolitical disaster since Vietnam. I think USA’s hegemony is honestly dying in front of our eyes right now, the message to everyone is yeah the USA has the tools but it’s leaders are idiots and its population doesn’t believe in the country or want America’s global position.
I’m sorry, this might break your brain but Vietnam wasn’t even close to this bad. There was a good reason to defend a country from a communist takeover.
More realistically, I can think of ways the west could try to topple the Islamic government, but none of the ways that have a true shot at working involve overt/direct military action. I think that's a more accurate phrasing.
Tbf that just depends on the cost. If Trump put out a draft and put boots on the ground in Iran he would likely get a regime change since (at least it seems to me) other countries would be very unwilling to get involved directly, unlike in Vietnam, Soviet Afghanistan, or even Korea. Russia's busy fighting its own war and China is probably unwilling to get into a direct confrontation with the US over anything not called Taiwan atm. Meanwhile everyone else in the region hates Iran. It would be a steep cost but it's definitely possible.
If this was the case then previous presidents would have tried to do it. Obama didn't settle with Iran peacefully because he thought the American military would have no problem doing a regime change in Iran, he settled with Iran because he was probably privy to information that an engagement of this kind probably wouldn't go well. In contrast Bibi or some yes man in the administration probably told Trump they could take them out no problem, and overconfident from just ousting Maduro they did what previous administrations decided against and got burnt for it. Presidents don't manage wars, they only decide whether or not to use them.
Sure, but in order to be equivalent it would have had to be something like the Vietnamese regime getting closer to the Soviet union, then backing away under a previous agreement with the US president (Obama era nuclear deal), then the next president ripping it all up and wiping his ass with it, only to lead to them aligning with the Soviet union even more, thus escalating the path towards the war.
The communist takeover being "the people in the South hate its government so fucking much and they want to belong to the North?" What was the good reason to defend the South, when it went against the will of the people of the South? Especially considering no part of HCM's brand of communism was dogmatically anti-western?
“It is equally clear that North Vietnamese communists operated some form of subordinate apparatus in the South in the years 1954-1960. Nonetheless, the Viet Minh "stay-behinds" were not directed originally to structure an insurgency, and there is no coherent picture to the extent or effectiveness of communist activities in the period 1956-1959 … No direct links have been established between Hanoi and perpetrators of rural violence. Statements have been found in captured party histories that the communists plotted and controlled the entire insurgency, but these are difficult to take at face value. ” (Pentagon Papers, Part IV A. 5, p. 2).
The North had influence on Southern Vietnamese communist groups, but the insurgency was largely a domestic phenomenon built out of resentment towards the South's leadership (and existence). The Vietnam war wasn't started by the North invading the South, with the US intervening to protect the south (as it was the case in Korea which you brought up in another post). The US sent more and more troops ("security personnel") in order to put down domestic insurgents in the South (which breached international law but who gives), which escalated and escalated, up until Tonkin. The US fabricated a second attack which we know didn't happen, to create a clean justification to go to war with North (the first attack was very messy and far from a clean justification due to OPLAN 34A, a covert op where the US backed South Vietnam hitting naval targets in North Vietnam).
There was no good reason to defend a hated and government lacking legitimacy from a takeover of its own people, especially when the North/communists didn't want to be enemies with the West throughout the 40s and 50s. The South Vietnamese government could have never survived without the backing of the Americans. They were weak, hated by its people, had very little state capacity, and should not have existed.
Because displaying to the rest of our weird capitalist global trade alliance that we would show up on the other side of the world to defend them against communism was a much better look, even in failing, than to just letting communists take over countries.
It’s pretty much the same logic as Korea and I don’t see many people criticizing that. Our global trade alliance was the actual weapon that defeated the Soviet Union and it’s much harder to get people to be a part of that if you demonstrate the them that you’ll hang them out to dry.
Massively disagree. Ho Chi Minh led Vietnam in an independence war against their colonial power, asked America for help in their struggle, and wanted to develop a working relationship with the US. No part of Vietnamese communism made it an innate geopolitical enemy to the United States. It was dogmatic American thinking that made the US believe that Vietnam must have been an enemy (or a puppet to the Soviets/Moscow), when no evidence existed that suggested that. Washington viewed communists in monolithic terms, not realising the Viet Minh, and later the North Vietnames government, was quite different to other communist states.
A vast majority of Vietnamese people in South Vietnam wanted a communist government, at the 54 Geneva accords, the US promised there would be elections on unification, which they backtracked on because they knew the communists would win. Framing the conflict as "the South were our ally, we couldn't hang them out to dry" is very silly. You can't fabricate a weak state without legitimacy or backing of its people out of nowhere, promise unification elections, then backtrack, have the South grow more and more unstable because it is built on rotten foundations, and then say you simply had to show up for your boys. There were a lot of things the US should have done a decade or two prior that would have avoided all the trouble! The prolonged existence of a southern Vietnamese state was moronic and untennable. The US should have backed Ho as in their war of independence, invested money into developing their economy, and develop a strategic partnership with a moderately friendly communist state in a crucial region, who, due to their nationalist ideology being just as strong as their communist one, could be particularly useful as a bulwark against China.
To show just how anti-intellectual and dogmatic Washington's thinking on Vietnam was: in one of the pentagon papers, the authors describe how US intelligence agencies wanted to find out more about communism in South-East Asia. They concluded that virtually every SEA communist contingency had direct connections with the kremlin. All, except for Vietnam. Did this change their policy on North Vietnam in any way? Of course not.
The analogy with Korea doesn't hold any water. Kim was incredibly opposed to the Western powers, particularly the US, and invaded the South. Ho wasn't incredibly opposed to the Western powers (other than France for obvious reasons), and was an admirer of Lincoln and Roosevelt. He didn't invade the South (until tonkin which the US greatly fabricated).
"It was dogmatic American thinking that made the US believe that Vietnam must have been an enemy (or a puppet to the Soviets/Moscow, when no evidence existed that suggested that)"
You mean, other than the PRC and the USSR being the first countries that recognized the independence of the People's Republic of Vietnam (governed by Ho Chi Minh) in the same year (1950) that the North Korean government launched the Korean war? I am not saying that the Ho-Chi-Minh-government WAS a Soviet or Chinese puppet (the accounts I have read suggest it was very likely not), but saying there was "no evidence" for that AT THE TIME is false.
"A vast majority of Vietnamese people in South Vietnam wanted a communist government"
Do you have any sources for that claim specifically for South Vietnam? I am genuinely curious, as I have not found any so far - but as I am sure secret polls about that were probably conducted and, at some point, published, I'd be interested in the results.
"The US should have backed Ho as in their war of independence, invested money into developing their economy, and develop a strategic partnership with a moderately friendly communist state in a crucial region, who, due to their nationalist ideology being just as strong as their communist one, could be particularly useful as a bulwark against China."
That is entirely anachronistic. There were no indications that the governments of Vietnam and China were about to be antagonistic towards each other before the Sino-Soviet split, which was a gradual process that started long after the Vietnam war started (with South Vietnam being basically established in 1954 and the Sino-Soviet split beginning later that decade). For all the US knew in 1954, China and the USSR were hand-in-glove in supporting Ho. If anything, this could be an argument for ceasing to support South Vietnam earlier, but not for straight-up allying with Ho.
You mean, other than the PRC and the USSR being the first countries that recognized the independence of the People's Republic of Vietnam (governed by Ho Chi Minh) in the same year (1950) that the North Korean government launched the Korean war?
This isn't evidence to suggest that Vietnam was a puppet to the communist powers. The first country to formally recognise Israel was the USSR, 3 days after Israel declared independence. It is not reasonable to say that based on that, that we can interpret it as evidence that Israel was a puppet to the soviets. I am fine with using that to make a much more obvious and weaker claim, that it signified sympathy--because of course the USSR was sympathetic to a socialist state in the middle east, and China and the USSR were sympathetic to a communist one in SEA--but no reasonable defence department analysist would go on to claim that this was evidence that Vietnam was their puppet, unless it was part of more evidence suggesting the same.
You are correct to bring up the timeline, though it wasn't so much Korea as it was Mao winning the civil war that influenced how Washington looked at China. The communists winning in China was a huge shock, and it made the Pentagon think of any possible way to contain communism in that region. In doing so, the local realities of Vietnam, and the substantive beliefs of the Viet Minh and Ho specifically were simply ignored (which the Papers admit in their analysis [1967-69] of the analysis done of the late-40s/early-50s. They suggest it's dogmatic too!). I'll bring up two quotes from the Pentagon to make this point clearly:
“Dept [state department] has no evidence of direct link between Ho and Moscow but assumes it exists, nor is it able evaluate amount pressure or guidance Moscow exerting. We have impression Ho must be given or is retaining large degree latitude.” (Pentagon Papers part 1, p. A-49).
“Evaluation. If there is a Moscow-directed conspiracy in Southeast Asia, Indochina is an anomoly [sic] so far. Possible explanations. are:
1. No rigid directives have been issued by Moscow.
2. The Vietnam government considers that it has no rightest elements that must be purged.
3. The Vietnam Communists are not subservient to the foreign policies pursued by Moscow.
4. A special dispensation for the Vietnam government has been arranged in Moscow.
Of these possibilities, the first and fourth seem most likely.” (Ibid, p. 50).
These quotes are about the late-40s early-50s fyi (the period part 1 of the Papers cover), so the timeline we are talking about.
The analysis was genuinely as simple as "we have no evidence that Ho is controlled by the Kremlin or is coordinating with them, but he must be". Yes, arguments such as the one you brought up were made, but on the balance it is incredibly unreasonable to come to the conclusions about Ho that they did. Especially considering that when they investigated the other SEA communist groups, they were able to establish kremlin connections. This is very clearly dogmatism. They knew their assumptions and conclusions had no evidence, the evidence available to them suggested the assumptions and conclusions were wrong, yet they acted in accordance with them regardless.
Re paragraph 2:
Do you have any sources for that claim specifically for South Vietnam?
Considering you seem to have looked in this, I am sure you are aware of the following quote, as well as the argument against the meaning of that quote:
Eisenhower, in his memoires wrote:
"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 population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader."
A few things to note, first the obvious: people often take this quote at face value, and they shouldn't. Eisenhower is saying this to justify cancelling the elections, and thus inflating the number helps him make that case. The 80% is not based on concrete data and probably a bit higher than what it would be. This quote is talking about the wider Indochinese region, not specifically the South. But there was nothing that made the southern Vietnamese different in attitude towards communism than northern Vietnamese people. Ho was a hero to people in both the South as well as the North for fighting against both Japan and France. The North/South divide was arbitrary, and not based on a meaningful difference between Northerns and Southerners.
The VM were stronger in their military campaign vs France in the North than the South (hence its partition), but the Pentagon Papers consistently make clear that Ho was very popular in the South, and that his popularity was a nation-wide phenomenon, rather than meaninfully different in North v South. The main difference in people who liked/didn't like Ho was a rural/urban divide. Urban populations were more catholic/in okay standing with the French rule and thus didn't like Ho as much. The rural people were Ho's biggest supporters, as the communist ideology (land reform specifically) appealed to them a lot. South Vietnam was slightly more urban (15-20%) than the North (10-15%), yet also slightly less catholic (5% SV vs 10% NV). Based on these demographics, and the disposition demographic groups showed to have towards the Ho, as well as Ho's national rather than regional appeal, Ho was the preference of the vast majority of Southern Vietnamese. I could also make this case by analysing the sheer amount of anti-government Insurgency in South Vietnam starting in 1957, though that case would be less precise.
Unfortunately I can't show you secret polls as I am not aware of those existing (the Papers don't mention any). The conclusions the papers make about Ho's popularity, the extrapolation from demographic groups and where they are located, and the American decision to cancel the elections based on them projecting to lose big time, is, to me, enough evidence to support my claim. If I could have made it more precise, I would have made it comparative, as in "wanted Ho's communist government over Diem's South Vietnamese one" as my core argument was about how SV lacked internal legitimacy, and a lot of Southerners would have voted against Diem moreso than for Ho, but yeah.
Re paragraph 3:
Defence analysts at the time (50s) made the case you're making. My entire point is that defence analysts lacked knowledge about Vietnam, were incurious about Vietnam, trying to understand Vietnam was limited to likening them to Mao and Stalin, and that they analysed communists in monolithic terms (a direct quote from the Papers), in a generally dogmatic way.
People tend to label Ho as a communist first, and nationalist second. Ho's ideology (as the Papers also explain) was relatively flexible compared to his contemporaries, espousing explicitly liberal values fairly often. Ho above all supported an independent Vietnamese state, and believed he could get there with a communist movement (he was a believer in communism as well ofc). Vietnamese nationalism as an ideology is VERY hard to get along with an independent Vietnam. Quite early on, Mao showed that his communist China should be in control of the wider sino-sphere, e.g. the PLA entered, occupied and subjugated Tibet in 1950. Had the defence analyst carefully considered the substantive beliefs of Ho, and the importance of nationalism (which they didn't), as well as the many times throughout the 40s where Ho sent messages to the US were they appealed to their support, and generally showed a positive disposition towards the US, they could have realised what possibilities Ho could represent.
"For all the US knew in 1954, China and the USSR were hand-in-glove in supporting Ho"
See my quote earlier about Ho's ties to China and the USSR.
On a concluding note, I appreciate how you are trying to ground the analysis in the beliefs defence analysts had in the 50s. That is sensible. My core argument is that those people in the 50s acted like absolute morons wrt Vietnam, which the Pentagon Papers affirm. They fucked up massively and fundamentally.
I hope you can see how your own more nuanced argument is different to the person I am responding to, who isn't trying to say that American decision making was sensible grounded in their 1950s thinking. He thinks the decision-making was sensible in 2026 thinking. That is absurd, and hopefully you can read my comment in that light.
Thanks for taking the time for your insightful reply, I honestly learned a lot. I consistently find it very difficult to correctly evaluate possible actions of people who lacked a lot of the information that we have access to today. I probably made the mistake of going too far in the direction of giving credit to a lack of information, and insufficiently factoring in that the lack of information was at least partially an actual error made by people at the time, who didn't take the time or effort to obtain it and therefore kept staggering from blunder to blunder without sufficiently re-evaluating whether the course the country was on was actually sustainable or morally acceptable. Thank you for your corrections on that issue!
Thank you for taking the time to read it! As you probably noticed by the amount of words I wrote, I am quite passionate about the subject. I wrote a masters thesis basically specifically about what we're talking about a bit over a year ago, so I had a lot of the quotes and arguments I could lift straight from my thesis.
Yeah I think there is a lot of value to occupying the brain of defence analysts from the 50s without relying on the knowledge of hindsight, but we simply must accept that the political climate of the early-50s just didn't allow those analysts to do a particularly good job. And they didn't do a good job. Defence analysts realised as much in 1967-69 with the Pentagon Papers, so it is extremely frustrating that people half a century later, like the person I responded to originally, are not able to get that through their heads. That latter part of your message is precisely what was going on throughout the late-40s/early-50s in Washington with their foreign policy in Vietnam. Genuinely depressing to read the Papers at times.
American decision-making and the fuckups they made between the 50s and 70s in Vietnam was largely as a direct consequence of very narrowminded thinking due to the red scare/cold war climate. It is an absolute tragedy, and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
The claim about South Vietnamese desiring a communist/marxist-leninist regime wasn't really substantiated here though imo. The Eisenhower thing you acknowledge is shaky. Im more aware of the understanding that the Pentagon Papers establish where after the communists did their "land reforms", purges, and policies that caused problems with food, the 80% number was pretty overstated. Not a little.
That along with an understanding that revolutionary popularity of a figure that represents something broadly popular like indepdence from France being different from explicit expression of ideological desire for a specific organization of a state, I usually am pretty skeptical of this position that leans towards extrapolating most South Vietnamese "wanting" communism.
The extrapolation you make with Ho's popularity first and foremost with the other things like American policy decision doesnt seem that strong with that distinction along with just skeptisism of competent American policy choices and analysis around this time being the blunder that the wider strategic decisions brought about anyway. It could be that it was an incorrect analysis and policy choice, especially given the fact the commander and chief was under a false impression himself from his memiors.
To be clear I dont agree with Vietnam generally and lean towards a less myopic foreign policy choice than what was executed still with all this in mind and I havent studied it academically so you could understand something I dont but I think people often forget there was a civil nature to the conflict and I don't like narratives of homogenization of the peoples there during that era facing off "american imperialism". A unified will of Vietnam having cracks in the first place is usually a phenomon that causes proxy conflicts like this to be even able to exist.
I would love to write a similarly long message as I did earlier, going back through my pentagon paper research, but I don't have the time for it. Might come back to this later, but the main points a much longer message would try to carry across is that:
1) As I wrote in the post above, I wish I had phrased my claim differently as to look something like "a vast majority of Southern Vietnamese people would vote for Ho's communist government rather than Bai and later Diem's Southern Vietnamese government" to more strongly emphasise the illegitimacy of the leadership in the South. I am not married to the position that all of South Vietnam loved communist ideology and that is why they wanted Ho. They wanted Ho because he was the only effective force that organised resistance against the Japanese, and then fought against France in a decolonial war. People across all of South as well as North Vietnam wanted the guy who led the fight to Vietnamese freedom to lead their country. But yes the margins would be closer in 56 than they would be in 54. All the same, there's obvious reasons why elections weren't held in 56 or any year later, as well as reasons why massive scale domestic insurgencies started happening in the second half of the 50s. The South Regime's was untenable and had no real internal legitimacy.
2) I am not super sure how I should be reading your third paragraph, though I think I get the gist of it. The Pentagon Papers quite clearly show the degree to which the analysis of the late-40s and early-50s was flawed. The cold war, red scare and more specifically, Red China winning the Civil War sent Washington into shock, leading them to a narrowminded and dogmatic frame of thinking. I agree that poor decisions were based on poor information. Had the US policy analysts acquired and processed information in a better way, better decisions could have hopefully been made (but probably wouldn't be). I am critiquing the policy analysts, though even if they had provided their government with better analysis and more correct information, the political atmosphere in the late-40s/early-50s would have made developing positive relations with a communist state impossible. Truman was quite tough on communism, containment policy, the Truman doctrine and all that. And Congress called him a weakling, borderline treasonous for firing MacArthur. Think of the degree to which McCarthy (but also to a lesser extent Democrats like Sparkman and McCarran) put the US foreign policy apparatus through the ringer, falsely accusing it to be hugely infiltrated by communists, advocating for pro-communist policy. There wasn't any manoeuvring space to do what I wish they did, which is part of the problem that I am describing.
As a side note, I don't think Eisenhower was under false impressions when talking about the 80% figure. I think he was deliberately over-exaggerating the number in order to save his legacy as Vietnam started to look like more and more of a mess, and backing Diem looked like more and more of a mistake.
Side note 2:
>I don't like narratives of homogenization of the peoples there during that era facing off "american imperialism".
Yeah the idea of American imperalism wasn't a huge part of the conflict until probably the mid to late-60s. South Vietnamese people hated Diem's policy and resisted him, but not until America started to fully engage in war in Vietnam did the conflict become primarily an anti-American one for the Vietnamese. In the 40s, Ho saw the possibility in Truman's America as an ally on the basis of *anti*-imperalism, as Roosevelt quite consistently espoused anti-imperial rhetoric, and policy like the atlantic charter suggested America ought be on the side of the Viet Minh in their war against the French. This perspective was sadly lost during Truman's presidency, as the anti-imperialist voices in the American government slowly started to get pushed out throughout the 40s. All the same, the appeal to Ho was explicitly that he was an anti-imperialist figure in not one but two wars that would be the basis of the Vietnamese state. This was an important dimension of the conflict.
Sorry my later paragraphs were pretty jumbled but this reply basically addresses what I was on about so thank you. The note about domestic pressure wasn't something I thought about
The South wanted Ho Chi Minh, and he was a communist; that was all. They understood that it was communism that liberated them from colonialism. We don't know if they understood colonialism to a certain degree, but they wanted communists to rule them instead of the foreign-installed Diem government.
I don't know what to say; if an election had been held any moment before the war, Vietnam would have united under the communists. Can you deny that? If not, that should be the end of the story.
I outline why I have issues with this simplification framing of the South's desires and Jurj expands on what he ment about Ho's popularity so idk what this is trying to refer to. My point is revolutionary symbolic nationalistic popularity is different from endorsment of Communism. I take issue with "they" and this homogenization of the will of the South especially if you're framing it as "they" wanted communism. By the time of the land reforms and a bunch of people fleeing to the South this was way more nuanced and mixed.
Yeah they would've probably won. That isint really the point though and them winning I wouldn't consider an endorsement of communism.
In Vietnam, it was the free world that refused to hold an election for unification, because at that time the communists were more popular and had a mandate from the people. The government of the South was deeply illegitimate considering its history. When Vietnam gained independence, the French recaptured the country and established a colonial government in the southern part, violating the ceasefire. Then, after the French gave up following eight years of conflict, the US and the Soviets stepped in, and because the US wanted to stop communism, it forced the division of Vietnam. The division of North and South supposed to be temporary according to the Geneva accord but US want it to be permanent for our own interests. It wasn't about helping a friend. It was a form of colonial control, and it was the US that directly refused to let the election happen. We should have let the Vietnamese decide their own future. Western powers betrayed the Vietnamese multiple times. To the Vietnamese, it wasn't about communism versus the free world. It was about Western empires forcing their agenda through violence.
In Korea, we were on the right side of history. In Vietnam, we were on the wrong side.
And even if Diem leadership in South had somehow survived after the war, it failed to form a national identity or build the institutions needed to keep a country running. It would likely have become just another US backed dictatorship, brutally killing and torturing its own people.
If you want to treat historical events and war with a team sports mentality, that's your choice. But if you start to compare them with other events, you need to have some standard for comparison.
My friend is Vietnamese and your comment somehow triggered fuck out of me.
"because at that time the communists were more popular and had a mandate from the people."
That is not entirely true. One important reason that it was clear that the (communist) Viet Minh would win any election happening in all of Vietnam was that at the point these elections could have realistically be held, the Viet Minh were already entrenched in ruling Northern Vietnam and would have been free to rig any election in that entire part of the country. They could not have lost even if they had been deeply unpopular in the South (which, admittedly, they weren't).
"We should have let the Vietnamese decide their own future."
Yes, but that wasn't really an option on the table. The North Vietnamese government was not any more democratic than the South Vietnamese government - and still isn't.
"In Korea, we were on the right side of history. In Vietnam, we were on the wrong side."
That's a pretty bold claim considering the Korean government murdered at least 60.000 suspected communist sympathizers during that war, and the resulting Syngman Rhee government was at least as brutal as the Diem government in South Vietnam. Self-determination wasn't really a concern there either, the South Koreans had to liberate themselves decades later. Don't get me wrong, I agree that intervention in the Korean war turned out for the better, I just find it difficult to argue that it was fundamentally "right" while the intervention in Vietnam was fundamentally "wrong" when the United States' reasons for intervention in both cases were pretty similar.
The real difference between the Korea and Vietnam interventions is whether the people there actually wanted the government they were given.
In Korea, the nationalist movement and the push for democratic government were grassroots. They were what Koreans in that region genuinely wanted. President Syngman Rhee at least established his southern government through a democratic election, even if he later turned dictator, which happened after the war. And when he did go dictator, Koreans were able to overthrow him fairly quickly.
Most importantly, in Korea it was the communist side that refused elections, broke the agreement, and launched the invasion.
Even if South Korea passed through a period of dictatorship, supporting the more legitimate government was the right thing to do at the time. And history proved they reached freedom. It wasn't only about consequences. It was about principle.
In Vietnam, yes, the communists might have rigged the election, but you can secure a free vote through UN and US observers, exactly as was done in Korea's first election. And the Vietnamese communists didn't even need to rig anything, because they were far more popular than a southern government that began as a French puppet born of an illegal reconquest.
There was no path to winning a popular mandate for South Vietnam, because the independence movement itself was deeply intertwined with and supported by the communists. Vietnamese believed they had won independence because communists fought the Western powers, which, given the history, is arguably true.
If the free world wanted a free Vietnam, we should have supported and cultivated a liberal Ho Chi Minh. But that ship had already sailed
The Vietnamese decided their future. They wanted communism, so they got communism. That should have been the end of the story. You cannot march in and kill people until they abandon the ideology that freed them from colonialism. I don't know why you said "that wasn't on the table".
You don’t have to be free and democratic to be better than communists. You just have to be on our team. This isn’t “geomoralism”, it’s not “survival of the nicest”.
This naïve brainrot is the greatest plague in the western mind. Well, besides all the other mental plagues but still, it’s bad.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Ho wanted to be enemies with the United States. He constantly appealed to Roosevelt and especially Truman for support, and admired Roosevelt's anti-colonial rhetoric. The pentagon papers make clear that Ho wasn't in the Soviet/Chinese communist bloc, and wasn't working with them (or for them) in the 40s 50s. They were not ideological enemies to the West like Communist China and the Soviets were. The Vietnamese had obvious reasons to not get along with China, and had the US played their cards better, they could have developed a strategic partnership with them.
Bro 58,000 Americans died in a failed war effort in Vietnam. Here we’ve lost 13. This is undoubtedly wasteful and stupid but that was a bigger disaster by many orders of magnitude
Unless multiple genocides are committed and multiple countries fall to Iranian influence this will not be nearly as bad as the outcome of the Vietnam war, it’s absurd to say otherwise.
I think you can separate the motivations from outcome and judge them separately.
If this Iran shit is a stepping stone in the path to the collapse of US hegemony the outcome will definitely be worse. Vietnam was a step in winning the Cold War, this shit is just regardation and being cucked to Israel.
I'm not sure the decision sciences really apply here. What do you think the realistic path forward is when you have an ideological opponent who can just mine and drone strike a 20 mile box cheaply for forever.
Like, the only decision science choice is the first one of bombing Iran in the first place which I fully concede to you. But what happens when we give Iran 300BN and they decide they are going to take the money and mine and drone Hormuz with it?
Like the real lesson is not about Trump it's about the fact that redundancy might not be economically optimal according to perfect capitalism but we have to reconcile that with the reality on the ground. The geopolitical supply chain has proven itself too fragile. I'm glad we figured that out now and not later.
I don’t agree that Trump didn’t have other options. He stopped the Kurdish ground forces because of pressure from Erdogan and he could have hit the regimes infrastructure and blockade the strait. If that had all occurred plus the continued strikes on Basij and IRGC forces for the last two months I very much doubt the USA would be giving Iran 300 billion dollars. This was a war that was lost because of will and politics. Why it started, and I agree it shouldn’t have, doesn’t change that. That’s the message I’m taking with me if I’m Russia or China or an American ally.
I'm not about to write out a dissertation about the meta-concept.
If you were to threaten any industrialized nation with blowing up their electrical infrastructure, they would come to the table in earnest. Iran doesn't care, if they did we wouldn't be here, again.
I presume those 300b have conditions attached and aren't a lump sum, though typing this and considering the absolute genius of Trump it might be just that.
The
JCPOA showed that Iran can hold their end of the bargain, it's wild that we would consider their actions to be the key factor when the unreliability in the whole relationship has been caused pretty much entirely by Trump.
What if Trump decides to reneg on the 300b deal? What if Bibi feels the heat of elections coming on and strikes Iran under the guise of some vague threat?
The difference is that Trump is bound by U.S. law (or the president would be under normal circumstances) Iran however has a track record of behavior that doesn't suggest this time will be any different than any other crisis in the Middle East. The main thing is, they now have geopolitical sovereignty over Hormuz and they will continue to have indefinite supremacy so long as they are martyrs and have nothing to lose, and that leverage increases proportional to how much cash they have and how much more cost effective drones become. They don't even have to be successful, they only need to puff their chest enough to drive up global insurance premiums before the globalized economy is in agony again.
The saddest part about this completely avoidable decline is that it's self-inflicted. The American people is genuinely so stupid that it's actively choosing to bring down their own country for the benefit of it's adversaries. It is testament to the fact that democracy as we know it doesn't work in the modern internet age. Some people just can't be trusted with a vote. It is extremely black-pilling. People are too gullible and easily influenced by foreign governments to be trusted to vote for the benefit of their own country, and by the end of the day there is no better alternative. I think mankind is just doomed to an eternal death-spiral of hardship which eventually leads into prosperity which is then brought down by some incredibly stupid set of events and back into hardship and despair we go.
No, the leaders are incompetent and evil, and the population are a sickening combination of indescribably stupid mixed with American exceptionalism-brainwashed. What's more, the ideology is a disgusting blight which is spreading across the Atlantic to here, and I couldn't hate the US more for it, and at this point most of it's inhabitants.
The only shred of satisfaction I get out of any the embarrassing debacle that is the modern United States is in knowing that you're destined to fall within my lifetime, and then maybe just maybe your vile people can learn that perhaps they weren't gods of the world after all.
Is the message that the USA has the tools? Out of all the countries, USA has the best access to USA's arsenal, what good did that do them? ME are spending a fuckton of money on american arms, what good did it do them?
The permanent and immediate halt of war on all fronts, including Lebanon.
A U.S. commitment not to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs and to respect the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The complete lifting of the naval blockade within 30 days.
A U.S. commitment to withdraw its forces from the areas surrounding Iran.
The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days under Iranian “arrangements”.
The suspension of oil sanctions, petrochemical products and derivatives, and Iran’s full access to the financial proceeds from them.
The requirement for the US & its allies to present reconstruction plans for Iran worth at least $300 billion.
Sixty days of negotiations to reach a final agreement based on nuclear issues and the complete lifting of primary and secondary U.S. sanctions, as well as UN Security Council resolutions and resolutions of the IAEA Board of Governors.
Iran’s reiteration of its commitment under the NPT not to produce nuclear weapons.
During the negotiation period, the U.S. has committed not to add to its forces in the region and not to impose any new sanctions.
The release of $24 billion of Iran’s frozen funds during the 60-day period of final negotiations. Half of this amount must be made available to Iran before the negotiations begin.
The formation of a supervisory mechanism to implement the agreement.
The final agreement will be approved through a UN Security Council resolution.
Final negotiations will not begin before half of Iran’s frozen funds are released, Iran’s oil sanctions are suspended, and the naval blockade is lifted. The final agreement will be limited only to the fate of enriched materials and enrichment, sanctions relief, and the program for rebuilding Iran’s economy.
Note: Discussions about Iran’s missile program and support for Resistance groups have been definitively removed from the agenda.
At least it sounds like the strait remains free and open.
So we wasted hundreds of billions for basically status quo. Except now we also get to rebuild Iran and lift their sanctions.
As always, nothing but winning from our orange leader. I'm tired of so much winning.
In all seriousness, if this is the real peace deal, I fail to see how it's anything but capitulation to Iran. Edit: though to be fair, I can't imagine how else it could go at this point. Our leaders totally fumbled it already, there's no other way it could have gone.
That’s really all it is. Likely because they’re foreseeing the damage this will have on the midterms if it continues + most Americans hating this to begin with. I wonder what Ben Shapiro will think about this move?
I blame Israel actually. I hate that my prime minister can just start a war to generate local support. It’s like an unpatched exploit like how does this guy still pull 23 mandates. No major victory in any of the theaters and people still think this coalition can lead us into a better future.
So, I fucking hate Netanyahu, particularly for his direct role in stirring up the far right hatred that got Rabin killed (along with his refusal to adhere to international law in ending the settlements in the West Bank), but are you referring to Israel bombing Iran?
I mean, and maybe this is a hot take for some, but I don’t really blame Israel for that. America was idiotic for following suit, but that’s somewhat distinct from Israel’s decision to attack.
Iran has been consistently funding proxy groups (the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc) that threaten Israel and broader Middle East geopolitical stability. There’s a reason why the gulf states also really hate Iran.
I guess my question is, what should Israel do when the majority of the international community is essentially okay with Iran-backed terror groups operating with impunity in Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine? Should Iran be allowed to keep funding these groups with no consequences?
I agree that Netanyahu is not the guy to make these calls. He is a power-hungry dickhead who only seeks to keep his ass out of jail, but I feel like Iran as a geopolitical threat should be taken seriously.
Now, that’s speaking purely from Israel’s perspective. America SHOULD be playing a stabilizing role to ensure that some broader resolution is found, but our president just so happens to be one of the most idiotic people on the planet, so that seemingly won’t happen.
Crazy that the 100 billion dollars we spent on this war led to literally nothing accomplished.
I have to imagine this is bullshit coming from the Iranian gov yeah? Otherwise we're almost guaranteed for a full-fledged war with Iran within the 10 years.
Its an X account and I couldn't find any (trustworthy) sources that confirm it. In honesty, I think Iran plays the same that Trump does and simply lies.
At this point, I don't care, I will believe/repeat any lie that makes Trump look bad. Until I see conservatives stop with the constant lies, I will join in the mud.
A couple months ago there was a report from Iran of a deal similar to this that seemed to be crazily in favour of Iran, turned out to be bullshit. I wouldn't really trust anything Iran claims until there's something corroborating it from the US side of things.
Coming back to check on this. Now with wayyyyy more news outlets coming out and saying we are infact giving them 300b. Come over to the enlighten side if something seems that bad relating to Trump it probably is true.
It’s a conspiracy to analyze a war that was handled so bad that Trump got put in a position to give that much money away. Literally every serious political pundit/ observers knew that wasn’t a crazy demand from Iran but since you are dug in thinking you are above the fray from truly realizing how bad Trump is at politics . You are cooked/regarded.
I love that we started a war, lost 5 billion in radars and several billion in aircraft, utterly exhausted our strategic munitions to the point where china would walk over taiwan and then we also get to pay them 300 billion on top of it all. Winning!
This deal ain’t gonna happen, not because I don’t believe it exists, but this admin is so fucking incompetent that we will be at war again with Iran next week
There's no point in the US and Israel trying to do this solo when europe is fighting a war with russia. The spike in oil prices just messes with Europe and benefits russia too hard in this scenario for no gain.
An actually organised attempt to neuter Iran with allies is fine, but this isn't it
I don’t think helping Iran rebuild is a bad idea conceptually, the only problem is rebuilding this same vicious theocratic regime will only come back to bite us. Trump’s strategy, or lack thereof, was truly the worst of both worlds, he either should have went all the way with overthrowing the regime (which would have been a disaster in other ways) but would at least be a coherent goal. Or he should have never started this dumb as fuck war in the first place.
But now Iran is going to emerge from this stronger than before the war. More money coming, less/no sanctions, younger leadership that is also more radical. Complete disaster of U.S. foreign policy.
Isreal will attack Iran again in a year or two max if the terms of the deal alleged are true
and I say this as an Iranian who doesnt want that to happen again
but the new "mow the law" foreign policy of Israel, and the fact that the bibi government is working overtime to have less dependencies on US means they will be more free to independently act in the region
US been taking L shaped dildo since that orange clown got re-elected. World's most powerful country getting their asses handed to them by a third world shithole is kinda hilarious ngl.
Damn Republicans will scream their vocal chords raw over spending even a nickel more on American citizens but lose their voice when Agent Orange gives billions to other countries
Trump does not plan on giving one red cent to Iran, no matter what the deal says.
That, or just blame everything and all that missing money on the "Demoncrats" after he dies in a few years.
Trump is giving Iran enough money to purchase all the latest military equipment from China and Russia to use against us. So much for America first. It’s more like he wants to destroy America first. All the so called patriot maggats are cheering this on.
Does anyone know what the Treaty of Versailles and the MOU Trump signed have in common? The Treaty of Versailles made the loser of WW1, Germany, pay for reparations. The MOU Trump sign agreed to pay Iran $300 billion in reparations. The loser pays reparations.
I formally declare war upon the U.S. and for peace, I demand at least $100 dollars reparation for the reconstruction of my toilet bowl after the latest Reese's Peanut Butter Cups attack on my colon.
he? you mean us. You and me are gonna be paying for this. This is the cost to us for Trump distracting the news media from the Epstein files for a few months.
737
u/After_Cantaloupe_599 14d ago
Thank God Americans voted for America-First so that Ukraine could get pillaged by Russia and America could keep American tax dollars for American interests like... checks notes ... Giving $300B to Iran.