Can you tell me what we "lost" when we pulled out of Vietnam?

Question

Seems to me very little. We now are friends with the Vietnamese and they have the govt. they wanted sans our objections, same as with China. Isn't it a lot easier to convert communists to capitalism by example rather than bullets and bombs. I really don't want to hear about "we lost our pride" type of bs either. If all you want to do is continue a war for "pride" then God help you; lives are much more important.

lol frankalan...so you're saying that Iran would have continued allowing the shah to murder his own people because they would be afraid of our military? Putting the shah in in the first place has led to a huge amount of the animosity we are experiencing in the world right now and it was done for 2 reasons: to keep the Iranian govt from nationalizing the oil industry and the argument that "hey Ike they must be going with the communists mentality that existed then. In other words, we wanted to interefere in their affairs and it blew up in our faces.

hey rusty...how about the people our guys were killing? I see you forget about them as the opposite side is always "the thugs".

Answer 1

The whole world became Communist and... wait no. Communism fell like 20 yrs later on it's own no war or anything. Well may be we should ask Halliburton what they lost.

Answer 2

The whole idea of fighting in Vietnam, was inspired by the "Truman Doctrine" . That approach to communism was, to isolate it and prevent it from spreading to other countries. When N. and S. Vietnam were partitioned after the fall of the French in 1954(?) they each became seperate countries. The North,Communist, the South, a democratic republic. When the North tried to invade the South, we (United States) were obligated to protect South Vietnam as signatories of the South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO). The North was being supplied by Communist China and the USSR, and we supplied the South with materials and supplies until 1965 when we introduced combat troops. Escalation after escalation brought our military levels to 500,000 men by 1969, and we beat the N. Vietnamese from a military prospective. The problem was, that the S. Vietnamese government itself was so corroupt, that it was literally selling weapons and materials to the North! They lost the support of their people, and their soldier's willingness to fight after the Paris peace accord in January of 1973. It was only a matter of time before the North could roll right in and take over the South. We really didn't "lose" the war in Vietnam from a military standpoint. We lost the war of public opinion at home, but the S. Vietnamese lost the war on the field of battle. Now, IF the USSR had not fallen under it's own weight, our relations with Vietnam would be quite different today than they are. Vietnam (like China) recognizes that the true winner of that battle between capitalism and communism will be the one who can seperate political idealology from global commerce. China and Vietnam are winning that battle as evidenced by all the "Made in China" tags on most of the products we consume here in the states. I hope that answers your question to some degree. It really is more complex then I can elaborate on in this forum.

Answer 3

You're not going to easily find this information in the history books, and it can be difficult to understand. So bear with me.

The reason why we "lost" the Vietnam War was because we didn't need to fight it anymore.

Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. military had more than enough resources (soldiers and equipment) to end the war in a month if allowed to do so. Johnson micromanaged the War from the White House, because he didn't want to draw the Soviet Union and China into the conflict. He made the war un-winable.

Things changed a lot when Nixon became president. On the surface, Vietnamization was implemented to give the fighting back to the Vietnamese. Behind closed doors was Henry Kissinger's secret meetings with China and the real reason why the U.S. pulled out of the War.

"Only Nixon could go to China..."

The cold war was not just U.S.S.R. vs U.S.A. China was the third player. Kissinger was successful in negotiating with China to become our friends and shifting the balance of the cold war heavily in our favor. One of the stipulations of this new and powerful friendship was for the U.S. to withdraw from Vietnam.

With China as our ally. there was no need to worry about the communist domino effect in Southeast Asia (which did happen to an extent) and no need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to support South Vietnam.

As for fighting communism with bullets or by example. It's after-the-fact that we and the rest of the world knows communism doesn't work and would eventually destroy itself. This wasn't known at the time when the U.S. became involved in Vietnam. The Soviet Union had hundreds of nuclear missiles pointed at our country, while droves of countries around the world were becoming communists. Communism was perceived as a real threat to us during that time.

We can now look back, see the mistakes and try not to repeat them. The Vietnam War ended over 30 years ago, and we're now friends with a former enemy. Let's hope it doesn't take that long to become friends with whoever we're fighting in the Middle East.

Answer 4

MILLIONS OF LIVES were lost after the Democrats in Congress voted to stop financing the war in Vietnam, even though we were winning. Democrats don't recognize the difference between winning or loosing, that's why they want to surrender in Iraq after they have a new government and a voting public. I guess you guys can stop complaining about Al Gore now, he never lost anything either.

Answer 5

I was not there and I defer to any respondents who were. But in my opinion, first, we lost the territory itself, especially the Capital, Saigon. But on a larger scale, we were attempting to stop the spread of Communism through the region and the world. Poor Vietnam was just the battleground, not the real objective. So we lost our confrontation with Communism. However, later, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Communism appears to be on its last legs. It was felt at the time that it was necessary for us to make that terribly expensive stand in Vietnam.

Answer 6

All you lost is your pride when some third world country rife with poverty forced you out.
Then again that war wasn't really a war...it was called a "Police Action". They could come in and shoot you but you couldn't invade the north and shoot them.
I never could figure out why you even answered the call when the south asked you to intervene. It wasn't your fight and there was nothing to gain.
Go figure, huh?

Answer 7

Foreign policy was set back 20 years thanks to Vietnam. Our military suffered all kinds of downsizing and setbacks, which led them to their lowest point during the failed Hostage rescue effort in Iran. We are friends with the Vietnamese, because capitalism has for the most part defeated Communism. If the Vietcong still had their big brother; Soviet Union to rely on, they would still be hard lined against us and our way of life.

Answer 8

you lost honour. you lost a friendly country and its two neighbours, five milion people died. In the longer run, you handed another 20 countries to the commies all over the world- simply because the post vietnam US chickened out of every conflict. You lost your best middle eastern ally- Iran- the same way. You very nearly lost Europe. Were it not for Reagan, the US would have become an isolated island surrounded by an enemy world. Softly strangled.
Bless your luck, citizen of my former enemy. And I bless mine.

Answer 9

we lost our indentity as a unified country.from then on we evolved into individual, self serving,selfish collection of groups working for only what we want for ourselves with no regard for the big picture.
if this fits your definition of "pride" then so be it.i am not speaking of the current war in iraq but rather the war of them vs us right here in the US.the view that there is an "us" first and a "me" second is what we lost.

Answer 10

Maybe a little pride. That's it, no loss of commerce, contrary to what another answerer put in. And yes, it is so much easier to convert anyone to any "ism" by setting a good example, but conservatives prefer to destroy rather than to build up. It makes them feel so macho to send young soldiers to die.