How would the world be different today if the US had stayed out of the Vietnam War?
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How would the world be different today if the US had stayed out of the Vietnam War?
I know very little about this war and wouldn't mind maybe reading a book about it. But I don't know where to start. I'd love something that added context without pushing a political agenda. So I don't want an anti-communist book, or really even an explicitly ani-capitalist one. I'd like to think I could understand the power vectors and their impact on ordinary people. This is hard to do!
@futurebird This should *not* be the only book you read, but this tells part of the story. (And yes, this is Max Boot, but he does a pretty good job with military history.)
Tagging @PhoenixSerenity who is far more knowledgeable.
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@roknrol @futurebird Like "Flight of the Intruder"
@roknrol @futurebird The "best" material I have found on Vietnam is on Youtube: videos of broadcast news reports made by reporters actually stationed with American troops going into Vietnamese villages, but that was censored from the evening news at the time.
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"But, Mr. Block why would the the USSR put nuclear missiles in Cuba? They had to know the US would be frightened and angry about that?"
"Well they just wanted the whole world to be communist. They really thought communism would work. We don't have time to dwell on this there are six more units we need to complete before the AP* exam."
*AP stands for "Advanced Placement" I was in a 'advanced' history course and I earned an A! My head is empty nonetheless.
@futurebird @roknrol Curricula love to leave out the part where the US had nuclear missiles in Turkey
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I you are horrified that I'm a dumb American who doesn't know history I want to warn you that I'm considered a wonky history nerd in most circles (totally unearned) and most people in the US know much much much less than I do.
Anyway. Time to learn again.
@futurebird USAmericans not learning about their imperialist, anti-communist wars is like Spaniard's not learning about the Spanish Civil War: something by design, because the people who benefited from it do not want most people to understand and learn from it.
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What does a typical US high school education teach about this war?
"The US went to Vietnam to save people from Communism, but it got messy and maybe it wasn't worth it."
That's about it. This must be... not even close to the whole story.
A lot of people including a significant chunk of American soldiers died in this war. When it started the US public supported it. By the time it ended most people didn't, though feelings are "complex."
@futurebird Honestly I don't think that's far off, I mean we had the Red Scare in the early 50's, the Korean War was largely about stopping the commies (unsuccessfully), and Vietnam was basically Korean War II. There was a real belief that in the domino theory, if one country became communist, then another would and another and another until the entire world was part of the USSR (this is actually shown in the pilot episode of Sliders). It really was one of the stupidest US wars with no real value to it beyond that. -
"But, Mr. Block why would the the USSR put nuclear missiles in Cuba? They had to know the US would be frightened and angry about that?"
"Well they just wanted the whole world to be communist. They really thought communism would work. We don't have time to dwell on this there are six more units we need to complete before the AP* exam."
*AP stands for "Advanced Placement" I was in a 'advanced' history course and I earned an A! My head is empty nonetheless.
@futurebird@sauropods.wi Low-effort snark, but: “History is anything the ruling elite want memory-holed. Everything else is propaganda.”
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@roknrol @futurebird The "best" material I have found on Vietnam is on Youtube: videos of broadcast news reports made by reporters actually stationed with American troops going into Vietnamese villages, but that was censored from the evening news at the time.
@roknrol @futurebird One of the most compelling histories I have read was an account by a guy who was a Huey pilot and did all the troop transport missions into and out of combat, and how they would land the helicopters in the river so that the water would wash the blood out the doors. There's stuff like that that you will never get from a history book.
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@roknrol @futurebird One of the most compelling histories I have read was an account by a guy who was a Huey pilot and did all the troop transport missions into and out of combat, and how they would land the helicopters in the river so that the water would wash the blood out the doors. There's stuff like that that you will never get from a history book.
I think I have a decent understanding of how the war progressed once it started. But I don't really get why it started.
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@roknrol @futurebird One of the most compelling histories I have read was an account by a guy who was a Huey pilot and did all the troop transport missions into and out of combat, and how they would land the helicopters in the river so that the water would wash the blood out the doors. There's stuff like that that you will never get from a history book.
@roknrol @futurebird I also found the personal history of @PhoenixSerenity to be compelling, I had never heard the story from the Vietnamese side, and about what happened immediately after American withdrawal, her story of her parents war was extremely illuminating.
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"But, Mr. Block why would the the USSR put nuclear missiles in Cuba? They had to know the US would be frightened and angry about that?"
"Well they just wanted the whole world to be communist. They really thought communism would work. We don't have time to dwell on this there are six more units we need to complete before the AP* exam."
*AP stands for "Advanced Placement" I was in a 'advanced' history course and I earned an A! My head is empty nonetheless.
There’s always a lot of context that’s implicit even to the people writing history. For example, consider Irish and English history. There’s a common narrative that Ireland was oppressed by the English, and there’s a lot of evidence to support that implicitly nationalist telling.
But there’s another story that the Normans (Norse folks who had settled in Northern France) invaded England and installed themselves as a new aristocracy. After about a hundred years, they’d run out of land to give to their friends and so conquered Ireland as well and installed themselves as an aristocracy there. They then continued to oppress both countries, Ireland more so than England. When the Irish rebelled, they recruited English regiments (from people whose other option was usually starvation) to kill the rebels. The classist narrative also has a lot of evidence to support it.
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@futurebird USAmericans not learning about their imperialist, anti-communist wars is like Spaniard's not learning about the Spanish Civil War: something by design, because the people who benefited from it do not want most people to understand and learn from it.
@Illuminatus @futurebird and because we *lost* the big war, the Germans get to learn nothing*but* third Reich in history.
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I you are horrified that I'm a dumb American who doesn't know history I want to warn you that I'm considered a wonky history nerd in most circles (totally unearned) and most people in the US know much much much less than I do.
Anyway. Time to learn again.
@futurebird you didn't need to say that others know even less about history: it's obvious from your recent election results.
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I think I have a decent understanding of how the war progressed once it started. But I don't really get why it started.
@futurebird @roknrol THey killed Kennedy over Cuba and communism, then Johnson became President, and still believed in the power of the American military. He wanted to go in, get rid of the communists, and start a development program to damn the me kong river and turn it into a powerhouse like the TVA - American companies pushed for the war. "Domino Theory" was really a cover for corporate colonialism.
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How would the world be different today if the US had stayed out of the Vietnam War?
I know very little about this war and wouldn't mind maybe reading a book about it. But I don't know where to start. I'd love something that added context without pushing a political agenda. So I don't want an anti-communist book, or really even an explicitly ani-capitalist one. I'd like to think I could understand the power vectors and their impact on ordinary people. This is hard to do!
@futurebird To understand the Vietnam War you have to understand the Korean War. In which the Americans lost half of Korea.
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@futurebird @roknrol THey killed Kennedy over Cuba and communism, then Johnson became President, and still believed in the power of the American military. He wanted to go in, get rid of the communists, and start a development program to damn the me kong river and turn it into a powerhouse like the TVA - American companies pushed for the war. "Domino Theory" was really a cover for corporate colonialism.
But if communism is so bad it will just fail on its own. Just stand back and watch while you keep trading and making money.
This only makes sense if we talk about power rather than ideology. Who gets to have power...
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But if communism is so bad it will just fail on its own. Just stand back and watch while you keep trading and making money.
This only makes sense if we talk about power rather than ideology. Who gets to have power...
@futurebird @roknrol Yep, and at the time, they were looking at what they thought was a multi-polar world, with a VERY SUCCESSFUL Soviet Union to compete against - it wasn't the Chinese we were worried about so much as the Soviets. They still believed in the centrality of European economies to world order, were afraid of more Russian expansion to the west after Poland etc and wished to fight "somewhere else" that wasn't so close to home. So, Vietnam.
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@futurebird @roknrol Yep, and at the time, they were looking at what they thought was a multi-polar world, with a VERY SUCCESSFUL Soviet Union to compete against - it wasn't the Chinese we were worried about so much as the Soviets. They still believed in the centrality of European economies to world order, were afraid of more Russian expansion to the west after Poland etc and wished to fight "somewhere else" that wasn't so close to home. So, Vietnam.
@futurebird @roknrol Don't forget, the Soviets were busy invading Europe, being first into space, and were providing weapons all over the world. They were an actually scary threat to American capitalists.
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@futurebird @roknrol Curricula love to leave out the part where the US had nuclear missiles in Turkey
@vikxin
i noticed it in my history book and i brougjt it up and was told something to the effect of that its not applicable. i dont exactly remember since its nearing a decade since i heard it but the impression was that i were to drop it.
@futurebird @roknrol -
@futurebird @roknrol Don't forget, the Soviets were busy invading Europe, being first into space, and were providing weapons all over the world. They were an actually scary threat to American capitalists.
@futurebird @roknrol And an important part of the answer to "why Vietnam" is that the US and Russia were still figuring out how to have wars in what everyone had predicted was a "post-war" age after WW2 - we had nuked Japan, Europe had needed to be rebuilt, entire states had been created, and were now being absorbed by an expanding Communist Empire, but we could not conflict directly with the USSR. So we invented the idea of the Proxy War, which is what Vietnam really was.
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Yeah, I hated history class because it made no damn sense. Learning as an adult I now find it really interesting. Because the events of the past do make sense, it's just US history as taught in school leaves so much out, contains so many white lies that it's hard to even follow.
@futurebird @roknrol I can relate to that.
For people who like (historic) novels, I can totally recommend the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett.
Century Trilogy Reading Order: Complete Guide (2026)
Complete reading order for Ken Follett's Century Trilogy. 3 epic books spanning WWI to the Cold War across 5 families, 1911-1989. Start here.
Historical Shelf (historicalshelf.com)
It's really a lot to read, I listened to the audio books which are a bit more than 100 hours in total.
