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What if there was no Vietnam War?

SmartCat said:
The only countries that might have "gone Communist" without American involvement in Vietnam were countries with unpopular governments. India was not in danger. After the death of Sukarno Indonesia was. When I consider the human rights violations of the Suharto government, I am not sure a Communist government in Indonesia would have been worse.
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You need ask yourself why they were unpopular governments and the role of the US State Department and CIA in that unpopularity. It has been demonstrated that American involvement in central and south America actually helped foster communism. And we have the big-daddy of them all, the extremely corrupt American puppet president and Mafia lackey Fogencia Batista whose execution squads got their training from the US military
 
Fearandloathing said:
In my humble opinion that's a damn fine thread.

The US wayyyyy over-estimated communism, in fact they were so **** scared they invaded a tiny little island in the Caribbean and held them under embargo illegally for 50 ****ing years!
With the declassification of classified Soviet documents, it was discovered that the entire "empire" had been a carrot and stick regime for years.

There never was a remote chance of the "domino theory" either. But it shows how the imagination of a few ignorant and frightened can lead to a half a million dead Americans and the blackest eye in American history.
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So Communist nukes in Cuba were no big deal?
 
SmartCat said:
The only countries that might have "gone Communist" without American involvement in Vietnam were countries with unpopular governments. India was not in danger.
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We can never know. As of 1965, Global Victory of Communism is very very possible.
 
Fearandloathing said:
You need ask yourself why they were unpopular governments and the role of the US State Department and CIA in that unpopularity. It has been demonstrated that American involvement in central and south America actually helped foster communism. And we have the big-daddy of them all, the extremely corrupt American puppet president and Mafia lackey Fogencia Batista whose execution squads got their training from the US military
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What you say is of course true. During the Cold War the United States told right wing dictators, "We will support you against the Big Communist Menace, but we would like for you to become less corrupt and tyrannical."

The dictators smiled politely, but they knew we would support them regardless of what they did and failed to do.
 
JC Callender said:
So Communist nukes in Cuba were no big deal?
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"Communist" nukes were in Cuba because Kennedy had secretly placed nukes in Turkey on the Soviet border.

The stand off ended when Kennedy backed down and told Kruschev he would remove the Turkish missiles.

Virtually every 'act of aggression' claimed by the US was actually a response to their own aggression. Putin took over Crimea because the US had been undermining the duly-elected, pro-Moscow government of the day.
 
SCitizen said:
We can never know. As of 1965, Global Victory of Communism is very very possible.
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I doubt it very seriously.

The danger during the Cold War was of a nuclear war for which the United States may have been responsible.
 
SmartCat said:
We know what happened when the Soviets tried to impose a Communist government over a Muslim country. It did not turn out well.
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That was Soviet version of Vietnam War.
 
SmartCat said:
What you say is of course true. During the Cold War the United States told right wing dictators, "We will support you against the Big Communist Menace, but we would like for you to become less corrupt and tyrannical."

The dictators smiled politely, but they knew we would support them regardless of what they did and failed to do.
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"Of course he's a crude, sadistic asshole, but he's OUR crude, sadistic asshole" I believe was the quote from Robert McNamara about the Diem regime. Civil rights and how the people were treated made no difference to them, it was all about real estate, who had more influence, the US or the SR
 
SmartCat said:
The North Vietnamese Army did not threaten the government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. They just wanted to get away from American bombing. I can't blame them.
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I hate to break it to you, but invading a country because you are losing a war you started in the first place isn't an acceptable tactic.
 
Fearandloathing said:
"Communist" nukes were in Cuba because Kennedy had secretly placed nukes in Turkey on the Soviet border.

The stand off ended when Kennedy backed down and told Kruschev he would remove the Turkish missiles.

Virtually every 'act of aggression' claimed by the US was actually a response to their own aggression. Putin took over Crimea because the US had been undermining the duly-elected, pro-Moscow government of the day.
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So the Soviets were essentially good governments not trying to harm anyone including their own people and America couldn't stop harassing them so they had no choice but to fight back?
 
SmartCat said:
The French were fighting a colonial struggle for independence, like our own American Revolution.
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A colonial struggle for independence so they could be suppressed by communists instead of Europeans. That's like going out of the frying pan and into the fire.
 
Fearandloathing said:
"Communist" nukes were in Cuba because Kennedy had secretly placed nukes in Turkey on the Soviet border.

The stand off ended when Kennedy backed down and told Kruschev he would remove the Turkish missiles.

Virtually every 'act of aggression' claimed by the US was actually a response to their own aggression. Putin took over Crimea because the US had been undermining the duly-elected, pro-Moscow government of the day.
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Right. They crushed the Hungarians in '56 and the Czechs in '68 because of "American aggression". They gave the Norks the go ahead in '50 because that too. Oh wait.....
 
SmartCat said:
I doubt it very seriously.

The danger during the Cold War was of a nuclear war for which the United States may have been responsible.
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Thanks, my button still doesn't work.

The real danger of a nuclear war in the 60's was the terrible state of Russian technology. After the fall of Soviet, it was revealed that Russian technology was so bad the end of the world was more likely a result of a bird flying into their radar. They also discovered that "secret" nuke stashes hidden in the Siberian wilderness were fake, there were missile silos, no missiles.
There is a bit of lore around that the US had a plane in trouble and fly into Russian airspace, and the radar op chose not to fire. Another version of the story was that he did, but the missile never launched. Either could be true.
 
Fearandloathing said:
Thanks, my button still doesn't work.

The real danger of a nuclear war in the 60's was the terrible state of Russian technology. After the fall of Soviet, it was revealed that Russian technology was so bad the end of the world was more likely a result of a bird flying into their radar. They also discovered that "secret" nuke stashes hidden in the Siberian wilderness were fake, there were missile silos, no missiles.
There is a bit of lore around that the US had a plane in trouble and fly into Russian airspace, and the radar op chose not to fire. Another version of the story was that he did, but the missile never launched. Either could be true.
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The Cold War was the result of a colossal and catastrophically dangerous miscalculation. The United States did not want to conquer the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union did not want to conquer the United States. Each side thought the other wanted to conquer it.

In order to counter the imaginary thread of aggression from the other side each side prepared to fight a nuclear war that would have destroyed both sides, and much the rest of the world. :doh
 
SmartCat said:
The Cold War was the result of a colossal and catastrophically dangerous miscalculation. The United States did not want to conquer the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union did not want to conquer the United States. Each side thought the other wanted to conquer it.

In order to counter the imaginary thread of aggression from the other side each side prepared to fight a nuclear war that would have destroyed both sides, and much the rest of the world. :doh
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That completely spells it out. But the mutual fear pre-dated the war. My history of that era is not good enough to reason why, only that it's been there for a century.
When I was a kid and arrived from rural Ontario, I was astonished that we pledged allegiance to the flag every morning, and every morning we would get a reading or a talk about the horrors of communism. It was more religious ritual than I had been subjected to by the freaking Catholics.
At teen age, I saw it as total indoctrination, we were being made to fear an ideology....one which once examined closely at the college level is doomed. Marx was a dreamer who was blatantly unaware of human nature.
But then fear plays a big role in American politics, from commies to terrorists, the threat has always been over-exaggerated as a means to obtain or hold power. Canada accepted 25,000 Muslims and people in here insisted they will 'rape your women".
Much of what Trump is spewing isn't much different than what Barrie Goldwater was spewing. Remember, Nixon made his name on commie hunting, and the famous "Pumpkin spy case". Reagan scared the **** out of the Kremlin and is still cheered. Had it not been for the "war on terror" George Bush would never have seen a second term.
Fear works.
 
JC Callender said:
So Communist nukes in Cuba were no big deal?
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They were put there in order to deter an American invasion of Cuba. The United States had already sponsored the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

The United States already had similar missiles in Turkey that were as threatening to the Soviet Union as were the Soviet missiles in Cuba.

In a few years inter continental ballistic missiles made the missiles in Turkey and Cuba obsolete anyway.
 
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