Hardcore History 42 & 42.5 Logical Insanity

[SuburbanFarmer]

Media.

[Ex-California]

Media.

I've also played with the idea of bombing them with consumerism. Give them Funyuns, Nikes and Kardashians

[Smitty-48]

Bombing them with cosumerism certainly worked on the Vietnamese, worked like a charm.

Thing is though, the Vietnamese Nationalists were always America's natural allies, they never wanted a war with America, they only turned to the Soviets for assistance, because America chose to back French Colonialism in Indochina against Vietnamese Manifest Destiny.

[TheReal_ND]

This doesn't seem correct. They were communist already. They didn't turn to Russia for any ideology but for arms.

[Smitty-48]

This doesn't seem correct. They were communist already. They didn't turn to Russia for any ideology but for arms.

Ah, the other American mistake; Communists were not a monolith, they actually hated each other, the Chinese hated the Soviets, the Vietnamese hated the Chinese, they were not actually allies, in the case of the Vietnamese, America could have pitted them against the Chinese, in the case of the Chinese, America could have pitted them against the Soviets, ultimately, that is what America did, it just took America half a century to pull its head out of its ass.

The Vietnamese are still Communists, now they are simply your Vietnamese Communist allies, against the Chinese Communists.

America's obsession with ideological bugaboos, is of course always its imperial undoing, whenever America jettisons the ideological rigidy and instead embraces realpolitik, America starts to win again.

There was no Communist Bloc, there were no Dominoes, that was all an American self inflcited paranoid delusion, Kennedy's Best and Brightest weren't actually all that bright after all, once they were fired and Nixonian realpolitik took over; allowing the Vietnamese Nationalist Communists to take Vietnam, pitted two Communist regimes against one another, tying them both down, and forcing them both to deal with America on America's terms.

[TheReal_ND]

Well that's basically what I meant. The Chicoms hated the hegemonist Soviets with a passion. I don't think the North Vietnamese turned to Russia for anything other than arms. There was no real ideological pivot therein.

[Smitty-48]

Well that's basically what I meant. The Chicoms hated the hegemonist Soviets with a passion. I don't think they turned to Russia for anything other than arms, there was no real ideological pivot therein.

The Vietnamese didn't actually beat the Americans with the Soviet arms, the Vietnamese arms of decision, were actually provided by America, America flooded South Vietnam with American weapons, the South Vietnamese nationalists simply funneled those arms to their North Vietnamese allies, either by selling them, or just leaving them lying around so they could be stolen, and/or the Ameicans simply dropped them out of airplanes into the jungle.

The arm of decision in the Vietnam War, was the booby trap, the vast majority of them assembled by components Made in America, then turned around by the Vietnamese and used against Americans.

[TheReal_ND]

What were we doing with Chicom kaleshnikovs?

Edit:n/m I see what you're saying.

[Smitty-48]

None of the Soviet stuff was what beat the Americans, from AK-47's to MiG-21's, in any head to head engagement, the Americans would win, the way to beat the Americans, was the booby trap, the booby trap is the arm of decision which won the Vietnam War, and the components which the booby traps were made of, were Made in America.

The Americans bombed themselves in Vietnam, they bombed Vietnam with booby traps, then the American troops walked right into them.

The Americans bombed themselves in Iraq, they bombed the Iraqi infrastructure, then took control of what they had bombed, only to find out that they actually needed all that stuff to run the country, but it was so broken from years of bombing it, that even the Americans couldn't fix it.