Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to "The world still looks the same, and history ain't changed"

re: history ain't changed
TB — (archived)

We have no idea what would have happened if Vietnam had been allowed to simply quietly be taken over in a few months by the communists with very little expenditure of money and support by the Soviets. Or what would have happened to the rest of Southeast Asia.

The Soviet Union's preferred method of absorption was political, not military, and it worked quite well for most of their client nations. The fall of Saigon came only about a decade before the Soviet Union itself collapsed, and despite your snide characterizations, many people whose opinion I respect say that their military and other expenditures in Vietnam had something to do with that collapse.

One of the most pervasive myths I've seen about the Cold War is that if the U.S. had only stayed out of it, it would have just somehow fizzled away.

The "shouldn't have gone into Vietnam" thesis has several corollaries. We shouldn't have supported anti-communists in Central America or elsewhere. We shouldn't have confronted the Soviets with our military spending. No Strategic Defense. No missiles in Europe.

No nothing.

Oh, maybe some disappointed speeches in the U.N.

In each case, it's assumed that just letting the Soviets have their way would have somehow worked out all right in the end.

Another point of view.

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