1. I have long wondered whether the lack of candor of the Johnson Administration and the Vietnam-era military was the real start of the erosion of trust in American institutions that has accelerated to the point of performative cynicism in the last few years.
2. Mark Moyar's book "Triumph Foresaken" puts the lost opportunity earlier in the 1960s, and the foundational mistake in supporting Diem's coup. I read it when it was published about 17 years ago, so there is no doubt much more to that takeaway, but worth looking into. (It also should be said that his book, though published by Yale and heavily annotated with recently available Vietnamese sources, was derided by most academic reviewers, nearly as I can tell only because it held out the possibility of an American victory in the mid-sixties).
The Vietnam War was lost before it began. The partition of Vietnam by the 1954 Geneva Accords contained the seeds of destruction of South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese governments were always seen as under the control of first the French and then the Americans. There was no popular support for the government in broad swaths of the population. While the government of North Vietnam was certainly no less authoritarian than the South Vietnamese, it had the nationalist support that the South Vietnamese government never had.
The Army of the Republic of Vietnam was effectively subordinate to U.S. Armed Forces. During the United States intervention, the ARVN was never the primary fighting force. To believe that they could have risen to be effective opposition to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces flies in the face of reality.
The only way that we could have held South Vietnam is by occupying the country completely and making it essentially an American protectorate. We were not going to do that.
Another great essay! When Brands writes, however, that "Antiwar protesters deluded themselves and others in treating Ho Chi Minh as Vietnam’s answer to George Washington," we must remember what Eisenhower said about Vietnam. "In a free election, Ho Chi Minh would have won hands down." (I'm paraphrasing Ike's words.) Another commentator said (again, I'm paraphrasing): "If the US had played its cards right, Ho Chi Minh could have been the Tito of Southeast Asia."
Yes, the lying about Vietnam undermined popular trust in government. Then came Watergate, which delivered a second heavy blow.
Two thoughts.
1. I have long wondered whether the lack of candor of the Johnson Administration and the Vietnam-era military was the real start of the erosion of trust in American institutions that has accelerated to the point of performative cynicism in the last few years.
2. Mark Moyar's book "Triumph Foresaken" puts the lost opportunity earlier in the 1960s, and the foundational mistake in supporting Diem's coup. I read it when it was published about 17 years ago, so there is no doubt much more to that takeaway, but worth looking into. (It also should be said that his book, though published by Yale and heavily annotated with recently available Vietnamese sources, was derided by most academic reviewers, nearly as I can tell only because it held out the possibility of an American victory in the mid-sixties).
The Vietnam War was lost before it began. The partition of Vietnam by the 1954 Geneva Accords contained the seeds of destruction of South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese governments were always seen as under the control of first the French and then the Americans. There was no popular support for the government in broad swaths of the population. While the government of North Vietnam was certainly no less authoritarian than the South Vietnamese, it had the nationalist support that the South Vietnamese government never had.
The Army of the Republic of Vietnam was effectively subordinate to U.S. Armed Forces. During the United States intervention, the ARVN was never the primary fighting force. To believe that they could have risen to be effective opposition to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces flies in the face of reality.
The only way that we could have held South Vietnam is by occupying the country completely and making it essentially an American protectorate. We were not going to do that.
Another great essay! When Brands writes, however, that "Antiwar protesters deluded themselves and others in treating Ho Chi Minh as Vietnam’s answer to George Washington," we must remember what Eisenhower said about Vietnam. "In a free election, Ho Chi Minh would have won hands down." (I'm paraphrasing Ike's words.) Another commentator said (again, I'm paraphrasing): "If the US had played its cards right, Ho Chi Minh could have been the Tito of Southeast Asia."