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Yes, but no. The protestors (not each of them personally, but in general the movement) was part of the reason why US lost this war. And if US didn't lose the war, Vietnam could be what South Korea is now. Which is better than what it is now. So is the lost war "worth it"? Probably not, that's why it's called a lost one. But if you approach every war with the premise that you may lose and therefore you can't fight, then you lose all the wars in advance. And one of the reasons that Vietnam is now quasi-capitalist is because the US did not lose some other wars, including winning the main one - the Cold War. Did Vietnam war make the world better? No, it did not, because the good guys lost. If they didn't, it would. That happened in other places where the good guys didn't lose.
In that counterfactual the US stops fighting the Cold War, USSR still exists now, owns major parts of the world, and half of the US is thinking when we stop being so stupid and join the societal model that is clearly winning, namely socialism. I don't think it's a good future to be in. Yes, losing a war sucks. But losing all wars in advance would suck much more.
HOLY FALSE DILEMMA BATMAN
The US didn't stop fighting the cold war when China became the PRC, or when Cuba fell, or when Vietnam did in fact fall. Why would the US have suddenly given in because Vietnam went Red?
The time to make a decision in Vietnam was before Dienbienphu. After that Vietnam was always going to be united under a Vietminh regime.
Not expending national credibility on that lost cause would have made the Capitalist American system more attractive on the global stage, not less. We can tell because US prestige declined after the defeat in Vietnam!
The Sino-Soviet split was already happening before the US entered Vietnam.
What would have helped Vietnam develop significantly would have been ending the destructive war earlier, so they could have gotten along with the industrialization process and started selling me cheap workout clothing. You can tell because Vietnam today is where South Korea was 30 years ago, and Vietnam fought a series of destructive wars for 30 years longer than South Korea did.
No, you approaching it with the wrong end. The US that would willingly give up Vietnam to the reds, without trying to do anything, would also give up without trying Poland, Afghanistan, and many other things that together brought the Cold War to victory. By itself, the loss of Vietnam obviously weren't fatal - obviously! - but becoming a type of country that doesn't even try to fight may be fatal for the chances to ultimate victory.
You are comparing it to the situation where US won in Vietnam. Compare to situation where it didn't even try.
The US DID give up Poland without trying! That's a thing that really happened! Not ten years before the Gulf of Tonkin, the US failed to help the Hungarians who were ready to stand against the USSR. During the Vietnam War the US would abandon the Prague Spring to its fate. The ding to US prestige from failing to aid the Hungarians or the Czechs was small, in fact it was probably less than the debit to USSR credibility worldwide resulting from those invasions. In fact the damage done to the US was so small, you don't even remember it! The ding from losing in Vietnam was large, and the damage done by the United States' behavior in Vietnam (and the rest of Indochina) was even larger. From this we can deduce that US global prestige suffered less from scenarios in which they didn't try than scenarios in which they tried and lost.
Nope. Solidarnosc had a lot of support from the US, though it was not all in the open. Reagan lead a lot of it.
With Hungary and Czechia it was different - those were already considered owned by USSR, so it was USSR atrocities in their own space rather than the US losing to them.
If it didn't try, what "prestige" you are talking about? Prestige of doing what? Sitting in their corner of the world and silently watching as USSR eats the rest of it?
Wait, I missed something, who was Solidarnosc fighting against? Because I'm pretty sure they were fighting against a regime the US simply let walk into Poland.
You seem to be confusing different historical periods. When USSR took over Poland, there wasn't even the Cold War - in fact, most of it happened while US and USSR had been allies and fought together against Hitler. Opening that question back then would hardly be possible. However, things were much different years later, when the Cold War was in full swing.
I disagree with that historiography, the first red scare happened decades earlier. Enmity between the Capitalist USA and the USSR started with the latter's birth, or preceded it.
I don't know how you're making your assumptions about what does or doesn't impact credibility other than assuming the consequent.
This is true, but that initial enmity has officially ended in 1930s by FDR, and turned into an alliance in the 1940s and had highs and lows since then. You seem to be making some kind of a point that there was one constant policy over seven decades of USSR existence, but it was a multitude of different policies. Sometimes US chose to fight, sometimes they chose to sit aside, sometimes they chose to ally with USSR against common enemy.
I'm not sure what you mean by "credibility" here. My point is very simple - if US chose to never fight, it would not lose any specific wars to USSR, but it would lose everything, and in that hypothetical world, we'd still have USSR right now, probably owning most of Europe, Africa, Latin America and China owning Asia. Fortunately, we live in a better world - the one when US sometimes chose to fight, and ultimately won, even despite losing some wars. I don't see any possibility of avoiding any lost wars in advance, except giving up from start and not fighting at all.
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