USSR? I know, officially they didn't go there, but in reality they did and their soldiers died there. So did soldiers and officers from other nations of the Warsaw Pact (example- Ryszard Kukliński, although he survived).
I believe Russia supplied tanks and MIGs. Probably AK47s or their predecessors, and other things, esp intelligence. Remember, Communist China was younger, not as technological. This was a Cold War conflict.....all you heard from Republican politicians was the Domino Theory. They were certain all of Asia would go communistic if we did not keep South Vietnam non-communist.
I heard that from the Democrats as well...you know, JFK and LBJ really ramped up US involvement and it was DDE that kept our involvement minimal and Nixon/Ford that got us out.
You certainly did hear the same domino theory and you certainly did see the same ramping up of involvement under the Democrats. But the Republicans weren't necessarily opposed to this. Nixon and Ford did get us out, but only after they ramped up US involvement too and it became clear that even with that we would never win. Nixon *would have* been as fully committed to the Vietnam War as LBJ was had it looked sustainable, just as Nixon *was* fully committed to a mass campaign of carpet-bombing before pulling us out.
Recent scholarship based on declassified documents shows that it was even more complicated. Nixon apparently persuaded the South Vietnamese not to accept a settlement in the waning days of the Johnson administration. (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/notes-indicate-nixon-interfered-1968-peace-talks-180961627/ is an early version of this story). Allegedly, Nixon did not want a peace agreement to undermine his chances of defeating Humphrey in '68. Once Nixon was elected (and the college deferment eliminated), anti-war sentiment increased even more. That pushed Nixon into the '73 Paris Accords, which were similar to the '68 proposal.
Ford had little to do with the US's original military withdrawal from Vietnam. He just did not send in US troops when North Vietnam was on the verge of victory, electing to evacuate instead. He may or may not have been reneging on an unwritten assurance by Nixon.
Yes, this was in flagrant defiance of the Logan Act, which forbids non-government agents from engaging in foreign diplomacy. Nixon completely sabotaged the peace talks in Paris, basically by assuring the South Vietnamese not to co-operate, telling them that he’d get them a better treaty if they held out.
Overall, LBJ’s presidency would have been one of the most successful in American history, but for the giant stain of Vietnam. Who knows how history would have judged Johnson had the Paris talks been a success and who knows how many of these deaths could have been avoided?
I was also surprised. Australia's been one of the USA's staunchest military allies, joining in pretty much every war for the past 100 years with the US, even the unpopular ones like Vietnam and Iraq.
Possibly there were a lot of people who did the same thing I did: typed "Vietnam" and when it didn't work, thought that it was excluded from the start because it was the subject of the quiz. It's only a minute before the end, after trying every country in the vicinity and around the Pacific without finding the top 2 slots, that I remembered Vietnam was separated into two countries at the time.
That's generally seen as a different war, The First Indochina war. What Americans consider the Vietnam War is the Second Indochina war (or American war for the Vietnamese).
^ If France is to be excluded, then the range should be changed from 1955-1975 to somewhere around 1960 to 1975. JFK first sent "advisors" in 1961, and LBJ escalated by sending troops in 1965. So the US involvement would be closer to 14 years, not twenty.
France was at war in Vietnam 46 to 54 and was a colonial war, France fighting to keep it's colonial foothold in South East Asia. A different war to the North / South Vietnam war.
People just guess as many Asian countries as they can. "China" is more obvious than "North/South Vietnam" because those countries no longer exist (or at least are no longer referred to as such).
They do have a remarkably high win percentage compared to other countries, even if Vietnam was probably their most glaring loss. "Best?" whole different argument and can of worms. Best at making war? Probably. (and I don't mean that they make the most wars; rather that they are the best at carrying out the ones they make) They mucked up this one. Though this war was really France's fault; the US tried to get France to give up the colony in the 40s/50s until deGaulle pressured them to back down and even get involved. Once they had committed to helping the South Vietnamese they were kind of stuck. Still a shame how things played out.
No one called it Kampuchea. It was Pol Pot's regime that (briefly) changed the name until his murderous regime was ousted by the freedom loving Vietnamese. Who then moved on to a border war with China.
Wow! Earlier today I had been thinking about making a quiz on this, called "Countries in the Vietnam War". I had checked under a couple of similar names, and then decided I would start the quiz later on. How surprised I was to hit the random button and land on this quiz! At least I hadn't started yet, I enjoy these war quizzes.
At the time vietnam was seperated into 2 countries: North Vietnam and South Vietnam. After 30 April 1975 the two countries back into Vietnam that we know today.
I'm not sure what Djibouti is getting it, but if you accept the North Vietnamese narrative, then Vietnam as a country declared independence from France after WW2, and then they were fighting the foreign-backed puppet government of the South until unification, but they never recognized the South Vietnamese government as legitimate, and never called themselves "North Vietnam"- they were just Viet Nam.
You can count South Vietnam casualties as American's because they were supported by americans. So Ratio here is 1,1 to 1 in favor of Americans. But ! South Vietnam completely lost and stopped existing, while North Vietnam continued its existence
Ford had little to do with the US's original military withdrawal from Vietnam. He just did not send in US troops when North Vietnam was on the verge of victory, electing to evacuate instead. He may or may not have been reneging on an unwritten assurance by Nixon.
Overall, LBJ’s presidency would have been one of the most successful in American history, but for the giant stain of Vietnam. Who knows how history would have judged Johnson had the Paris talks been a success and who knows how many of these deaths could have been avoided?
🇮🇪🇮🇪
USA
Americans are the best and have won every warDon't **** with the Vietnamese
https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/event/vietnam
https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/vietnam_mia (This is the source listed by Wikipedia)