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Regarding our Vietnam difficulties, I have some historical perspective. It was not long after the Johnson victory over Goldwater. I was in my later 20s and spending some time with a mixed age group of news junkies ranging from mid 20s to mid 40s. There was a lot of arguing about how Congress should vote on the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Older Democrats were arguing Congressional Dems should support Pres Johnson and vote for it. Some people knew freshly elected Dems who were against the war and wanted to vote against the
resolution. The older Dems said they should support the Pres or they would lose any chance of political favors on behalf of their districts. The younger Dems said these Congresspeople were elected by their constituents for their anti war views and should honor their voters’ wishes. I think there were 3 senators and 7 Congresspeople who voted against the resolution, and the war escalated.

The propaganda for the Vietnam War insisted on the “Domino Theory”, that if Vietnam fell to the Communists the countries of SE Asia would fall one by one to Communism like a row of dominoes. I was undecided so read the long article on the history of Vietnam in my Encyclopedia Britannica. I decided from that information that Vietnam had successfully kept China from controlling it for most of 700 years. In that same period there was often war between North and South Vietnam, and sometimes an independent Middle Kingdom which also was some times a part of the South or the North during that 700 year history. I discarded my fear of dominoes.

About that time I also recall seeing some information that caused me to conclude Kennedy was assassinated by Texans who wanted the war to grow to get big development contracts for a major Vietnam port handling war supplies, and other lucrative contracts, as well as other interested parties. I thought Johnson may have been aware of this, and his guilty conscience was one reason he pushed so hard for the Civil Rights Act.

A few years later I read that there were probably off shore oil deposits near Vietnam and also Lebanon. Possibly also reasons for some of the attention paid to these countries by political interests.

When the Tora Bora caves were being searched to find Osama bin Laden, I was shocked to learn the maps the CIA had made of those caves could NOT be found. I believe they were made/lost around the time of Bush 1’s CIA job or Presidency. Some military people I know believe bin Laden was allowed to escape so the US Military Industrial Complex (MIC1) could make lots of money on sales of war materiel. Now that our Medical Industrial Complex (MIC2) has milked most of the money from the Covid emergency, it appears political interest has moved back toward the interests of the MIC1 businesses.

Ukraine, very wisely, has also decided to start producing its own war materiel, especially the lower cost less highly technical ones like drones. It has also arranged for money and technical assistance from other European countries to help support this home grown military production. Lower cost items like night vision tools are also important military positives, and Ukraine is already doing a lot of damage with their lower cost methods. The cluster munitions give to Ukraine by the US are proving to be quite effective during the Russian “meat assaults.” We would have had to deactivate them soon ourselves for old age. Are we saying their full new price came out of the Ukraine budget, or was Ukraine charged the salvage cost and shipping? With careful budgeting and European support Ukraine can continue to fight quite well. Time will tell.

gleeaikin: "Regarding our Vietnam difficulties, I have some historical perspective.
It was not long after the Johnson victory over Goldwater.
I was in my later 20s and spending some time with a mixed age group of news junkies ranging from mid 20s to mid 40s.
There was a lot of arguing about how Congress should vote on the Gulf of Tonkin resolution."

I think we are on pretty much of the same side here.

Like you, I well remember the Vietnam war, and unlike you I haven't confused or conflated the dates or sequence of events.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was in early August, 1964, three months before the election pitting incumbent Democrat Pres. LB Johnson against Republican "Mr. Conservative" Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater.
In the campaign, Johnson ran "Daisy Girl" adds accusing Goldwater of wanting to start a nuclear war because Goldwater wanted to be certain, if we fight in Vietnam, we must fight to win, including potentially using tactical nukes.

In August 1964, the House of Representatives voted 416 to zero for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
In the US Senate, only two voted against: Morse of Oregon and Gruening of Alaska.
At the time the US had around 24,000 troops in Vietnam, mostly advisors, with total forces rising to ~860,000 in 1967.

In the early years, the US public generally supported the Vietnam war, so long as we believed in the victory which Westmoreland had promised.
But when the media convinced Americans that the 1967 Communist Tet Offensive was an American defeat, many turned against the war and Democrats in Congress eventually defunded South Vietnam, leading to the disgraceful withdrawal in 1975.

The important point here, in defining what the word "conservative" means to Americans is that "Mr. Conservative", Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, supported the war, with the caveat that he wanted to win it, with tactical nukes if necessary.

By contrast, Democrat Pres. Johnson had no plan to win the war, only to throw ever more troops into it, and then when the going got really tough, Democrats turned tails and ran away disgracefully.

That is the pattern I'd expect in Ukraine, if Democrats remain in charge after 2024.

Your insight is appreciated

South Korea would be part of North Korea if we handled them like we did south Vietnamese at the end of the war and stopped all support. We have a habit of doing that

Your point on weapons systems and costs is spot on. When yousell a used car(actually never had all of mine end up at the junk yard when I am done, had a Mazda 323 with 290k was hoping to get 323k, but almost laughably it was still Ryan’s taken for a joy ride which used up its 9th life), the new price is not part of the equation generally unless it is a lemon.
Abrams, Bradleys, Strykers, m-113 all bought and paid for and most of them are now excess and being or scheduled for replacement.

The dollar value given to them as if that is new monies out of the treasury is maddening. Additionally most of theses Espoo systems were designed and built to fight the soviets and basically that is what they are doing without the loss of US servicemembers

The Ukrainians are fighting far more like the south Koreans did, and not the Iraqis, afghans, and to some extent south Vietnamese, for sure the civilian support for Ukraine by Ukrainians far exceeds anything seen by those three

Russian continued support for the war just reinforces my opinion that the Russian psyche is unique and a combination of many factors, fear, control, lack of truth