[Verginius Rufus]

Eisenhower first articulated the "domino theory" in 1954. We thought countries would fall like dominoes one by one if we didn't stop the process. We thought Communism would remain monolithic as it appeared to be then. In fact nationalism remained important (it's why Tito was able to defy Stalin). Vietnam had a long history of opposing Chinese domination.

I think our basic problem in Vietnam is that we were foreigners and most of the South Vietnamese did not understand what Communism would mean for them (other than those who had fled from the North after the peace settlement in 1954).

Today Vietnam and Laos have Communist governments but Cambodia and Thailand do not. So the other dominoes did not fall. Of course Cambodia had the Khmer Rouge regime for a few years until the Vietnamese ousted it, but would Thailand have become Communist if the US had not fought in Vietnam? Maybe the Khmer Rouge would not have been able to conquer Cambodia if the US-Vietnam War had not happened.

[dfwgator]

I think our basic problem in Vietnam is that we were foreigners and most of the South Vietnamese did not understand what Communism would mean for them (other than those who had fled from the North after the peace settlement in 1954).

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The government of South Vietnam was dominated by Catholics, even though most of the country is Buddhist. Hard to win “hearts and minds” that way.

[marktwain]

Today Vietnam and Laos have Communist governments but Cambodia and Thailand do not.

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Even the “communist” government of Vietnam is pretty capitalistic.

But all of that is hindsight. As you mention, at the time, Communism seemed monolithic.

I think, if we had supported Ho Chi Min as a possibile nationalist after the French, it might have been a workable strategy. Hindsight is pretty good. It is easy to see why Communism was such an enormous threat in 1954.