For all you brilliant strategists, Vietnam was won and became a disaster when the radical democrats in Congress cut off all funding during a communist attack.
The Chinese are very glad we don’t have Camh Ran Bay.
The Vietnam War was never “ won”
At least not by us
The North Viets were proxies for the Chicoms and we just never had the stomach for going there to take on China for dominance of the South China Sea littoral
The war was settled diplomatically between Kissinger and the Chinese, the Viets and surrounding “ domino countries” that fell were freed to purge all opposition to the communist party and warlords that took political power, and millions of civilians abandoned by the US in the deal perished trying to escape by sea, were sent to reeducation centers or to labor in the countryside, a strategy Mao used in China to dismantle the urbanized educated and intellectual classes.
“...Vietnam was won...”
Yeah, but not by the US. The United States entered Vietnam with the principal purpose of preventing a communist takeover of the region because of a treaty with the French when they bailed. In that respect, it failed: the two Vietnams were united under a communist banner in July 1976. Neighbouring Laos and Cambodia similarly fell to communists. And we got chased out of there, (sound familiar like Afghanistan, maybe) as domestic unrest in the region and the financial cost of war made peace—and troop withdrawals—a necessity, not a choice.
We never had a chance in that one. It was destined to end the way it did. All we did was tread water and get people killed, ours, the biet, and theirs.
wy69