[the scotsman]

Next year is the 40th anniversary of the American defeat in Vietnam. Just thought you might have forgotten.

[Vermont Lt]

I wonder if we will see a cake of out embassy with a chopper on the roof?

[dmz]

Next year is the 40th anniversary of the American defeat in Vietnam. Just thought you might have forgotten.

<><><><

And the 65th anniversary of Dunkirk.

[Brad from Tennessee]

[Next year is the 40th anniversary of the American defeat in Vietnam. Just thought you might have forgotten.]

The fall of Vietnam was not a defeat of American arms but a betrayal by the U.S. who cut of all funding and air and naval support to the RVN who was battling an enemy equipped and financed by the Soviet Union.

The unstated strategy behind U.S. involvement—expressed by LBJ to Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines—was to force the Soviets and the Chinese to commit scarce resources to Indochina, thus depriving other Third World Marxist insurgencies in Asia and elsewhere. In theory this would allow post-colonial, emerging states outside Indochina to stabilize and gain the strength needed to resist communism. Whether this grand strategy worked or not is a matter of conjecture.

The Soviets inherited Vietnam but it was an economic basket case. The Vietnamese in the south referred to the Russians as “Americans without dollars.” Vietnam, for all the money and materiel the Eastern Bloc spent to prop it up, became one more nail in the coffin of the Soviet Union.