“Like Cambodia before the collapse of the Khmer Rouge????”
I’m not sure the Khmer Rouge ever ‘collapsed’. More like they were driven out of power (by Vietnam).
“I’m not sure the Khmer Rouge ever ‘collapsed’. More like they were driven out of power (by Vietnam).”
Well, the Khmer Rouge had so impoverished Cambodia, internally, that it only took Vietnam two weeks to occupy Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge always had far more belligerence than fire power.
They gained power only against a largely unarmed (0ther than the Khmer Rouge) civilian population abandoned by their civilian leaders and the world. They only stayed in power by terrorizing their own people into total submission. But the process of doing that, the movement of the whole population to the countryside, and the constant internal terror, literally destroyed anything that might have otherwise remained viable in the country. Yes, they feared being dominated by what began as allies in Vietnam (apparently even Marxists can be “nationalists”). However, however true those fears were, the Khmer Rouge had made the country a basket case and achieved no improvement in it either. They were well armed, and very successful against their own unarmed civilians, but otherwise very weak and no match for heavily armed and very organized and very well led Vietnam. They had made the country ripe for takeover, given as internally fallen down as they were.
The Khmer (1) made their own country a basket case, and then (2) turned their belligerence externally against Vietnam, (3) provoking far superior Vietnam to retaliate. And all very stupid of a leadership that so impoverished its own people.
If only South Korea had a good leader now, instead of the covert Communist sitting in the Blue House right now (Moon).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#War_with_Vietnam