What I remember about Henry Kissinger is that in March 1973, a map was published that showed what he had agreed to in the aftermath of the Christmas bombing.
He left entire swaths of South Vietnam occupied by both VC and NVA in place as of the moment of ceasfire. As a college freshman, I was startled by that - sure didnt seem like a good idea.
It was clearly a case of getting a deal, any deal, that would allow the US to beat feet without an immediate disaster...but eventually one would come.
Kissinger is not against the basic aims of Statism, merely its form, and who will run the show. Had Linebacker II continued into mid-January 1973, and pressed on into wiping out Hanoi’s industrial capacity and the ability to resupply their forces in the South, then the outcome of his negotitations with Le Duc Tho would have been different. It would have been an actual victory. But he stopped short of that, and Nixon went along with that, guaranteeing that somewhere along the line, the North would mount a resumption of hostilities, and ultimately win. Apparently he was OK with this result.
We never should have been in Vietnam. We also never should have been in South Korea.
We didn’t need to deploy our military anywhere after WWII.