I think you forget that the Vietnamese War was thirty years long. By 1975, all the Vietnamese were pretty sick of war, but the North Vietnamese army was intact. In the case of S. Vietnam, the line was not held. In Korea it was, and as a result authoritarian government has been allowed to develop into democracy. Perhaps if we had done something like the enclaves that Jim Gavin proposed, the line might have been held. If we had pulled out of Korea after the Armistice, do you think that the ROK forces could have held off the North?
"If we had pulled out of Korea after the Armistice, do you think that the ROK forces could have held off the North?"
No, absolutely not. In fact, I think if we pulled pulled out now and completely washed our hands of Korea, South Korea would be hard pressed to hold them off today. But we've never washed our hands of Korea as we did with Vietnam. My point is it was a national decision, not a party one. The same Democratic Congress decided to hold the line in Korea while they abandoned Vietnam. Call it politics but I believe they represented the will of the people at the time. By then we were sick of war too.