I took the photo above 50 years ago, on May 1, 1975. I was living in Berkeley, California, in a $165-a-month apartment on Telegraph Avenue in the student district. Berkeley was a peculiar place, one of the few towns in America where fans of Herbert Marcuse could get up a May Day parade under the banner, “All Indochina Must Go Communist.”
The day before, South Vietnam had gone Communist. This was a landmark occasion. I had grown up with the Vietnam War. I never had to go there; in the lottery of July 1, 1970, I pulled a high number, which meant I was safe from the draft. But for the entirety of my youth, the war in Vietnam was an unhealed sore, a wound in political discussions.
A decade earlier, in 1965, our president, Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat who imagined himself a second Franklin Roosevelt, had sent half a million U.S. troops to Vietnam to defeat the Reds. Americans accepted the war at first — we didn’t like the Reds — but it went on and on. As the dead piled up–eventually 58,000 Americans–a huge protest movement arose in our universities. Most of the protesters were not so fanatical as the ones in the parade above, but we had those in Seattle, too.
America elected a Republican President in 1968, Richard Nixon. He promised to end the war. He dropped a lot of bombs before he got to it, but finally he “Vietnamized” the conflict. The Americans slowly came home, so that we would supply the money and the Vietnamese would supply the blood. The somewhat cynical strategy worked well enough to stave off defeat for a couple of years, but it was never going to produce a win. The Democratic Congress grew sick of this (and of Nixon) and voted to cut off the money. South Vietnam’s army immediately began falling back, and in a short time it fell apart.
The scene in Saigon in 1975 was much like Kabul in 2021 — a mad scramble to get out. The backstory was similar, too: a rich foreign power trying and failing to suppress an insurgency in a country it didn’t really know. (When Joe Biden’s witless secretary of state, Antony Blinken, denied the comparison of Afghanistan to Vietnam, I thought, “Give me a break. You were only 13.”)
At 23, I was sorry to see South Vietnam fall. But I was glad it was all over. On April 30, 1975, I wrote in my journal: “Almost everybody seems to have written off the war emotionally three or four years ago. The Vietnam war is something that happened 1966-1969. For the last two months, it has knocked the recession stories off the front page and the six o’clock news, but people don’t care anymore. I don’t… But this generation won’t forget about it.”
America was so tired of war that we didn’t get hip-deep in a big foreign adventure for another 15 years, until George H.W. Bush decided to rescue the oil sheikhs in Kuwait. Since then, we seem to be in a war somewhere or other pretty much all the time. Right now, the big one is in Ukraine.
I hear the objections: “It’s not the same as Afghanistan or Vietnam.” It’s not an insurgency. The Ukrainians have nationalism on their side, and it puts more fight in them. And despite the nasty talk of Donald Trump being “in Putin’s pocket,” there is no city in the United States where Americans will parade under a banner of loyalty to the enemy, as in the photo above. But there are notable similarities between the adventures in Afghanistan and Vietnam with our enterprise in Ukraine. All of them are far away, distant from a direct American interest. All of them were, or are, unwinnable given what we have been willing to do.
Some of us call for more. It was Joe Biden who promised the Ukrainians that we were in for “as long as it takes.” But that wasn’t a promise he was in a position to make.
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I’m sorry Bruce but you are wrong.
Afghanistan and Vietnam are similar in that the United States believed that it could fight a war and win a war on the battlefield with an illegitimate government. The South Vietnam government was a corrupt Catholic minority under Ngo Dinh Diem propped up by the United States. Afghanistan also was also corrupt and illegitimate government under a succession of leaders. For example, the 2010-2013 Kabul Bank scandal involved politicians who usurped $1 billion of funds to finance their own lavish lifestyles. The common people are not going to risk lives for corrupt leaders.
Ukraine, while also having a reputation as corrupt, has a legitimate democratically elected government and is taking steps to eliminate corruption in its efforts to link up with the European Union. The government has the support of the general citizenry which was never the case in either Afghanistan or Vietnam. And importantly Ukrainians are fighting and dying themselves and have been since 2014.
Putin is weak. Weakness is evident in utilizing Shahid drone strikes on civilians. That is not a tactic utilized by someone who has dominating military capability. Putin has lost his proxy in Syria. His proxy in Georgia is seeing demonstrations in the streets. There are rumors of Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin’s proxy in Chechyna, being in ill health and no apparent successor. So far Putin has shielded the wealthy Moscow and St Petersburg from the reality of war, but sanctions are taking hold. Russia’s gains on the battlefield for the most part only come about due to soldiers who are criminals or in debt. There is no sense of purpose in fighting for a cause.
But thanks for the shallow analysis, Neville.
Your calling me “Neville” refers to U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who signed the Munich agreement in 1938, which Germany to take the borderlands of Czechoslovakia. For almost 90 years, Chamberlain’s “appeasement” has been held out as the lesson that’s it’s better to fight than to make concessions to a hostile power, but it’s sometimes the wrong lesson.
We condemn Chamberlain for trusting Adolf Hitler’s word, because six months later Hitler broke his word. Hitler’s word was useless. But in 1938, Chamberlain didn’t know that. (In 1939, Stalin should have known that, but he still trusted Hitler.)
The lesson of World War I was the opposite of Munich: Don’t stand up for the other guy at the risk of war. War is a disaster, a dead loss. Stay out!
The story of Neville Chamberlain and the Munich agreement is not a universal lesson. History is not so simple. Situations are different. Leaders are different. Some wars are worth fighting, and some are not, and sometimes it’s hard to tell. On all of them you have to ask: Worth it to whom?
We choose the lessons we like.
Really I did a disservice to Chamberlain, knowing that he recognized the problem in front of his country and worked towards rearmament, and that given the state of military readiness at the time he probably had little choice, whether he trusted Hitler or not.
It’s so different from today’s right wing Russia allies, in the world seat of military power and with ample evidence of Putin’s brutality, ambition and the extent to which he can be trusted.
I left Berkeley in ‘65 and by 1975 was flying troops in and out of VN on Pan Am R&R flights. Seeing the sign for Larry Blake’s Rathskeller behind the marchers brought back happier times. Thanks for this, Bruce. Ukraine is different but this administration has left them waving in the wind.
I am really struggling to understand this analysis. Yes, there are almost always some similarities across cases. But you completely missed the most obvious one here (the nature of the conflict). Both Vietnam and Ukraine were victims of imperialist aggression (by the U.S. — and before that, France — in Vietnam’s case; by Russia in Ukraine’s case).
Bruce Ramsey,
What does this statement mean?
“And despite the nasty talk of Donald Trump being “in Putin’s pocket,” there is no city in the United States where Americans will parade under a banner of loyalty to the enemy, as in the photo above.”
Bruce Ramsey,
You wrote:
“And despite the nasty talk of Donald Trump being “in Putin’s pocket,” there is no city in the United States where Americans will parade under a banner of loyalty to the enemy, as in the photo above.”
What does your statement mean? Sincere question.
That in this war there is virtually no one in America supporting the other side. Trump’s opponents accuse him of that, but it’s not true, and it’s not true of any group of Americans large enough to get up a parade down the street. That is one way in which it’s different from the war in Vietnam, and, in particular, different from the photo I took 50 years ago.
Bruce
Still interested in your statement & what it means and would like to understand your intention.
“And despite the nasty talk of Donald Trump being “in Putin’s pocket,” there is no city in the United States where Americans will parade under a banner of loyalty to the enemy, as in the photo above.”
Huh? Really not clear on what you are saying.
Are you saying that Trump is relatively alone in supporting Putin’s Russia?
And that majority of Americans are in favor of Ukraine? And most of us see Russia as the guilty aggressor?
If so, then I think you are probably correct.
As the ghost of Vietnam is once again conjured up, and I can’t help but to put my memories of perhaps a different perspective on the table. I also missed the draft as Bruce did. I believe they did pull numbers for 1972, the year I turned 18, but by then, the war was winding down and they didn’t call anyone up.
By ’73, the Paris peace accords had recognized two Vietnamese states. American POW’s were returned and the last U.S. troops came home.
The Communists saw 1973 as a brief time-out and not as an end to it as they promised, while American promised the South air cover if the Communists reinvaded. The Communists did just that. The South had fought well.
By ’74 congress turned it’s back on the South by cutting the military funding that was earlier promised. Then, in the spring 1975, Soviet tanks rolled in, and in May of ’75, Saigon fell and we saw that sad photo of the last American helicopter on the roof of the American embassy.
Millions of South Vietnamese ran from the Communists until they could run no more. They then got on boats if they were lucky. Whole families including Grandma and Grandpa risked their lives by climbing aboard boats in anyway possible. A friend described to me how her Grandma had to scurry up a 2 X 4 to get aboard. But tens of thousands of these boat people drowned or starved. Many boats were captured by pirates and the refugees lost everything of value they had brought with them. If they were again lucky, they made it to a refugee camp in somewhere like Malaysia and were eventually given US asylum. Millions of others were either killed, imprisoned, or sent to the brutal re-education camps. And also, as we know, the Cambodia killing fields followed.
So what are the lessons of the Vietnam War?
After leaving South Vietnam, Americans were seen as weak and this spurred on aggression against Americans all over the world. There were no longer any repercussions to taking an American hostage, or killing American soldiers and diplomats.
When Americans stay on after wining the fight against thugocracy – as in Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea – we see prosperity. This can take decades.
But when Americans leave – as in Vietnam in ’73, Beirut following the barracks attack, Afghanistan after we helped the Mujahideen defeat the Soviet thugs, or Iraq after the first Gulf war – we see that nothing but chaos follows with the killing of innocents.
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge–and more.”
“But when Americans leave …” it’s usually because it was a lost cause already.
Not the case with Ukraine.
Anyway, all this is about an America that used to be. Today .. maybe Europe can step forth.
Except for trying to muddy the water, I’m puzzled why Ramseyor anyone is even mentioning Vietnam.
Chris: That may be the worst Vietnam history lesson I’ve ever read. Keep up the killing – even if the cause is unjust? Yikes.
I’m surprised by the readers who are struggling to see the comparison between the wars in Viet Nam , Afghanistan and Ukraine. There are many parallels. Each suffer(ed) from foreign powers (the US and Russia) who sought to topple leadership they didn’t /don’t like in order to replace it with a puppet government. The foreign powers were motivated by fear. (expansion of communism, expansion of Islamic terrorism, and expansion of NATO.). All of the wars were / are unwinnable to the extent that the native opposition was, and are, never going to surrender. All of the wars had /have tremendous financial costs, benefiting the military industrial complex, and wasting substantial taxpayer dollars which could have been better spent building instead of killing. Many thousands of young people lost their lives because of the bad decisions and hubris of the foreign powers. Etc, etc. My take, and I think yours Bruce, is that the lessons of these conflicts aren’t learned.
It’s hard to learn the lessons that way, by emphasizing similarities and ignoring differences. He’s been opposing US support for Ukraine – that has been his take, and presumably still is – and implicitly, this comparison with Vietnam is supposed to support that position. We’re struggling with that because it’s really screwed up. Maybe you can explain it better than he.
In Vietnam, the US was the ‘aggressor foreign power’ and fought a proxy war with China and Russia. In the Ukraine, Russia is the foreign power (along with Chinese support), fighting a proxy war with the US and somewhat with the Western European countries. The US poured substantial treasure into the Vietnam war effort, but more significantly, caused the deaths of millions of people. Russia is doing the same thing in the Ukraine. In both cases, the wars are not winnable, because, as has been repeatedly shown, people will defend their native country down to the last person and foreign powers have not been shown to be able to outlast them. The Russians in Afghanistan was another example. So the net is lots of money gets wasted, and lots of people get killed, and the objectives of the foreign power are not achieved. Vietnam was our ally in World War II. Strengthening ties economically and politically in the after-mass would’ve achieved our goals much better than trying to topple the communist government. And a few million people wouldn’t have gotten killed.
With regard to our support for Ukraine… Trump is seeking a settlement and peace. This is a break from pouring never-ending treasure into a war that continues to kill thousands of people. It’s notable that the European countries have loaned money to the Ukraine. They expect to be paid back at some point. We have given them billions of dollars, no strings attached, and with no oversight as to where the money is going. Further, we didn’t exactly have billions of dollars sitting around to give them. Instead of coming to the American people and saying “ we want to support the Ukrainians, which will cost billions of dollars, so we’re going to immediately raise taxes on everyone in the country to pay for it”, our feckless Congress simply borrowed the money, and we’re now all paying interest on it. This is obviously a stupid policy, and a lot of what Trump is trying to stop. If you think it’s been a good policy then I suggest you go out and borrow 15 or 20 grand and give it away to all your friends to spend however they want. Then, you can pay the interest on it every month. We are something like $34 trillion in debt. We don’t have the money however big and bad we think we are. Giving away billions of dollars we don’t have is the same kind of hubris we showed in Vietnam.
David: Please. It was far more than a “proxy war.” Describing it this way (as some of my fellow IR scholars do) erases the agency of the vast majority of Vietnamese people, who wanted their own nation. In my view, this (common, in the West) perspective also reflects lingering imperial or neo-colonial thinking — as though local aspirations for sovereignty are ephemeral, insignificant.
I completely agree with your concerns about U.S. national debt, and the Pentagon’s share of that total. We are about to appropriate, under Trump, more than $1 trillion for U.S. defense — a shocking sum. But we have many other ways to reduce our “defense” spending. For example, do we need to finance 800 overseas military bases? For me, supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression is a worthwhile investment — up to a point. But I agree that Europe should take the lead here.
They’re ’proxy wars’ because the besieged nations are always weaker militarily than the aggressors (or imperialists, if you prefer). They seek and get significant aid from the enemies of their enemy. The nations who provide aid do it as much to degrade their rival’s military as they do to support the victim countries. They are motivated to engage in proxy war, more than engaging in war directly, for the deniability aspects and to avoid the blowback they would get both domestically and globally. It’s less risky and achieves some of the same goals.
As far as; “erases the agency of the vast majority of Vietnamese people, who wanted their own nation”, I would agree that they all wanted their own nation. I do think it’s important to point out that they were divided on what kind of nation their own nation would look like. Remember, Le Duan’s strategy with the‘General Uprising’ (TET Offensive), failed because it depended on the southerners rising up to join the Communists. The majority in the south didn’t want to be Communist and preferred Democracy. Their problem was corrupt leadership. Even today, many people in the south will tell you in private that they do not like the communists and commonly refer to their main city as Saigon instead of Ho Chi Minh City.
David: You offered a more coherent summary than Bruce of the overlap between these cases — one that is closer to my own view, except that you focused vaguely on “foreign powers” trying to replace local leadership “with a puppet government,” while I identified “imperialism” in both Vietnam and Ukraine. You go on to say there are “lessons” to be learned from these conflicts. Although you don’t spell out these lessons, one that seems to emerge from your comment is that “powers” shouldn’t intervene in foreign conflicts. For me, this is where the difference between Vietnam and Ukraine may become relevant. In the former, the U.S. (and before that, France) was the imperial meddler stifling national aspirations and trying to consolidate a pro-U.S. (and pro-capitalist) regime in Saigon. In the latter, Russia is the imperial meddler upending national sovereignty and trying to establish a pro-Russia regime in Kiev. Don’t European countries, and their (previous?) ally, the United States, have some role to play in helping Ukraine and its neighbors repel Russian revanchism? Or should “powers” always sit on the sidelines while other powers invade and try to gobble up smaller countries?
See my response to Donn Cove, above. I think we pretty much see it the same way, Walter. The question is how we support Ukraine. Do we just continue pouring billions of dollars that we don’t have into the effort and allow for the carnage to continue? Or do we attempt to negotiate a peace to stop the killing? We do have other options to put more pressure on Russia beyond continuing to fight the endless proxy war.