Especially the often vicious Western media propaganda machine, that was unwittingly instrumental in making the failed Tet Offensive of 1968 look like the massive North Vietnamese victory that it simply never was. Although, yes, most historians can now safely argue that the Tet Offensive was, if nothing else, a very big victory for the North Vietnamese and their South Vietnamese communist allies, the Vietcong, at least in terms of propaganda. And this internecine, Western media fueled fifth column has, curiously enough, always been a real boon for rival foreign governments (such as the former Soviet Union and the Taliban in Afghanistan, just for starters).
So yes, we all went down together. Even and especially the Vietnamese communists and their former Chinese allies, who, just a few years after the Vietnam War ended, proceeded to seize territory from the newly united Vietnam, and then, under Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, savagely attack them in the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. And the worst part of all, while everyone outside of Asia was mostly ignoring what was going on after the US and our allies (chiefly South Korea, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand) had finally pulled out of Vietnam, communist China, like the Imperial Japanese Empire before them, was just getting started in their quest to dominate and bully the entire region.
Fast forward to the recent building of artificial islands in the South China Sea, and... THAT is the enduring legacy of just how far we've all gone down together since the Vietnam War. And, whether anyone really likes it or not, just like the stalemate of the Korean War of 1950-53 (that really only came about because of communist Chinese intervention), it's not even over yet. Not even close. The "sleeping giants," the US, Russia and China, are stirring, even now. And if you don't believe it, just look at the latest headlines about the showdown between the US, South Korea, and China and North Korea.
Because when this all finally does come to a head, it most likely won't just be the US versus smaller proxy states being propped up by the Russians and Chinese. It will be the Russians and/or the Chinese themselves. And unless we can UNIFY and stop the advance of totalitarianism TOGETHER, the whole damn free world is going to be going down even further with US. And it's going to be a helluva lot worse than what we unfortunately endured during the Pacific War with the Japanese, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.
So yes, we all went down together. Even and especially the Vietnamese communists and their former Chinese allies, who, just a few years after the Vietnam War ended, proceeded to seize territory from the newly united Vietnam, and then, under Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, savagely attack them in the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. And the worst part of all, while everyone outside of Asia was mostly ignoring what was going on after the US and our allies (chiefly South Korea, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand) had finally pulled out of Vietnam, communist China, like the Imperial Japanese Empire before them, was just getting started in their quest to dominate and bully the entire region.
Fast forward to the recent building of artificial islands in the South China Sea, and... THAT is the enduring legacy of just how far we've all gone down together since the Vietnam War. And, whether anyone really likes it or not, just like the stalemate of the Korean War of 1950-53 (that really only came about because of communist Chinese intervention), it's not even over yet. Not even close. The "sleeping giants," the US, Russia and China, are stirring, even now. And if you don't believe it, just look at the latest headlines about the showdown between the US, South Korea, and China and North Korea.
Because when this all finally does come to a head, it most likely won't just be the US versus smaller proxy states being propped up by the Russians and Chinese. It will be the Russians and/or the Chinese themselves. And unless we can UNIFY and stop the advance of totalitarianism TOGETHER, the whole damn free world is going to be going down even further with US. And it's going to be a helluva lot worse than what we unfortunately endured during the Pacific War with the Japanese, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.
