Comment on The US Army was literally mutinying to get out of Vietnam
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 1 day agoVietnam was in the middle of a civil war between a brutal dictatorship aligned with the eastern bloc and a brutal republic aligned with France and the USA.
I will always stand against autocracy. The USA and France failed to protect South Vietnam.
In the good timeline, North Vietnam fell. In a better timeline they exist in careful balance similar to thr Korean peninsula.
PugJesus@piefed.social 1 day ago
That’s part of the issue, though - the ‘brutal republic’ was effectively a dictatorship for some of its time, and North Vietnam was never really a dictatorship, even when Ho Chi Minh was alive.
It was largely two terrible oligarchies fighting against each other - the difference is, North Vietnam had genuine popular support (though also genuine popular opposition), especially while Ho Chi Minh was alive, whereas South Vietnam really only ever had the fear of the (brutal) North Vietnamese reprisals to keep people on its side.
Would Vietnam be better off today if it was united under the south rather than the north? There are any number of brutal Cold War oligarchies who did not end up reforming a la South Korea. I think almost certainly Vietnam would not be better off split in two, compared to what it is today.
Currently, Vietnam is less repressive than China, US-aligned, and economically prosperous. I don’t really know that I would bet on a better outcome from South Vietnam winning.