The American War: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & China (1953 to 1979)

21 September 2019 [link youtube]


One person wrote in asking for my opinion about this: it occurred to me that I've never made a video directly speaking about it. So, this video ensued, because I felt I couldn't fall asleep at 3:00 AM. I recorded this with zero script, zero preparation, and zero forethought. I did, however, google to check just two dates: the death of Stalin, and the signing of the Korean armistice. ;-)

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Youtube Automatic Transcription

this is recorded at 3 a.m. local time
let's give a fast and upbeat rundown on the history of the Indochina Ward's Vietnam Cambodia Laos one person wrote to me saying that be interesting to hear my respect from these wars it seems to me it's something I talk about all the time but the truth is I never did make even one video focused on telling you my perspective on the history of this war naturally I'm gonna focus on least understood or most misunderstood elements of the war historically strategically geopolitically and even culturally from an American perspective the war ended in 1975 that's when the Americans start to evacuate and then Vietnam declares its official reunification in 1976 from an Asian perspectives not from an American perspective from the perspective someone living in that continent watching politics unfold in Vietnam Cambodia Laos but also China next door fighting didn't stop in 1975 and didn't stop in 1976 either in many ways the end of the war was 1979 when Vietnam was invaded by communist China that event for many onlookers many of the people who were watching politics of Vietnam unfold many of the people who protested on one side of the other was a huge wake-up call to the extent to which the Western world had never understood and never really even taken a interest in what the politics of Vietnam really were when communist China invaded communist Vietnam it revealed one of the most important geopolitical factors that had been completely consistent since 1954 that basically to simplify a little bit Mao Zedong and the elite levels of the Communist Party in China bitterly hated communist Vietnam if they board allies they weren't friends they weren't you know against the Americans no no no with the contrary their relationship to Vietnam and Russia Vietnam and China wasn't what most people in the West thought it was and it wasn't even what most American presidents thought it was there isn't just the fog of war here there's also the fog of peace Americans went into the vietnam war with their mentality very much prefigured by their experience in the Korean War the Korean War ends in 1953 the same year that Joseph Stalin dies the armistice agreement is written a few months after the death of Joseph Stalin and these things are indeed linked from an American perspective I'm gesturing towards myself I'm in fact Canadian I'm not American from an American perspective the crucial factor shaping their experience of the Korean War was the entry of Chinese troops was the Chinese support for the Chinese backing for the North Koreans the Korean communists it's natural that the Americans then rolled on into the Vietnam War imagining a somewhat similar scenario presuming that Communist China was going to support communist Vietnam in fact if the people in charge in the United States the various presidents and heads of intelligence in fact if they'd had their eyes and ears open they could have figured out that thus it the stage being set for the Vietnam War was very fundamentally different in this respect and not in this respect only but the Americans were not really very interested in the politics of Vietnam that weren't addressed in the politics history and culture of Vietnam China Cambodia Laos or how they were all connected to each other in the same way in our own time we can ask to what extent was George W Bush sincerely interested in the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan when he commenced large-scale warfare in Afghanistan probably not at all probably he could have known and could have shaped his planning for the war he could have known precisely what the relationship was between the Taliban and the the Pakistani authorities the Pakistani intelligence agencies and so on but if he could have known he probably chose not to know or simply put didn't care in the same ways America got involved with this war with fundamentally very very little interest in what the facts on the ground really were instead America enters into the war one filled with optimism from their experience in Japan remember in this period the American conquest of Japan was not that long ago and Japan is the most positive example of regime change in the history of the world the Americans had to fight the Japanese very very hard very bitter combat throughout World War two but the minute the combat was over once the Japanese surrendered to the American side almost overnight the Japanese adopt a new constitution they become a democracy they become in many fundamental ways not just an American ally but also a outstanding example of westernization embracing economic modernity terms of law and order or the court system the Parliament the traffic lights the fire hydrants in so many ways Japan seems to westernize and embrace capitalism and you know parliamentary democracy overnight so that gave the Americans a type of optimism about what they could accomplish in conquering Vietnam that again is just wildly divorced from reality and of course they could have known how false that idea was just by studying the French experience in Vietnam because the French had an ongoing attempt to colonize Vietnam right through World War two and thereafter disastrously ending with Battle of Dien Bien Phu story for another video um so the Americans have optimism on the basis of their experience in Japan and they have some trepidation based on their experience in Korea North Korea South Korea the Korean War as we call it you could say they learned the lessons from neither of these things but in Korea their main problem was the Chinese army entering to support the North Korean the Korean Communist army okay and their other big problem of course was Joseph Stalin the Russians Stalin dies in 1953 and really the whole context for the Vietnam War the Indochina Wars we should say he is created by the death of Stalin and the very peculiar optimism that took over elite levels of Russian government for at least a decade thereafter okay Russia didn't want war the United States at that time I mean right after the death of Joseph Stalin Russia was not entertaining the type of strategic military options that really would have prevented the United States or would have dissuaded the United States from making Vietnam a major colonial project shall we say now what do I mean if Joseph Stalin had kept living which is of course impossible but if Joseph Stalin kept living for another 20 years or if Joseph Stalin had been followed by another dictator who was identical to Joseph Stalin the types of options that dictator would have been looking at would have been to prevent Americans having a presence in Vietnam in Indochina by moving missiles into the region does anyone remember the Cuban Missile Crisis you know they could move missiles whether those are nuclear missiles or not they could move the Russian Navy into the region a very different thing if US aircraft newest ships were being countered by another Navy that was coming in and saying no we're not going to allow you to run these operations here and you know of course they could evoke some principle of international law or some peace treaty or something but you know the American you know naval presence there could have been challenged by Russia and by the way let's not forget it could have in theory been challenged by another country like India also but no one else historically in this period would have possibly challenged the American Empire as it was starting to expand into Vietnam of all places and very naked Lee very overtly the Americans were there expanding into the power vacuum left by the French military withdrawing as I've mentioned in many many videos the French had been making money out of opium out of heroin and the French secret service handed over the heroin business to the CIA directly technically it was the OSS and then the OSS was taken over by the CIA but in any case even the French heroin producing business made a direct transition from a French government of occupation to an American government of occupation with a very brutal and bloody Secret Service running that occupation a great thing to look up to illustrate this too is Condor Island which I think in Vietnamese is called a honda island or kann dowe Island Condor Island there was a horrible prison there that the French used to torture and interrogate anyone who was opposed to their regime and that was taken over and run by the CIA by the US military Farah says that the French legacy went directly into American hands and without the Americans questioning to much not even strategically not even in a Machiavellian sense you know when you're handed the keys to a prison and torture facility apparently you don't really question in the same way should we come here and set up a prison and torture facility it's bizarre but true and I read at least one account from a survivor from Condor Island almost everyone since to Condor Island was was tortured and then executed but I read an account from someone who was imprisoned there and who actually was released he did who did survive brutal terrible infamous and the effects are much more than just bad PR for the United States for two generations or something the American colonial Enterprise in Vietnam totally discredited them in the world stage for example in the eyes of a place like India and guys India really matters the intense hatred India had towards the United States of America politically you know you can imagine if your India watching from not too close and not too far away what America is doing in Vietnam during this period you're watching these people getting tortured and India's really wondering to what extent should they stand up to what extent should they intervene India largely you know satisfied itself with me symbolic protests and international conferences and so on but this has very very far-reaching Conquest consequences for the United States of America and of course it to a large extent even discredited democracy simply because the nature of this brutality was so terrible and again for the Americans they're not questioning it seriously they're not thinking through what they're doing they have a positive experience with Japan they have a negative experience with the Korean War but they think this time in Vietnam the same thing won't happen because Stalin is dead basically and then they also have this unique situation of stepping into the shoes of the French Empire for the French Empire is left so to finish the point with Joseph Stalin if Stalin had still been alive or if the regime continued to be a Stalinist regime in Russia they could have deployed missiles that could have deployed the Navy in front of the US Navy they could have deployed the air force right the Russians were very stingy with the air force in North Korea and Mao Zedong bitterly resented that that's part of the split the breakdown which we China and Russia so again most Americans at the time did not understand this many Americans still don't understand it today Communist China and communist Russia were enemies in this period this is related to the fact that communist China communist Vietnam or enemies but anyway theoretically Stalin or some other Stalinist dictator could have in the same period deployed aerial backup to the Vietnamese and if so you can then imagine the American perspective on Vietnam Cambodia and Laos would change obviously I'm not saying they would have completely given up but they would then be looking at a strategic calculation and saying whoa whoa whoa you know we're not free to deploy our boats and our aircraft carriers here we're not free to just bomb this country with no air force opposing us not really a question of whether or not they can win of course if the United States committed all of their resources to this war they could win but then they'd be looking at a very different cost calculation and they might have been asked themselves wait what is it we're fighting this war for anyway what is it were trying to win but those questions I think it is fair to say went unasked and unanswered just as in our own time many of the very obvious questions what was supposed to happen what was the best-case scenario in Afghanistan and in Iraq I think those questions went unasked than I answer also so that's the American perspective the Asian perspective is much more important China attended an international conference in 1954 which is called the Geneva Convention of 1954 so this is after the death of Joseph Stalin and this is shortly after peace in Korea it's technically it's an armistice technically they're still at war technically there still is no peace between South Korea North Korea nevertheless we can at the Geneva Conventions of 1954 Mao Zedong and Joanne lie the elite level of the Communist Party of China became deeply committed to an alliance with Cambodia and this included a close personal relationship between both of those Chinese leaders and the king of Cambodia King C&O so in different periods of time he has the title of King Prince sometimes just Prime Minister or just leader he actually at one point one else's the title of King and becomes a commoner and that probably also powerfully impressed Mao Zedong he certainly has many years in which he's toying with both socialist and communist philosophy and he lives her many years of his life in Beijing and there are innumerable photographs of C&O the king of Cambodia together with Mao Zedong and Joanne lie so they became personal friends but the political commitment that china makes to support cambodia starts in 1954 and it never ends it continues to be an important factor in world politics even during the Ronald Reagan administration it goes on and on and on and it's also the crucial reason why China invades Vietnam in 1979 now there is a little bit of a chicken and egg question here does Communist China bitterly hate communist Vietnam because China sympathized with Cambodia trying to set it to support Cambodia and basically Cambodia and Vietnam were enemies simplify but it's not much of a simplification or is it the case that China already had this rivalry with Vietnam already had this hatred for the Communist Party of Vietnam yeah this is all communist versus communist struggle and that that came first that was the basis for China cultivating this friendship with Cambodia both a literal friendship people and a strategic relationship doesn't matter yeah I actually have done enough research that I could venture a guess but one way or another the fundamental strategic situation that the Vietnam War unfolds on it's exactly created by these powers Russia China United States France Vietnam Cambodia allows themselves but anyone looking back at this history from the detached perspective can say the single most important single most decisive power here was China that was really the political perspective that mattered and I mean again especially after the death of Stalin and given that after that basically Russia wanted nothing to do with this part of the world they really wanted to have as little to do with as as possible with a Southeast Asia they did not want to start World War three over who would be the next government in Cambodia that was not not Moscow's perspective and on the contrary Mao Zedong and Jo and I personally the leaders in China they were completely committed to fight however many wars were necessary to settle as they would put it the Cambodian issue or the Cambodia problem so the importance of that is again incredibly obvious but did Nixon care even you know as well Nixon sorry Nixon as many many years later we're starting the story we're talking about Eisenhower you know do you think Eisenhower cared so I mean it's many years later we're talking about about Nixon and his Israel in this but in the earlier period of this history you know the people at an elite level in in the American politics if they could have known this stuff they wouldn't know they didn't care anyway the tragedy that was to unfold after that thereafter again it really reflects the sort of strange optimism and lack of of all the different parties the Russians don't really want to do anything about it I mean other countries in Europe like France and Germany really fundamentally don't care Japan doesn't care India doesn't care these are all countries that could have been involved and you know yes the United States they did indeed propellent this theory it was actually to my knowledge JFK was the first guy to set it down to actually pronounce this theory the first president stays to do so the domino theory that if they did this stand up and stop communism for taking over Vietnam then Thailand would be next that communism will continue to take over the rest of Southeast Asia and of course this theory is bizarre or it's a very weak form of propaganda in many ways but it fundamentally ignores the extent to which to quote Richard Nixon himself China was the biggest domino of all I mean you know if you're putting China in a situation where they can or must invade and occupy Vietnam parallel to during the Korean War you put China position where they can and must invade and occupy Korea the meaning of the American kind of colonial conquering venture in Vietnam Laos Cambodia it starts to become meaningless just in terms of a matter of scale if that's what you're gonna force China to do and they're gonna do it then we all know what the consequences would be for these much smaller countries in Southeast Asia and again imagine you're explaining this history to a space alien from Mars space alien is leading this history and says well if France is abandoning these colonies if France is giving up on their colonization of Indochina and to be clear the French were briefly replaced by the Japanese the Japanese briefly conquered these places in to some extent set up governments for them Japanese had stain some postal offices or you know their occupation of Laos it's ridiculous it's true very briefly the Japanese to go with the government laughs wouldn't it make sense a Martian might ask what did make sense for the next colonial power replacing the French replacing the Japanese to be China why would it be the United States why would Washington DC be the next colonial power to come in so China was also of course looking at this whole situation with the presumption that their fear of power their sphere of influence we now expand and there's no doubt at least at a lower level of the Communist Party there's no doubt that the death of Joseph Stalin created the expectation that China's power would expand that Mao Zedong's personal influence would expand precisely because he no longer had the competition of Joseph Stalin as the presumptive leader of international communism as a movement now I just note Mao Zedong himself did not see the situation that way we know that for a fact is the people work is extensive that wasn't actually his personal perspective but of course any given journalists could see it that way and party cadres are Mitton ordinary people most likely did see this as the period where Mao Mao Zedong's importance was growing and China's importance was growing whereas Russia's importance would wane or reduce and this is also the period of the sino-soviet split one other really important personal and political note I think I mentioned earlier that China bitterly resented the fact that the Russians never really committed to provide airplanes air support in the Korean War well guess whose son died as a result Mao Zedong's own son his number-one son as they say Mao Zedong had two sons but one of them was mentally disabled but Mao Zedong had a son who was not mentally disabled it was very much receiving an elite education being prepared to be a leader of China itself metronomic Mao Zedong had a son who was you know either gonna inherit the dictatorship or at least go on to be an important person in the Communist Party and he died fighting in Korea and nominally as well as actually he died because the Russians let them down the Russians didn't provide the airplanes that would have prevented the Americans from from bombing and of course a large part of the tragedy of Cambodia Vietnam Laos was precisely that the Americans bombed and bombed and bombed the country I used to live in Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the history of the world more bombs were dropped on Laos than were dropped on Germany during World War two more bombs were dropped on Laos than were dropped on Japan during World War two and Laos in case you didn't know is an incredibly tiny country so this ongoing saturation bombing the unchallenged use of aerial supremacy of airplane you know airplanes in war had this unbelievably devastating impact on these countries and of course a body count of over 1 million persons so taking this longer view and having drawn attention these strategic elements that Americans of the time ignored and that most people still today don't think about or don't know death of Joseph Stalin the cessation of hostilities in Korea the importance of both Korea and Japan and prefiguring the American attitude but for China by contrast the importance of Cambodia in prefiguring China's attitude that China goes into this period from 1954 to 1979 China is supporting Cambodia and is an enemy of Vietnam the whole Western world is ignoring this they just don't care the reality is China is not a real genuine supporter of the Nohr Vietnamese despite propaganda to the contrary and this is finally ultimately shown in open war between China and Vietnam and this is what set the stage for the war to be possible to unfold as it did and it's what ultimately he created the conditions for the war to end how does the war end why does the war end the war ends because Nixon comes to a pact with China Nixon realizes the gravity and the depth of China's war with the Soviet Union now it was a war technically what can I call it I can't call it a cold war term cold war it's already taken this was what created the the strategic triangle or some people called the Iron Triangle areas other names for it but for the first time the United States of America and communist China would become strategic allies against Russia now you can imagine the whole history of the world today would be different if Richard Nixon had instead chosen to become an ally with the Russians against China fundamentally the reason for Nixon's decision I had to do with his face-to-face relationships Nixon was vice president under Eisenhower and in that period Nixon had many face to face diplomatic interactions with the Russians including a visit of the Russian leader to the United States where Nixon was really the guy who spent a lot of time with him and his entourage I think partly just cuz you know Eisenhower was more elderly and so on Nixon knew the Russians face-to-face basically his whole political career and indeed looking back now you really have to wonder especially given this is the the relatively optimistic post now on his period why didn't mix in instead to get into alliance with the Russians against the Chinese well as you guys probably know the Alliance the United States American China began with a ping-pong match this is the part that makes it at the textbooks the ping-pong match led to secret face-to-face meetings between elite level leaders in China and United States America ultimately Nixon and his wife personally go to China meet with Mao Zedong and Jill and Lai and seal this strategic pact that would go on to cost yet more millions of lives this would be peace but peace paid for in blood to a ridiculous extent Nixon understands that the Chinese are fundamentally enemies of the Russians the Chinese are fundamentally enemies of the Vietnamese and the linchpin it all turns on his Cambodia and that is why the Vietnam War ends with the commencement of hostilities of unbelievable intensity in Cambodia and in those hostilities the surreal fact the matter is the United States of America and the Communists Pol Pot regime are on the same side because they represent the pro Chinese side fighting against the pro-russian side as basically Vietnam and Laos decided to remain loyal to Russia rather than switching their allegiance to Mao Zedong in China so an unbelievably bloody exercise in which millions of people were killed the most fundamental error of all was that the Americans went into this long series of wars with the mentality of us versus them they never really had a mentality of democracy versus dictatorship they never had a mentality of human rights versus despotism the agenda that the United States operated on and under the leadership of you know really old-school war mongers who had lived through World War Two and it lived through the Korean or I think they genuinely had the illusion that if they could just conquer Vietnam enough after the regime change like Japan the whole country would be transformed into a business-friendly pro-american democracy they were not willing to entertain the depressing possibility that Japan was not the example that proves the rule but Japan was the exception that proves the rule