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Originally Posted by DiracSpike
I've been borderline addicted to this Vietnam series, it's really amazing and I knew virtually nothing about that war before watching the series.
It raises to me an interesting question of what makes a war worth fighting. Vietnam has the reputation of a pointless war fought for the wrong reasons, and you can certainly make a compelling argument in favor of that view. However I've been wondering recently what the difference was between Vietnam and Korea, besides the end result. It seems that both wars were fought to stop Communist expansion, and the results in Korea are pretty staggering. One side of the country is a gulag, the other a modern first world liberal country with a great quality of life. Anyone who fought in Korea can look at that as their legacy, going on 7 decades now of such a contrast between nations when the entire pensinsula could have been a communist hell hole instead of just half. I guess they're slightly different in that the Chinese were directly involved in Korea, and there were more colonialist overtones with the Vietnam conflict, but both wars seem to be pretty close mirror images of each other.
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I think where that breaks down though is the concept that one could argue that if they (USA) had just left well enough alone would these places not be in either the exact same or better positions?
I mean, the argument 'spread of Communism' is what it is, but do you see Communism spreading like wildfire? No. Because it only works under certain conditions and circumstances like totalitarian regimes.
So while it was deemed necessary by the limited information and knowledge of leaders of the past it seems pretty clear that it always eventually fails all on its own.
Which would indeed make Vietnam a pointless war.