How the 'self licking ice cream cone', prolonged the 20-year war

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Grey Matter, Oct 4, 2022.

  1. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2...ing-ice-cream-cone-prolonged-the-20-year-war/

    "
    There is a rapidly growing political demand for making American officials accountable for the failures of the Afghanistan War, with a focus now on the military leadership and top generals’ role in keeping forces there for 20 years despite all the signs they knew the war was unwinnable.
    "
    "Wars are good for generals. This is how they make their rank."

    I'm not so sure he's even close about this. Is there a rapidly growing political demand to hold to account the Pentagon to the extent that it can be "proven" that its interests in prolonging the Afghanistan deployments were more self-serving than of interest either to the US or to Afghanistan?

    Anyone here familiar with Gareth Porter?

    Apparently he has a long history of leaning left in his analysis of stuff, going so far apparently as to having once asserted that the Khmer Rouge weren't really bad guys at all and apparently only reluctantly ceding that he may have missed that analysis.

    I'm reading his book, Perils of Dominance at the moment and ran across an assertion that he makes and amazingly then immediately proceeds to prove false:

    The evidence does not support the argument that Chinese policy lurched from advising Hanoi to be very cautious about the armed struggle to a readiness to risk war with the United States over Vietnam. Although Chinese rhetorical support for the armed struggle intensified from late 1962 onward, the Chinese fear of a direct U.S. attack on North Vietnam or even China remained the dominant factor in Chinese policy toward Vietnam. The PRC adopted a threefold strategy during the 1962—64 period for coping with the threat of a possible U.S. attack: first, to prepare militarily for the contingency of a U.S. military attack against North Vietnam or China, or both; second, to exert influence on the North Vietnamese leadership to limit the war in South Vietnam so as to minimize the risk of provoking the United States; and third, to try to deter the United States from widening the war into North Vietnam by threatening to fight on the side of the DRV in that event.

    Mao did reject a policy proposal by Deputy Foreign Minister Wang Jiaxiang to Deng and Zhou in early 1962 calling for a greater effort to improve relations with the United States, the Soviet Union, and India. Motivated by China's desperate internal socioeconomic situation in 1961—62, Wang also advocated retrenchment in assistance to national liberation movements, based on the argument that China could be drawn into another Korea-type war in Vietnam. Mao accused Wang of promoting a "revisionist" line, and at the next party plenum in September 1962, he called for support of the insurgencies in South Vietnam and Laos, which he called "excellent armed struggles".

    IMG_4389.JPG

    It seems to me that when leaders speak on behalf of their nation that it carries with it great power, so when Mao referred to the North's actions against the South in Vietnam as "excellent armed struggles" and taking the first and third positions that it did according to his own assertion then that is exactly what the evidence supports.

    Ugh, gonna have to finish this book as it's fascinating and seems to have a lot of stuff correct, but obviously his own work will undermine some of his assertions and I reckon I'll have to keep an eye on his commie tendencies, hahaha.....
     
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  2. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Also it must be realized that China did not really want a strong and unified Vietnam on their border.

    As far back as the 1950s, North Vietnam had a history of persecuting Ethnic Chinese in their territory. As well as their invasion of Cambodia, support of the Soviet Union, and several border clashes led to the Sino-Vietnam War.

    The two were never really close, as when the Sino-Soviet Split happened, Vietnam sided squarely with the Soviets. And I have never heard of any significant aid to North Vietnam by China after 1961.
     
  3. BuckyBadger

    BuckyBadger Well-Known Member

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    According to historian Christopher Goscha, the Vietnamese were greatly relieved to have Chinese support. The military aid and training China provided were vital to the Vietnamese defeat of the French. “They also sent political advisors to remold the Vietnamese state, economy, and agricultural system in Communist ways. Then relations changed in the late 1960s, as the Cultural Revolution and Maoist visions of permanent revolutionary struggle ran up against important and geostrategic differences in Vietnam in the war against the US. Nonetheless, the Chinese continued to supply massive amounts of military and economic aid, as well as sending over 300,000 military support troops into North Vietnam. Internationalism suffered a serious blow. Additionally, the Sino-Soviet split damaged relations between China, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam.

    Goscha, C.E. (2006). Vietnam, the Third Indochina War, and the meltdown of Asian internationalism. In The Third Indochina War p. 158. Routledge.

    also:

    https://vietnamjournal.ru/2618-9453/article/view/87090
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2022

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