Vietnam History Lesson

Geopolitics: The debate rages over Obama’s new strategy in Afghanistan. The word Vietnam is getting thrown around by the peaceniks but in a sloppy manner. To avoid being sloppy let’s review the history of the Vietnam War. The war lasted from 1946 to 1989 (four times longer than most people think). North Vietnamese Communists fought France from 1946-1954; then America from 1955-1973; then South Vietnam from 1973-1975. In 1975 North Vietnam defeated South Vietnam and took control of the entire country. But the war didn’t end in 1975 because that was the year Communist Vietnam went on the offensive, attacking and conquering other countries. In 1975 Vietnam gained control of Laos through a Viet Cong style guerilla war. In 1979 Vietnam invaded and occupied Cambodia in a blitzkrieg campaign. This is the same year that the USSR invaded Afghanistan. The two invasions were coordinated for maximum effect, a global bad guy push of enormous proportions. The Soviets got bogged down in Afghanistan but Vietnam had no trouble conquering Cambodia. A few months after the invasion of Cambodia (still in 1979) China invaded Vietnam because the smaller Communist power had become dangerously expansionistic. The Sino-Vietnam War was short but bloody. China withdrew from Vietnam with the understanding that there would be no more conquests. Vietnam fought a low level guerilla war in its conquered territories until it withdrew from Cambodia in 1989 in unison with the USSR’s withdrawal from Afghanistan; the final hours of the Cold War. Vietnam and the USSR remained highly synchronized until the bitter end. Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia because the Cold War was over. The Vietnam War lasted for the entire length of the Cold War because the Vietnam War was the Cold War and the good guys won the Cold War. We won the Vietnam War and heaven help us if we’d lost because it would have meant losing the entire Cold War. It’s not okay for America to lose a war.
The Long War has not affected stock markets as strongly as the Cold War did, not yet.
If Obama screws up badly enough that could change. America could start losing the Long War. Eritrea has already established itself as an Al-Qaeda ally. That makes one impregnable Taliban nation-state; a country that America cannot touch. If the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen were to hive off a nation-state there would be two. In Somalia all that would need to happen would be a truce between the government in Mogadishu and Al-Shabab and a third fully functioning Taliban state would spring into existence. What if Pakistan wins in South Waziristan but then stops because America has a week-kneed withdrawal timeline in Afghanistan and the Pakistanis don’t want to be left hanging by themselves against a rising tide of Islamic violence? Now there are ten Taliban states plus whatever arises out of Afghanistan. It’s not hard to spin scenarios where the Long War gets very ugly so we need to start seeing some backbone from the Commander-in-Chief.