I've always been partial to the Soviet influenced view, that can be broadly summarized as: war is dangerous, costly, full of risk & destruction, & therefore deeply undesirable, yet nonetheless inevitable, & can bring great opportunity through victory, thus the state must be prepared to fight & win.

i worked on my thesis some more

fwiw its not totally bad or anything thatd be dumb to say. if you want to understand how the south vietnamese right wingers thought and their perspective on things its fine for that

i disagree but it is 2 am here in washington district of columbia so i must zzzz

nah theres a lot of debate about it and ive seen some academic critique of it. its really not the book i would recommend to understand south vietnam

please use correct terminology instead of perjorative terms. i assume you would find it equally ridiculous if i referred to RVN as the “puppet regime”

that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, don’t try to change the subject

that has been my point the entire time! which is why you claiming the freedom house report is accurate because you say so is incredibly dumb

i think the fact you use viet cong instead of nlfsv or lasv tells me everything i need to know about your level of knowledge on this issue

this is not really relevant to the topic at hand, nor does it make you an authority on the history of the republic of vietnam and democratic republic of vietnam

i am not an authority, which is why i reference other works instead of pretending my experience makes me an expert on vn history

A war with global impacts is not a world war.

i am asking about vietnamese history. your experience “talking to other countries” is completely irrelevant to me, and i frankly don’t care if you have deluded yourself into thinking it makes you an authority on anything

this does not answer the question at all. please answer the question about vietnam

im glad orban got owned thank you mr magyar

i quite frankly do not care if you have dealt with other countries. that is entirely irrelevant and does not qualify you as a source on vietnamese history in any way. my question is about vietnam in particular. answer those questions please

why do you call it accurate. what gives you the qualifications to say that? do you closely study vietnamese history? does the document cite internal vietnamese records of both sides?

this topic with the respect and nuance it deserves. like idk i think le duan is pretty not great due to his stalinist tendencies and i think thieu creating an incredibly corrupt authoritarian state is also pretty not great

the two vietnams are very nuanced topics and as someone with vietnamese heritage i really think portraying it as a black and white one side better than the other is really offensive and dishonest. i certainly have my own ideological inclinations but it would be disrespectful of me to not engage in

besides veith, what NTDW referenced are good books about the topic. i would also add to that the books which i recommended in the thread. you can also read the journal of vietnamese studies for more recommendations

this was the only source you cited and said “it is accurate” so like, you?

this just flat out ignores the wealth of academic discussion on the topic in favor of ideological self fellating about “we were actually better than the evil communists”. very stupid and dumb and offensive

thanks bot tan

sure, they are. but i think citing “the freedom house” as an end all be all on the authoritarianism of the republic of vietnam and the democratic republic of vietnam is probably one of the most intellectually braindead things anyone can do wrt vietnamese history

your average american should be barred from ever speaking about the second indochina war i am so serious

was significantly “better” than the drv’s authoritarian regime is just dishonest and frankly disrespectful to the memory of the millions of vietnamese who suffered at the hands of the rvn and drv

neither le duan nor nguyen van thieu were very good people. at the very most you can claim that they were equal, but pretending the authoritarian nation which oppressed vietnamese civilians, restricted civil and economic rights, cracked down on minorities, and was above all else immensely corrupt

you can’t be serious in thinking this meme making fun of the idiocy of trying to quantify these topics is at all a helpful way of understanding “democracy” or “freedom”

sorry vietnamese-american who studies the complex history of their country, the white american man who cites the Freedom Burger Eagle Insitute and has never read a vietnamese source in their life has things to say about your nations history

its straight up the meme like come on. i assumed i was going to be able to have a nuanced academic conversation about popular will within the DRV and RVN but no its just “erm we are american and we say our ally is better”. like come the fuck on, use your brain for once in your life

are you fucking kidding me