Spend seven years fighting the French

>spend seven years fighting the French
>immediately jump into a civil war for nineteen years against a US backed government with direct and massive intervention by the US and its allies lasting nine years
>two years later invade Cambodia in a conflict lasting fourteen years, ousting the Khmer Rouge backed by both China and the US
>while the majority of Vietnam's military strength is in Cambodia China invades with overhwleming numbers but is beaten back

How the fuck did the Vietnamese do it Veeky Forums?

Pho is just that good

They had a very strong national determinism, and for a long time massive support from the USSR/PRC (before relations went bad). The VCP was extremely dedicated to its goals and through conditioning of its troops and citizens was able to make life very difficult for its enemies. Against the French, a lot of it had to do with French incompetence and overconfidence (Dien Bien Phu could've been completely avoided if the French didn't have their heads up their asses). De Lattre managed to keep things going for a while until he died, but the French never had much of a chance of winning. Against the US, it was much the same with much more support from the Combloc and a large number of seasoned troops/officers from the wars against Japan and France. This was a much longer test of will since we were content to bomb the fuck out of everything and expend lives/ordinance at a prodigious rate for a while. I'll get shit for this, but we had a legit chance to put the North in a real bind if we had launched a major offensive after the North's Tet offensive but the negative PR was too much. In time the US pulled out and the South fell, but a reunified Vietnam was in pretty bad shape from years of war coupled with disastrous post-reunification economic programs. Also Nixon had mentioned something ambiguous about reparations, and the victorious North expected us to be forthcoming. Of course we wouldn't have any of that shit and promptly embargoed them for a good 20 years. Then things get worse when their temporary ally China decided to roll south. They beat off the Chicoms, but for decades to follow Vietnam would have to station troops on their northern border to stave off border raids. The incursion into Cambodia also cost them dearly since many neutral nations (Sweden and Japan among them) saw it as an act of aggression and withdrew loans they had promised Vietnam.

Communism is everything fascism wants to be but can't.

So now Vietnam is having to keep a constant eye on its northern border while fighting an insurgency against multiple guerrilla groups in Cambodia (there were more than just Khmer Rouge out there), while also running its economy into the ground. Support from the Combloc and the USSR begins to dwindle as those countries begin to experience their own economic troubles. All the while Vietnam refuses to join the ASEAN because free markets are bad n shit. Vietnam has up until the point done admirably in terrible circumstances, but its reaching a point where the strain is becoming heavy. A second wave of boat people gtfo of the Indochina region and with it comes a brain drain. Support from the Combloc continues to dwindle as the war in Cambodia drags on. It's only when the Doi Moi reforms occur and when Le Duan's clique of crusty old Marxist-Leninist hardliners begin to relinquish power that Vietnam begins to change for the better. The end of the USSR and the Combloc was the event that imo caused Vietnam to really revamp its image. Instead of spouting hostil rhetoric on the international stage, Vietnam began to try and make more friends in the region and joined the ASEAN. Tourism began to pick up again, and after some drawn-out negotiations relations with the US were restored. Fast forward to today, and Vietnam is doing pretty well. They've slowly opened up their markets and re-opened up to the world. Only thing they have to worry about is what China intends for the region, relations seem to be okay but I recall that there was some pretty hardcore anti-Chinese protests a while back.

Overall, they've done breddy gud (and this is coming from a guy who hates commies). The only thing out of this that I will never understand is why (according to statistics and surveys) the Vietnamese appear to have a very positive opinion of the US, considering the history between our countries.

>The only thing out of this that I will never understand is why (according to statistics and surveys) the Vietnamese appear to have a very positive opinion of the US, considering the history between our countries.
A lion doesn't concern itself with the opinion of sheep

Ha. Literally this.

French Jacobins turned France into a giant that could fight a civil war and crush all neighboring great powers at once.

It let Russia lose WWI to Germany, lose a lot of land, then fight a brutal civil war, and still get manage to btfo Germany two decades later in a way they never could have in 1914-17.

Communism is the ultimate war time government. Rationalist enough to do planning right, fanatic enough to fight to the death.

The problem is that in peace it either lapses into despotism or becomes sclerotic and less prosperous than democratic capitalist nations.

>Jacobins
>Communist
they were radical Republicans dumbass

A quote I read from Ho "I'd rather eat American shit for a decade than Chinese shit for a century."

He had the long view. He knew America cared about balance of power and ideology. They could become an ally. Chinese civilization was predicated on China being the center of the world, or East Asia at least, with places like Vietnam as vassals. They were always the longer term threat.

I think most Vietnamese realize this.

I mean, America nuked the Japs and carpet bombed the Germans, and they get on ok too.

>Post WWII = France a weak. WEAK.
>America won't touch NV directly for fears of escalation and Korean War 2.0.
>China literally purged its army during the CR and rid it of good commanders.

They lucked out.

Now tell me why they want to suck America's dick by trying to ally with the Philippines on the Spratlys issue kekmao.

>pith helmets and Chicom rigs
>probably the same AKs that their grandparents used
Holy Jesus, they haven't changed their infantry equipment since the war? Technology memes aside even the Chinese issue body armor to frontline troops.

The United States was holding back because of domestic protests and supposed "human rights violations."

We could've easily won if we really wanted to.

As individual cases you could call it luck, but to string them together back to back for a near thirty years of conflict and then come out the other side militarily victorious despite suffering large manpower, economic and infrastructural losses is pretty impressive.

Another way to put this is that freedom is necessary for long term innovation, but disicipline is great for short term fight winning.

Those are conscripts. Vietnam has conscription. They get issued oldass shit.

The professional soldiers wear the same camos, but with Slavshit Helmets or Chink PASGT copies.

They still use assault guns btw.

In this case probably better to be slavshit since Chicom PASGT copies have a bad rep.
Good lord. Do they have any modern tanks (though given the terrain that may not be the best idea)?
No, Johnson/Nixon assumed that either the PRC or the USSR would get involved militarily (which probably wouldn't have happened, but we weren't aware at the time).

They have the largest tank fleet in SEA.

A thousand T 62/54s/Chinese knockoffs of the 54. Most of which are just cannibalized for parts tho. Though they plan to phase them all out for an order of Russian T-90s sometime in the future.

Phram, phat, fuk, fuk, drang, drang, ho, ho, ho, chong, wong, dong, fong, fuk, fuk, pham phat fuk. Bhram, bhram, phat, phat.

>A thousand T 62/54s/Chinese knockoffs of the 54
While that is numerically impressive, those would probably only be useful as static defenses or cannon fodder.
>acquiring T-90s
That's a very good step up.

>I'LL SHOW YOU SOME HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

Polish upgraded T-90's I think.
Basically though they love Americans for a lot of reasons - ideologically they really had not a huge amount of beef with the Americans and much much more with French. Basically we were more a temporary occupier than an actual imperial power, and the Chinese have always been breathing down their necks. Plus American tourism - it makes them a good bit of money, plenty of Vietnam vets want to see the country now its no longer a war zone - and it has some beautiful landscapes.

Both posts were me.
>Polish T-90s
Wat
>rest of the post
Good points, however ideologically they should still be rather opposed to us since they were into the whole anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism thing. Our behavior hasn't changed much in regards to blowing up third-world countries.
While I have read quite a bit on the conflict and their point of view that the Chinese are the much bigger threat, we did kill a fuckton of Vietnamese during the war. I'm surprised they don't hold a very strong grudge considering we did quite a bit of fucked up stuff (again, coming from a guy that normally hates commies).

Logistics. The French was in ruins after WW2 so could only sustain its war with American financial support. In the American war our supply line stretched for thousands of miles across the Pacific fighting in a theater that had little infrastructure(especially ports). To hamper that problem further LBJ failed to activate the National Guard. The National Guard always provided vital logistic elements for the Regular Army that POS denied MACV for fear of political consequences at home.

The Polish got their hands on a few T-90's, copied them and upgraded them with actual modern electronics and optics along with a better ERA package and engine and sell them for export. Pretty sure that's the variant the Vietnamese bought - though I could be thinking of another SEA nation.

A lot of it is the Ho Chi Min's attitude towards the US was one of actual respect (we helped supply guerillas in the area against the Japanese don't forget that) and the fact we fucked off before the true end of the war. Plus we weren't the French, the actual imperialists who tried to reassert control over the whole place. Old enemies who fuck you over for generations are worse than enemies that were barely enemies and are now giving you money and also don't like your ancient enemies all that much are far better. The average Vietnamese peasant didn't hate the Americans or have much reason to either - we didn't (usually) burn their fields kill their animals and rape their women, unlike both sides in the Vietnamese civil war or the Japanese or the Chinese. The average GI wanted to go the fuck home. Guess who the average Vietnamese got the most interaction with?

Plus we also had reason to look the other way when they started shit with the Cambodians. South East Asia has a long long memory of everyone hating everyone else. We're the new kids on the block and we have reason to help them fuck up their old enemies if it comes to that. IIRC if trump didn't cancel it we were working out a deal to sell them TOW's, Harpoons, and F-16's with training and maintenance provided to help modernize their aging fleet of MiG-21's since they can't afford to replace all of those with Su-27's and Su-30's

Whoops doubly wrong. The Malaysians have them, they're also actually heavily upgraded T-72 clones designated PT-91 after the year of adoption. Easy mistake to make when I'm tired and operating off of memory.

The T-90 order is a massive upgrade, even though it'll be relatively small in number.

Yeah, the U.S. lifted restrictions on selling fighter jets and similar stuff, and Vietnam requested 48 F-16s, on the same day. They really want American equipment to fend off any Chinese designs.

>The Polish got their hands on a few T-90's, copied them and upgraded them with actual modern electronics and optics along with a better ERA package and engine and sell them for export
Going to need a source on that, I though the Russkies only sold the T-90 to a few countries
>we didn't (usually) burn their fields kill their animals and rape their women
While I don't buy into most hippie propaganda about the conduct of our soldiers, there were more than a few cases of burning villages suspected of harboring VC and wasting a few villagers along the way. My Lai was the most publicized, but that was the only one that warranted a lot of attention. Furthermore, while the average GI did indeed not give a fuck about the war that attitude also meant that he was generally more than willing to not give a fuck about the Vietnamese as well, be they friend or foe. Throw in bombing Hanoi, prolific use of napalm, and Agent Orange and again I'm surprised that they're still so friendly with us. Especially considering that HCM died before the war was over and the hardliners took over after that. Yet they still tried to normalize relations with us when the war ended (albeit under the conditions that we provide reparations that Nixon secretly put into the Paris accords). I simply do not understand why they were willing to let all of the aforementioned stuff slide.
Also
>Plus we also had reason to look the other way when they started shit with the Cambodians
We didn't. We continued to embargoe them and provide support to the opposition in Cambodia (which included a few monarchist/alternative socialist/minority groups, and unfortunately the fucking Khmer Rouge). We actively shat on them for decades and yet they still wanted to normalize relations. Hell even today if I told my neighbors that I wanted to visit Hanoi they'd think I was insane.

Well their options on the plane market are the French Rafale (Cost wise and politically a no go), Swedish J-39's (Cost a lot, arguably not much of a performance upgrade over the F-16), Chinese J-8's (Never happening), Russian Mig-29's or Su-27 family (Again expensive), the Indian Tejas (Which is total outdated garbage despite just having gone into service) or the Eurofighter Typhoon (Expensive expensive expensive) if they don't want to buy American. If they want to buy American then they can get either F-18's or F-16s and the F-16 is a cheaper and proven bombtruck and pretty perfect for supporting their Su-27's as interceptors and multi role aircraft.

Kind of a more /k/ rundown than usually found here but it might help you understand why they love America - we can sell them better stuff cheaper than anyone else at this point.

Honestly while we did fund their enemies we certainly didn't help the Chinese out in '79.

It's weird. Honestly it's partly I think the massive nationalist bent Vietnamese communism took.

Also see I fucked up, the PT-91 is a T-72 upgrade not a T-90 upgrade, and the Malaysians bought it.

>(though given the terrain that may not be the best idea)?
SEA nations in general do not maintain great fleets of tanks (it has the largest amount, but that's not a competition) for precisely this reason.
The conflicts they can expect to fight simply do not lend themselves to having lot of tanks.

I just hope Vietnam doesn't expect the US to back them in a serious effort any more than the UN would if China ever invaded. We're by no means hostile towards one another as nations, but Vietnam isn't as kosher with the US as South Korea or Japan.

>they love Americans
Until the day Vietnam lets the US build bases on their soil it's for show.

>How the fuck did the Vietnamese do it Veeky Forums?

Thank/because of American retardation, basically
Americans disliked commies very much in that era
But it appears they disliked European colonialism and France even more
So they decided to wait until France got defeated and left before intervening in Vietnam themselves (pic related)

This allowed the Viets to gain ton of experience during their almost decade long war against the French, and although Americans had a technology the French could only dream of (like helicopters for exemple, which permitted US troops to be very mobile while the French had to fucking walk/drive through the jungle for weeks), the Viets were now battle hardened and had received a huge moral boost from their previous victory

Weed