Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "Imagine that Vietnam was in Virginia instead, what would the war have been like?"
Cool idea!
(a) We'd be fighting English speaking people who worship the same God we do, and are used to the same government, etc., so there'd be a lot more trust between the two sides. In fact, we already fought over Virginia, during the Civil War.
(b) Since the war would be so much closer to the American heartland, our hearts would be more into the war, and we'd fight a lot harder. In fact, we lost far more soldiers killed during the Civil War (per capita) than we did during Vietnam.
(c) Since Virginia is so much closer to the US than Vietnam, all our costs for running the war would be that much cheaper, while the costs of our enemies would be higher. In fact, the Civil war was not supported by our overseas rivals of the time, while the other side in Vietnam received wide support.
(d) Since the Civil war was fought on US soil by US citizens, both sides were equally willing to continue the fighting. By contrast, Vietnam was fought only on Vietnamese soil, so the US was less willing than the Vietnamese.
Vietnam, like Iraq, was a doomed war, while the Civil war was an ugly war between approximate equal neighbors, which (typically) continue until one side has been sufficiently thrashed. In Vietnam, the US gave up despite never having been thrashed at all. This is similar to the Russians in Afghanistan, where the USSR gave up despite Moscow never having been captured, and the Algerian conflict, where the French gave up despite the fact that Paris never saw an enemy soldier.
-- Carl |
