WI: No Vietnam War?

[MAC161]

(Another VERY broad scenario, obviously, but one that nonetheless fascinates)

Simply put: What if the Vietnam War didn't occur? The root of this question is the debate(s) I've read about how LBJ's Great Society and (stronger) civil rights efforts were starved of funding/political capital by his pouring both into "defending" SE Asia against Communism after Tonkin. If this doesn't happen (depending on the POD; could be just no Tonkin, or farther back, to the 1950s or 40s), and Vietnam and its effects doesn't become the defining conflict of the 60s-early 70s, what's the likeliest path for the Great Society, and American, SE Asian or global politics in general?

 

[Wendell]

Many U.S. politicians could have very different lives.

 

[Charles EP M.]

South Vietnam gives up the ghost years earlier, which could mean the hawks say "see what happens if you DON'T send troops in". Vietnam in general has millions more people in it and a lot less damage to fix, which is a really good thing for them.

 

[raharris1973]

Instead of the South Vietnamese refugee diaspora being US-focused, if South Vietnam falls in the 1960s, with their never having been a US ground force intervention, nor bombing campaign, the refugee diaspora may be split more or less evenly between the USA, where South Vietnamese had been getting training or dealing with in-country advisors since the middle-late fifties, and France, where non-communist/anti-communist Vietnamese often knew the language, had received training or education, or dealt with administrators or missionaries. That is aside from those who may take refuge in third countries locally like Philippines, Malaysia, Australia.

South Vietnam would also go for a longer period hobbled by collectivized agriculture, until Doi Moi reformism becomes popular.

In the USA, LBJ would be vulnerable for having 'lost Vietnam' and letting the Red Flag fly over Saigon at some point in his term. But I think by the middle 60s, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the illusion of American invincibility was already gone, and 'losing Vietnam' would not have the same political punch as 'losing China' in the early 1950s. Vietnam would simply be not seen, and when seen would be seen as a less important country, with less history of US interest in it.

LBJ, and Congressional Democrats, would still face some vulnerabilities to racial backlash from Civil Rights, urban rioting, bussing, and rising crime, although the economy should be great. These domestically-oriented backlash issues would be more profitable lines of attack for Republicans, or a third party challenger like Wallace, than the "loss of Vietnam".

But they are still going to be insufficient to cost the Democratic majority in Congress (although that will be a mix of liberals, and mainly southern 'blue dogs') and probably insufficient to cost LBJ reelection. After all, even with the Democrats still coded as the liberal party, in the era of rising crime, civil rights, acid, amnesty, and abortion, women's lib, gays getting out and loud and proud on the west coast, and disco, and just as importantly, suburban sunbelt *backlash* to all this, Jimmy Carter still won the 1976 Presidential election in both the popular vote, and the electoral votes of nearly all *southern states* with biracial majorities. LBJ, in the absence of a Vietnam War, and even if lacking in personal charm, strikes me as an effective enough politicians to keep that disparate coalition together in the 1968 election.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

In the USA, LBJ would be vulnerable for having 'lost Vietnam' and letting the Red Flag fly over Saigon at some point in his term.

JFK or Eisenhower, more likely.

There will always be a Vietnam war, which the North/Viet Minh will win, the USA just won't be involved, or at least not the extent where 58,220 US military personnel are killed in combat.

 

[raharris1973]

There will always be a Vietnam war, which the North/Viet Minh will win, the USA just won't be involved,

Yes, excellent point - as long as there is a partition (that somebody tries to make permanent instead of a precursor to elections) that does not just give the *whole thing* to Vietnam as part of the French surrender/negotiated departure process carried out in 1956.

or at least not the extent where 58,220 US military personnel are killed in combat.

Yes

JFK or Eisenhower, more likely.

More likely? I suppose because, in path-dependent things like this, they aren't as far/deep along the path, and thus easier to divert from escalation? Stakes in the escalation/humiliation dichotomy are lower in their times?

I think Eisenhower would have the easiest time of the three keeping US investment/commitment of prestige in a separate South Vietnam low, or non-existent. However, if the fall-out from the Geneva Accords and reconstruction from the French Indochina War is still as serious as it was, and the timidity of Moscow, Beijing, and Hanoi in the middle/latter 50s is the same as historical, the Communist side may have trouble "sealing the deal" of unification while Eisenhower is still power, if the 1954 Geneva negotiations had allowed for even temporary partition, movement of refugees and Diem's bid to make a southern government.

JFK could have *not escalated* with additional levels of arms, combat advisors, De Soto raids, and rhetoric about this war in this place not being a test. That's true, and it would not have cost him much in the short term. Separately, less meddlesomeness and less media attention may have forestalled the anti-Diem coup and its knock-on effects. But assuming JFK only lives as long as he did and keeps his appointment with death, it is unlikely the VC and north are able to fill that vacuum from lack of US effort to get all the way to victory and reunification while JFK is still alive and President'ing. "Red Flag on Saigon Day" seems statistically more likely to happen on Johnson's longer watch.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

But assuming JFK only lives as long as he did and keeps his appointment with death, it is unlikely the VC and north are able to fill that vacuum from lack of US effort to get all the way to victory and reunification while JFK is still alive and President'ing.

Lee H. Oswald only has to miss, for LBJ's role in the Vietnam to be negligible.

 

[raharris1973]

Lee H. Oswald only has to miss, for LBJ's role in the Vietnam to be negligible.

Oh, well certainly. Of course.

 

[marktaha]

Ali makes more successful defences. We never hear of Eugene McCarthy.

 

[raharris1973]

Ali makes more successful defences. We never hear of Eugene McCarthy.

Ali?

 

[AH Layard]

Ali?

Floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.

 

[raharris1973]

Ali makes more successful defences. We never hear of Eugene McCarthy.

Muhammad Ali makes more successful defenses of his boxing title, not getting ousted from the sport as a draft protestor?

 

[marktaha]

Muhammad Ali makes more successful defenses of his boxing title, not getting ousted from the sport as a draft protestor?

Yes.