it blows my mind that South Korea was a military dictatorship
Why? China, Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan all derive their political cultures primarily from Confucianism, a strongly hierarchical system that modern commentators would probably, if it could be seen undoctored today, describe as a dictatorship. North Korea, a personality cult with similar structure, persists.
At the same time, in the 1980s, nearby Taiwan was also a dictatorship of the Nationalist Chinese army and was also supported if not set up by the US. They stopped off in Burma to grow heroin and prop up a military dictatorship there along the way. In the last few years, the US has basically let the dictators out of prosecution to counter growing regional Chinese influence which was formerly set to dominate the country. Singapore is widely accused of setting up its stock market explicitly to launder the drug revenues, and still has - and indeed probably only exists today - because of major US support.
Vietnam is the only really strong story of the lot, repulsing an attack from China after kicking out the French and Americans and re-asserting its independence, then removing another dictatorship (Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge) from Cambodia in 1978.
Cambodia had help from U.S. on Khmer Rouge, too. Marcinko, SEAL 6 founder, covers his time training them to fight Khmer Rouge in his book Rogue Warrior. Far as Vietnam, I agree that their resolve was impressive. I just don't recall it going the way you described with instead them splitting up with one side backing communist imperialists and the other capitalist imperialists. They fell for the games plenty enough but resisted a lot, too.
The one with most potential is probably Singapore given what they've accomplished in a short time. They just need a cultural shift to get them out of this conformist, nationalist, factory-worker mentality. They could become a hub of not only trustworthy business in Asia but innovation or quality-focused business too. The reactionaries are doing everything they can to prevent that, though, as it will threaten their power.
The US provided training, enormous air power, and weapons including land mines to the Lon Nol government.
It may be in the realm of conspiracy theory still, but some would contend that the CIA installed the Lon Nol government and helped oust Norodom Sihanouk as king. Sihanouk himself wrote a book called "My War with the CIA" and as I understand it (haven't read it) his position is that this happened in retaliation for Cambodia remaining neutral in the Vietnam war.
I'm not sure to what extent this is true, or whether or not Sihanouk quietly supported the VC, but Cambodia was absolutely devastated by US bombing and it can only be described as evil. As a personal anecdote, I recently met some Cambodian men who subsisted as children by salvaging unexploded American bombs.
Between 1965 and 1973, the U.S. dropped 2.7 million tons of explosives -- more than the Allies dropped in the entirety of World War II -- on Cambodia, whose population was then smaller than New York City's. Estimates of the number of people killed begin in the low hundreds of thousands and range up from there, but the truth is that no one has any idea.
You're forgetting to add why the US bombed Cambodia. The North Vietnamese were using the border areas with Vietnam as a refuge and a supply route for war materials.
Note that the US didn't bomb Cambodia until quite late in the war. That probably helped the North Vietnamese more than anything.
The bombing happened all over the country. A few weeks ago I was in Kompung Thom (right in the middle of Cambodia) and talked to quite a few people about this. The members of these communities were farmers, not combatants or VC sympathizers, and they didn't even have much awareness of why they were being bombed.
I also have to add that there is no reasonable "why" to excuse bombing largely civilian areas. Undoubtably the VC were crossing over the border -- the Cambodian side of the Vietnam-Cambodia border is ethnically and linguistically a mixture of Khmer and Vietnamese, and that border has been fluid up until recent history -- but still most people there would have been civilians.
I'll stick with "an area with many civilians" as my definition of a civilian area. These people weren't wealthy, and it's where they happened to own land and build houses. It becomes a choice between being homeless and impoverished, or staying where you are and taking the risk of being bombed.
If you commit to the idea "I will not bomb civilians", then you offer an enormous advantage to your adversary, who will therefore proceed to make sure civilians are well-distributed in any area of military operation.
Never heard of this but it no doubt pales in comparison to Vietnam's "remove them with a land army" commitment.
I just don't recall it going the way you described with instead them splitting up with one side backing communist imperialists and the other capitalist imperialists. They fell for the games plenty enough but resisted a lot, too.
Any way you look at it Ho Chi Minh was brilliant military tactician and strategist who drew from both ancient Chinese and modern western military philosophy to lead his people to independence. I'd argue that the use of socialism was probably not as significant (versus other options of wartime economies) as commonly thought. It was useful, however, to get diplomatic support and military hardware from allies such as Russia and China. I don't think it greatly shaped Vietnam, which is now very capitalist, just like China and Singapore, two other nominally 'communist' party-led modern Asian nations.
Not as strong on the history part to know about remove them with land army. However, I agree Ho Chi Minh was brilliant at strategy. Far as our opponents go, I particularly was impressed with whoever realized that Americans would likely pull out if they saw enough messed up stuff on TV. That's one of reasons they started doing stuff near places like churches. It was a brutal strategy but it worked quite to their advantage. They proved America didn't have the guts to keep up a war against Vietnamese. Many couldn't even watch one.
A big part of why North Vietnam succeed in winning the war was the ability to send a steady supply of solider into the grinder. Somewhere between 500K and 1M North Vietnamese soldiers died during the war. And that's not even including the war with the French prior.
Ho Chi Minh kicking out the French significantly accelerated the end of the Colonial Era - all of a sudden, the impossible was proven possible: small impoverished nations could throw out their European overlords. The man is a much under-recognised talent.
> Cambodia had help from U.S. on Khmer Rouge, too.
>> Never heard of this
It's true right up until the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh. Then US diplomats and officials were evacuated in helicopters, while the city was left for slaughter.
...Cult of the King. Living in Thailand was a real eye-opener for me. Having to stand up for the King before movies, to stop in public places to honor the King when the loudspeaker played, and to watch what I said with regards to the King was a very jarring experience.
Of all the countries I have visited as a tourist, I felt Thailand was the most overrated because of all this. It's surreal to see busy people in train stations at rush hour stop for the anthem, which as I saw later in the cinema is basically a dystopian hail to the king deal (I was continually reminded of Borat's anthem, especially the last line). Add to that the people prostrating themselves at monks' feet on busy streets, the schoolboys with all identical shortcropped hair, and then the old white men with young girls draped around them. Everything just had an evil vibe and I couldnt wait to leave (and they even made me pay an exit fee at the airport!).
The Soviet and Chinese relationship was an interesting one. Mao disagreed with Khrushchev's liberal (compared to Stalin) policies, and China and the USSR became enemies. Vietnam (and Mongolia) were close Soviet allies to protect themselves from Chinese domination.
China allowed Soviet military aid passage through the country, but once the threat of having an American client cf. South Korea was waning (early 70s) repaired relations with the US and invaded Vietnam (1978).
Of course. Actually they have had many invasions and multiple occupations from China over the course of the last 10-20 centuries. They are, long-term historically speaking, essentially a China breakaway, but similarly southward-expansionist state.
> Actually they have had many invasions and multiple occupations from China over the course of the last 10-20 centuries.
Right now there is conflict with China over their Vietnam's territorial waters and the South China Sea. China invaded Vietnam via land as recently as 1979.
> They are, long-term historically speaking, essentially a China breakaway
Hmmm ... China hasn't controlled Vietnam in a very long time, AFAIK; maybe never. Vietnam has a different culture and language.
> similarly southward-expansionist state
South of Vietnam is ocean; what does this comment mean?
The language is very much a dialect of ancient southern Chinese. In fact, it is used by linguists to reconstruct (along with other languages) ancient Chinese pronunciation. Culturally, Vietnam has Chinese holidays like Chinese New Year, plus Chinese characters (though they are forgetting how to read them after the installation of Romanized script), Confucianism, Taoism, etc.
South of Vietnam is ocean; what does this comment mean?
Sinified Vietnam (ie. the first beginnings of modern Vietnam proper) expanded southward overrunning completely culturally distinct countries such as Champa, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champa
Why? China, Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan all derive their political cultures primarily from Confucianism, a strongly hierarchical system that modern commentators would probably, if it could be seen undoctored today, describe as a dictatorship. North Korea, a personality cult with similar structure, persists.
At the same time, in the 1980s, nearby Taiwan was also a dictatorship of the Nationalist Chinese army and was also supported if not set up by the US. They stopped off in Burma to grow heroin and prop up a military dictatorship there along the way. In the last few years, the US has basically let the dictators out of prosecution to counter growing regional Chinese influence which was formerly set to dominate the country. Singapore is widely accused of setting up its stock market explicitly to launder the drug revenues, and still has - and indeed probably only exists today - because of major US support.
Vietnam is the only really strong story of the lot, repulsing an attack from China after kicking out the French and Americans and re-asserting its independence, then removing another dictatorship (Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge) from Cambodia in 1978.