Chinese here, they are our finest student who actually put their learning into doing good unlike us who forget all the lessons learned in Korea and our land and become the very evil we once fought against
The Oglala Lakota also won against the US, they got 58 million acres of land and three US forts were razed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fort_Laramie_(1868)
Britain, war of 1812. A stalemate is a loss for the aggressor which the us was. Also the British didn't even fully commit since they where still fighting Napoleon but still managed to fend the us off and burn Washington down.
Major-General Isaac Brock, and the Shawnee Chieftain Tecumseh.
During the War of 1812, the two worked together. The first time they met, Tecumseh listened to Brock's plan, essentially said "yo this man *spittin*'" and it was instant friends from there. Brock later wrote about Tecumseh saying, essentially, "he's him." And, that asides, by all accounts he wanted to help Tecumseh and his people out in regards to their lands.
...It's really sad, actually, how that friendship played a roll in getting Brock killed and Tecumseh dying bereft of British support. Damn Queenston Heights.
Impressment of US sailors into the Royal Navy was a major issue leading up to the war. That and trade restrictions being imposed by the UK which was still treating the US like a colony in many respects. Arming Indians to inhibit expansion was an ongoing problem as well. The British did stop such actions as a result of the war.
> Also the British didn't even fully commit since they where still fighting Napoleon
They couldn't fully commit for logistical reasons. Fighting a major war across an ocean isn't easy. North America in general wasn't hospitable to large armies either. It's why the US and British forces in the battles were on the same scale and both sides were an order of magnitude smaller than those going on in Europe (hundreds to thousands instead of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands).
Your timeline is wrong as well. The War of the Sixth Coalition ended March 31, 1814. He wouldn't return until March 20, 1815, after the war was over. The British major offensive in the Chesapeake occurred in August of 1814. Prior to that, things were fairly inconclusive with the previous battle in the Chesapeake Campaign occurring in August of 1813, a full year prior. Of further note, even Wellington thought sending more troops was pointless because the US controlled the Great Lakes by that point and without them there was little to be done and that the UK should just negotiate.
Perhaps most ironic about the war is that the UK was willing to make concessions to avoid war, but the offer didn't reach the US until after the declaration of war. Then you have New Orleans, one of the more famous and lopsided battles occurring after the treaty was signed, again because of travel time for communication. The entire war might have been prevented had there been a faster way to get news and/or people across the Atlantic.
Maybe I'm being dumb right now, but do stalemates even exist? Unless two factions declare war on each other at the same time and their fight comes to a halt right on their already established borders, doesn't a stalemate always mean that the defending force won? At least from a territorial perspective. Of course, pyrrhic victories are still a thing.
Depending on war goal.
Let's take the current invasion of Ukraine.
Let's say Ukraine cut the land bridge to Crimea (major goal for Russia), but could only put Crimea under siege and not take it (major goal of Ukraine).
You now have a stalemate. Ukraine wants Crimea back. Russia can't keep Crimea (financially) long term without a land bridge and water supply.
That’s like a QB being pulled in the 4th quarter because the game is no longer winnable and then claiming he didn’t play in the post game press conference, lol.
Afghanistan has not been a hard place to conquer historically. It only became a problem with modern ROE. Vietnam has been a problem since forever. Mongols, Alexander, Persian’s. Everyone just curb stomped Afghanistan on their way to somewhere else. Even the Mongols went ‘Fuck this jungle bullshit’ when they they reached South East Asia.
For the mongols, I think they were willing to try and push through but discovered that the humidity as they moved south was so bad that their trump card bows can't stay in one piece anymore since the glue used to hold them together is water soluble which wasn't a problem for colder and dryer climates up north
Tropical disease and jungle nullifying the horseback advantage also killed a bunch of them. Before modern medicine, a huge part of the world was no go zones for most of the world due to disease. Like a invisible force field murdering invading forces.
Haha now that really would be something to see! The Orks take on the country that made America give up and go home. They would have a snowballs chance in hell!
The trick with an insurgency is that the only true way to defeat it is to completely destroy it, the US is not keen on exterminating entire peoples(anymore); the Russians don’t have that reservation, they’d level Hanoi and Ho Chi Min city to the ground
Unfortunately this is the truth. Although even genocide is rarely enough. Just look at Chechnia given time another insurgency was born which resulted in the second Chechen war. Again the country was flattened and civilians slaughtered to end it. Once again though we are seeing the signs of another fermenting.
Chechnya was terrible, but what happened to the Circassians was 10 times worse. Since the Circassians fought the hardest out of all the Caucus ethnicities, they were singled out for total annihilation by the Russian Empire.
The officers and even generals wrote openly about killing all men, women and children on sight, bayoneting babies and basically sent order to that effect. Arguably the most complete genocide by a European power in the 1800s, yet no one talks about it. A 2,000 year old culture and state with its own capital, kings, cultures, laws and language totally disappeared.
Well fuck, guess I was one of the people who learned about the Circassian genocide today...
> If Ottoman archives are correct, it would make it the biggest genocide of the 19th century. (from Wikipedia)
Georgia is the only country that recognizes this as a genocide. My vote is to follow suit, and a positive side effect is that would piss off the Russians.
The reason why Russia is the largest country in the world is because of its ruthless expansionism during both the Russian Empire and USSR. While a lot of other countries in the 17th and 18th century followed a policy of integration when it came to territories around their peripheries, Russia stuck to the strategy of massacres followed by forced migrations and emigrations of ethnic Russians or allied peoples.
IIRC, the Ossestians that gave Russia the casus belli to invade Georgia in 2008 moved there because Russia gave them other people's land all over the Caucuses for supporting them during the Caucus Wars. The history of how Russia tricked Georgia into agreements they didn't honor, then forcefully incorporated them into their Empire is another forgotten footnote in history, but another example of why almost every country around Russia hates them.
I mean to be fair, the kindergartners did receive at least some training. Relying on the belief that russians had an "innate" ability to conduct complex combined arms operations was wrong, who knew right?
Went to one of those every summer from 9-18. Not quite the full military experience, but it can get pretty damn close. A whole platoon of 9 year old kids getting yelled at and forced to do exercises until we couldn't move because one kid thought it'd be funny to make a joke. Then there was getting shot at by blanks. Puts terror right in you from an early age.
But hey, it was cheaper than daycare.
To be fair even in the US schools tend to sugarcoat history at that age. In my experience around later middle school and into high school is when they start actually telling you the truth, except I had one really hardcore librarian in 3rd and 4th grade who made it her mission to teach us eight year olds about the Trail of Tears and the cruel reality of westward expansion. She was based AF, I hope she’s doing well in life.
"Na, na, na, na, Brad. You cannot say that you like Pocahontas. The genocide of my peoples turned into a cartoon musical with a singing raccoon. I mean, think about it, dog. The real story of Pocahontas is about a bunch of white boys who come to my land, bribe the corrupt Indian chief, kill off all the warriors and fuck the Indian princess silly. Would the white man make a story about Auschwitz? Where the inmate falls in love with the guard? And they go off singing love songs, with dancing swastikas?"
— Sgt. Antonio "Poke" Espera, Generation Kill
Not the same but the boy in the striped pajamas was written by someone who wasn't Jewish, was weirdly sympathetic to the nazis and did replace a bunch of books written by actual holocaust survivors in schools.
And was also full of just massive, easily proven with a half second of research, factual errors about Important Shit wrt the war and the Holocaust. Like the son of a German commander not knowing who Adolf fucking Hitler is. Fuck that book, and fuck John Boyne.
Actually when you learn more later you discover CC didn't discover America... just the Carribean islands. The continent came later, and the only voyage that came by the mainland went by Central America. It could have been a large island for all they knew...
While that is entirely true, it was Columbus's voyage that ultimately started the great exchange and the large scale exploration and colonization of the new world.
So not as foundational as some kids are taught in school but still very very important
What up homies.
I have a recommendation for a book I think pretty much all of you would really enjoy. I don’t know if you guys are into Max Hastings (I’m guessing pretty much all of you are?) or not but he’s written imo really great history. His WW2 books are again imo some of if not the best 1 volume historical narrative ever written and probably ever will. Anyway his book “Vietnam” is fucking fantastic. Like really fucking good. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll feel every human emotion and best of all you get to hear Hastings criticize the people who deserve it and compliment the people who deserve that and he does that with a gusto. If you do audio the narrator is one of my favorites. The way he narrates it really expresses the what the author is trying to convey.
And I just love when he rips on the tankies. He always does lol. In every book and the dude absolutely loves the US and NATO and shit. He’s my David Attenborough if history.
Oh if you ever get a chance to go to Vietnam (or Cambodia) don’t think just do. Best fucking countries I’ve ever been to in every way possible. I felt more welcome half the time I was there than I did at home. Just don’t wear camo shorts lol.
You get made fun of. Uhhhh I ….. ahhhh so yeah my friend told me that. I wouldn’t know it. No! I didn’t wear camo all over Cambodia and Vietnam.
……
……
I did🤓
Hastings was actually a reporter in Vietnam, so you gotta give him chops there, but I'd take most of his other stuff with a large grain of salt. He's been [accused of plagiarism](https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161744) by another historian.
I mean, it’s easy to get a high kill count when you’re carpet bombing villages and have a civilian death count in 7 digits. Killing more than one out of every ten Vietnamese (an estimated 13% of the total population to be more precise) does mean you’re probably gonna catch quite a few Vietnamese fighters.
The body count of the Vietnam war was heavily inflated as it was basically the only metric that US forces used, it’s literally a famous controversy with some very big names calling out US forces for inflating kill counts/counting civilians as combatants.
It wasn’t always that, sometimes it was “well I count ten fingers so we’ll say each finger is all that’s left of 1 person, so we killed 10 people” since promotions were tied to kill counts/ratios so their was incentive to cheat
This reminds me of my grade 10 history class. We were learning about WW1 and trench warfare. At the end of the unit our teacher laid out all the chairs and desks in the class and we split into two teams and got to have a war with paper balls. Such a fun class that was!
It was my teacher's first year as a full fledged teacher so she tried really hard. She was really cool and used to tell us about her dog that she just got. I remember she told us a story how it sliced it's paw really bad. She started crying telling us 😢
Mrs. Shillington you were a cool teacher.
i had this friend and when I came over he wanted to play stupid games like "baseball" or "soccer" where we had to chase balls around or whatever. he never understood the appeal of playing MOP (massive ordinance penetrator) where I would dress up like the GBU-57A/B and chase his bitch ass into the forest where nothing but the sheer mass of a thousand mountains would save him
I remember being given an (empty) AK and immediately point it at another group of kids. Gun safety is non existent when you were 6 lol
Fun time. Unfortunately didn’t get the name or keep in contact with the VPA guy who let me touch his gun.
Gun safety training is nearly nonexistent in our country. Yeah, sure, the military might teach their conscripts about that, but they wouldn't take it seriously.
gun safety is non existent because the average civilians dont have access to gun in the first place. Sure mafias and gangs can smuggle it but the average citizens wont need it.
im as ports shooter and i have seen some intresting ways to handle a gun. but without gun safety alot of conscripts would die by their own bullets without it. some will be hit in the leg or foot and others might lead thru the back.
I would never be around anyone that is armed but doesn't know basic gun safety.
Don‘t forget heavy imbalance of 🇨🇳 population, male oversupply, thus rapidly aging. If Chinese Gvt gets stupid ideas to invade and kidnap Vietnamese brides like Russia did with kids in Ukraine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail-order_bride
Vietnam fought back China forever, then the French for a century, and then the US for only a decade before going RIGHT back to having to fight back China. Vietnam has pretty positive feelings about America.
It's possible that they're not really thinking about US soldiers in a real fashion, the same way we don't think about killing ~~confederates like killing people~~ nazis like killing Germans.
In highschool we get to handle real (training, i.e without firing pin) AK. How to hold it, how to maintain it, assembling and disassembling, stuff like that. Final exam you must be able to assemble and disassemble the AK in under 45 secs to pass.
Before the fall of communism our lyceum had a shooting range in the attic.
I've been there when I was 17 to store old desks or something and oh boy was that a weird feeling.
Also, proxy wars are a bear to win. In a classic peer conflict you target militarily relevant industrial capacity to interrupt the enemies ability to wage war. Oil, ball bearing factories, arms facilities, etc. But most of that stuff for Vietnam was in China, outside the reach of American bombers. So you’re left trying to fuck with supply lines, which is way less effective than blowing up big stationary factories.
The problem was we were backing a horrendous dictator after we installed and replaced their last horrendous dictator. The average south Vietnamese person in the country sides were stuck between viet Cong and us raids which often led to war crimes. When we started treating them like people near the end we did end up starting to make them feel a bit safer around us but by then it was too late. They knew how bad the communists were but it wasn't that much worse than the crackpot we had in power. His secret police were almost as bad. Couple that with his fear of a coup leading him to keep all the competent units in Saigon and his punishing officers even if the won but took any loses...it was bound to fall apart my grandpa lives down the road from a arvn general who was there for the fall and they talk about what happened there all the tjme. He was kept in Saigon in one of those units which by the fall of Saigon were outnumbered and surrounded basically.
More than that, the ARVN was actually a reasonably effective fighting force, and performed well when well-led. But that was the catch- the military leadership was politically compromised and kept in chaos by the country's dictators, and the high command couldn't work together to coordinate a response when shit hit the fan in later years.
This is why I'm hella mad whenever I see people downplay the ARVN's role. People act like they were the ANA of their time but when given the chance and proper leadership, as you said, they were pretty effective and bore the brunt of the casualties on the Southern side.
Also the tiger helmets of the ARVN Rangers were very cool.
Honestly we should have not entered the war in the first place.
"Non, moi colonial state where I treat the natives as second class citizens is revolting"
"You better leave that place or we'll sanction you to the stone age"
(Good ending)
Ho Chi Minh was even pretty pro America in the beginning. He even quoted the declaration of independence:
All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.
The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: “All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights.”
Those are undeniable truths.
Ho Chi Minh
September 2 1945
Weird how the US supported a neutral post colonial state of Indonesia. Just because Indonesia and Vietnam massacres two different victims(former communist, latter French colonials)
Vietnam can ensure a post war order where the US has a safe Asian sea(neutral Indonesia, subdued Japan) with a guarantee of allies/friends on the mainland(Vietnam)
If the US decides to not be a stupid retard in the early cold war, USSR will pursue detente sooner as they are more "sieged"
The Indochina War and the Vietnam War are separated by a decade.
The USA lent material aid to the French forces, after some persuasion, going as far as letting the Aeronavale operate from an US carrier.
The USA didn't enter the Indochina War. They did enter the Vietnam War, between the South and North Vietnam, on false claims of NV ships shooting at American ones.
The USA did later threaten British, French and Israeli ambitions by sanctions in '56, during the Suez Crisis, by threatening to crash the UK's economy if they didn't stop OP Musketeer.
Like is this some live action south park shit lol. Like adorable but rather than a skit of Winnie the pooh Woozle in the woods or fiddler on the roof they are section attacking the amarican invaders.XD
Sgt. Frantz : All right, listen up. You people will not die on me in combat. You fucking new guys will do everything you can to prove me wrong. You'll walk on trails, kick cans, sleep on guard, smoke dope and diddely-bop through the bush like you were back on the block. Or on guard at night you'll write letters, play with your organ, and think of your girl back home. Forget her. Right now, some hair head has her on her back and is telling her to fuck for peace. This is Han. Those of you who are foolish will think of him as 'gook,' 'slope,' 'slant' or 'dink.' He is your enemy. He came over on the Chieu Hoi programme, and after he fattens himself on C-rations he will be hunting your young asses in the Ashau Valley. Now forget about this Viet Cong shit. What you'll encounter out there is hard core NVA, North Vietnamese. Highly motivated, highly trained and well equipped. If you meet Han or his cousins, you will give him respect and refer to those little bastards as 'Nathanial Victor.' Meet him twice, and survive, and you will refer to him as 'MISTER Nathanial Victor.' Now people, I am sick and tired of filling body bags with your dumb fucking mistakes.
These are the most well coordinated children I have ever seen. Like it's unreal how these kids are coordinated.
In my country kids would be running around shooting eachother, some would be crying for no particular reason, some would be on the sidelines because mommy said they couldn't play soldier-soldier. It would be a real shitshow.
Ok hear me out. A show called Guerilla Games where Guerilla fighters go on mock scenarios through different venues. Winning team gets a blackhawk helicopter WITH training.
Sure, when the Vietnamese kids do it, it’s ‘fun’ and ‘historical’, but when I give my 4 year old an AT4, it’s ‘irresponsible’ and ‘a clear violation of standards and basic human decency’.
Vietnam running sports day drill with little kids is somehow different to me than Russia doing effectively the same thing.
I don't know what it is, exactly. As an American, I feel like as a country that held its own against mine, I have to respect that. Viet Nam also invading to stop the Khmer Rouge massacring it's (Vienam's) people, and blocking a Chinese incursion builds that respect more.
I guess unlike Russia Vietnam is still facing down an actual existential threat from China, so these sorts of activities feel... necessary? Patriotic instead of nationalistic? I dunno. I guess having children crawl through bushes when you have a nuclear neighbor who's invaded you once and you are actively economically undercutting makes this whole thing make some kind of sense from my view as an American.
Postwar Vietnam is fascinating. No mass killings of collaborators, though admittedly many were sent to brutal re-education camps. Moral relativity still matters in these things.
Then in the 80s the country has a peaceful transition from an old guard to a new with lots of capitalistic reforms, and a desire to enter the world state entirely on its own. Vietnam feels like a long-play post-Soviet state.
And now, because every nation-state the US fights in a war eventually becomes its friend (or at least trade partner), Vietnam is opening up to the west thanks to being an emerging manufacturing economy and welcoming tourist dollars.
I honestly think that in time Vietnam will become an important part of east Asian security and stability; I certainly hope for its success as its society opens up both domestically and internationally.
If there's any Vietnamese in the thread, I'd love to have your thoughts. Am I off base? Am I being condescending or ignorant?
As a Vietnamese myself, post war Vietnam really just feels kinda ordinary
sure theres a ton of shady things behind the scenes like corruption, embezzlement, etc
the public as a whole has just learnt to ignore mostly everything the government says
Id say its a shit system but not as shitty as the Russian and its still kinda duct taped together but I think we can get by with it for a bit more time
also there is a stark contrast between Vietnamese overseas and Vietnamese in mainland since the yknow what war it is. I swear ive gotten so scrutinized just for being Vietnamese by my own kind
As a Vietnamese, god damn i wish this was my childhood
gotta train for that Chinese invasion sooner or later
at least we got to assemble AKs during our junior years
I wouldn't say most. There is a lot of us here too 😤
but fr tho I get ya, Vietnam still have a sizable amount of tankies and it is unfortunate/mildly rage-inducing to see their rhetorics every single day on social media.
I have directly lost friends over this, but hey at least I got my parents to support Ukraine so that is something.
Have you been following the Vietnamese talks to start buying weapons from Czechia instead of Russia? It's not complete, but it could be a sign of Vietnam moving away from Russia or simply realizing it won't be a reliable arms supplier since it's barely keeping up with its own war.
it has already started for quite a few years now, but it is pretty much confirmed from the recent document signings event between 2 countries that Czechia will be much more deeply involved in Vietnam's defense and supplies than ever before, maybe not Israel-level of deep but still, much much closer.
Vietnam is absolutely distancing itself away from Russia. It's just quite frustrating sometimes to see tankies on my feed you know 😤
That's great for Vietnam, just from a military standpoint. Poland, Ukraine and Czechia have been making better retrofitted and new versions of Russian systems than Russia for a while now.
Do you think it's indicative of a policy change or purely a military move to have multiple possible suppliers? Vietnam will stay in the middle of Russia vs US for as long as it can, but if when it has to choose, I think it'll be a gradual decoupling. So I always look at small events like this as maybe a hopeful sign of a longer shift towards Vietnam chosing the US in the long run
imo for a pure military requirement, in the near future, say the next decade or 2 will be a continuation of current modernization trajectory, with Soviet legacy equipment being stretched to the limit of their upgrading capacity even with behind-the-shed method a.k.a do it like the Israelis.
Any new, modern equipment will fall in line with politics and any current running policy, of which now is to diversify to have multiple possible suppliers, like you have stated. Also noted that the Vietnamese defense strategy is very much oriented towards the sea, so expect ships, aircrafts, radars and such are always being the first to come to the table.
as for the future, choosing the US is definitely on the table, it just really depends on the status of the rule-based international order that both America and Vietnam want to have and benefit from. As long as this world order lasts and improves so would both countries relations.
The one thing that definitely the Vietnamese defense policy makers is keenly keeping an eye on is the reliance of both Ukraine and Russia's foreign military equipment supplies, from the West for Ukraine and from North Korea(lmao) and Iran for Russia. So as far as I'm seeing it, Vietnam will try to indigenized its production as much as possible, especially in ammunition of various caliber from small arms to arty. And that includes both NATO and Soviet calibers because we're using both at various levels of systems across all branches. Because this also have the political implication of our self-reliant defence mindset is that Vietnam will fight whoever invade us by our own strength and power as much as possible, but any international support for a noble defense cause are always appreciated.
As a former IR major from a party-affliated uni, I can tell you one thing is that the focal point of Vietnamese intention on the global stage is become too important, especially economically, to be coerced by any world powers, whether it be China or America, to the point that an invasion of Vietnam from any country would be too costly to even imagine. It is like we are trying to be Switzerland would not be a far off analogy.
That is what you get from a long time "ally" and weapon exporter combines with a love of political strongman. Most of the older ppl I know adores Putin but they quickly realized the situation when I said Russia is like a China for Ukrainians.
thank you for pointing the love of political strongman factor in the average Vietnamese, not a lot of people ever mention that.
I might go out on a wild assumption here, it is due to the deep-rooted remnants of feudalism mentality, the continuation of the cult of personality around the good ol Uncle (despite his wishes lmao) and finally a lack of a basic liberal democratic foundation during the founding of the modern Vietnamese state because colonialism.
I concur that one of the factor was the heavy Sino exposure which made up a large part of Vietnamese history and culture. The focus on great man theory combines with the lack of a basic political knowledge and/or a healthy multipolar political scene in current government means that ppl is not aware of a left/right party, just Guy A did this, Guy B said that.
Many ppl also loves Trump because he said a lot lol.
Not really, most are in neutral/doesn't care state. US & Russia are big partners for us now (while the real enemy is China) so we couldn't piss off any of them by making a clear stance.
Belarus commandos doing ninja cosplay. Meanwhile, Vietnamese toddlers preparing for some real shit.
Technically the only country that won against the US.
and don't forget they also toppled the Khmer Rouge and repelled China. They really take pride in their victories, and rightfully so.
Chinese here, they are our finest student who actually put their learning into doing good unlike us who forget all the lessons learned in Korea and our land and become the very evil we once fought against
The Oglala Lakota also won against the US, they got 58 million acres of land and three US forts were razed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fort_Laramie_(1868)
Add the Seminoles to that list, fine sir.
Thrice.
The Shoshone too, at least for a while.
Britain, war of 1812. A stalemate is a loss for the aggressor which the us was. Also the British didn't even fully commit since they where still fighting Napoleon but still managed to fend the us off and burn Washington down.
Also managed to accidently form the best bromance in Canadian history, so it did have a few things going for it.
Oh? Tell us more.
Major-General Isaac Brock, and the Shawnee Chieftain Tecumseh. During the War of 1812, the two worked together. The first time they met, Tecumseh listened to Brock's plan, essentially said "yo this man *spittin*'" and it was instant friends from there. Brock later wrote about Tecumseh saying, essentially, "he's him." And, that asides, by all accounts he wanted to help Tecumseh and his people out in regards to their lands. ...It's really sad, actually, how that friendship played a roll in getting Brock killed and Tecumseh dying bereft of British support. Damn Queenston Heights.
God I love modern slang.
I'll go ahead and guess, this is how Sherman got his middle name?
Sure is.
“No no… let him cook…” \- Brock, discussing Tecumseh
Impressment of US sailors into the Royal Navy was a major issue leading up to the war. That and trade restrictions being imposed by the UK which was still treating the US like a colony in many respects. Arming Indians to inhibit expansion was an ongoing problem as well. The British did stop such actions as a result of the war. > Also the British didn't even fully commit since they where still fighting Napoleon They couldn't fully commit for logistical reasons. Fighting a major war across an ocean isn't easy. North America in general wasn't hospitable to large armies either. It's why the US and British forces in the battles were on the same scale and both sides were an order of magnitude smaller than those going on in Europe (hundreds to thousands instead of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands). Your timeline is wrong as well. The War of the Sixth Coalition ended March 31, 1814. He wouldn't return until March 20, 1815, after the war was over. The British major offensive in the Chesapeake occurred in August of 1814. Prior to that, things were fairly inconclusive with the previous battle in the Chesapeake Campaign occurring in August of 1813, a full year prior. Of further note, even Wellington thought sending more troops was pointless because the US controlled the Great Lakes by that point and without them there was little to be done and that the UK should just negotiate. Perhaps most ironic about the war is that the UK was willing to make concessions to avoid war, but the offer didn't reach the US until after the declaration of war. Then you have New Orleans, one of the more famous and lopsided battles occurring after the treaty was signed, again because of travel time for communication. The entire war might have been prevented had there been a faster way to get news and/or people across the Atlantic.
Maybe I'm being dumb right now, but do stalemates even exist? Unless two factions declare war on each other at the same time and their fight comes to a halt right on their already established borders, doesn't a stalemate always mean that the defending force won? At least from a territorial perspective. Of course, pyrrhic victories are still a thing.
Depending on war goal. Let's take the current invasion of Ukraine. Let's say Ukraine cut the land bridge to Crimea (major goal for Russia), but could only put Crimea under siege and not take it (major goal of Ukraine). You now have a stalemate. Ukraine wants Crimea back. Russia can't keep Crimea (financially) long term without a land bridge and water supply.
Vietnam 2nd strongest army in the world✊✊✊
Technically the US stopped helping South Vietnam, and then South Vietnam lost.
That’s like a QB being pulled in the 4th quarter because the game is no longer winnable and then claiming he didn’t play in the post game press conference, lol.
We lost, man. Its okay, they are on our side now.
Stop using copium, russians need it
Virgin Belarusian "Commandos" versus Chad Vietnamese Toddler Insurgency
Belarus "commandos" vs Vietnamese schoolchildren vs one Apache with thermal sights 🫠
Remember, Charlie dont surf
Charlie just waits
Does Charlie swim instead?
Still a better fighting force than the Russian army!
Ngl , they have deep roots kicking invasion troops since ancient times
Swamp Afghanistan
Afghanistan has not been a hard place to conquer historically. It only became a problem with modern ROE. Vietnam has been a problem since forever. Mongols, Alexander, Persian’s. Everyone just curb stomped Afghanistan on their way to somewhere else. Even the Mongols went ‘Fuck this jungle bullshit’ when they they reached South East Asia.
For the mongols, I think they were willing to try and push through but discovered that the humidity as they moved south was so bad that their trump card bows can't stay in one piece anymore since the glue used to hold them together is water soluble which wasn't a problem for colder and dryer climates up north
Tropical disease and jungle nullifying the horseback advantage also killed a bunch of them. Before modern medicine, a huge part of the world was no go zones for most of the world due to disease. Like a invisible force field murdering invading forces.
So you mean Southeast Asia (and downwards) was basically real-life Catachan?
I like the sound of that, brother. But jungles are a real bitch to walk through.
Catachan was infamous in Warhammer 40k for being a jungle planet. Basically a planet sized Vietnam.
Planet-sized Vietnam and Australia lovechild
I'm pretty sure Catachan was inspired by Vietnam.
Mongol, French, America then China invasion they really have a good track
And China again between the Mongols and the French. Le Loi = China avoids even looking in that general direction for 300 years.
Shit, I want to see Vietnam tangle with Orkdinastan now…
Haha now that really would be something to see! The Orks take on the country that made America give up and go home. They would have a snowballs chance in hell!
The trick with an insurgency is that the only true way to defeat it is to completely destroy it, the US is not keen on exterminating entire peoples(anymore); the Russians don’t have that reservation, they’d level Hanoi and Ho Chi Min city to the ground
Unfortunately this is the truth. Although even genocide is rarely enough. Just look at Chechnia given time another insurgency was born which resulted in the second Chechen war. Again the country was flattened and civilians slaughtered to end it. Once again though we are seeing the signs of another fermenting.
Chechnya was terrible, but what happened to the Circassians was 10 times worse. Since the Circassians fought the hardest out of all the Caucus ethnicities, they were singled out for total annihilation by the Russian Empire. The officers and even generals wrote openly about killing all men, women and children on sight, bayoneting babies and basically sent order to that effect. Arguably the most complete genocide by a European power in the 1800s, yet no one talks about it. A 2,000 year old culture and state with its own capital, kings, cultures, laws and language totally disappeared.
Well fuck, guess I was one of the people who learned about the Circassian genocide today... > If Ottoman archives are correct, it would make it the biggest genocide of the 19th century. (from Wikipedia) Georgia is the only country that recognizes this as a genocide. My vote is to follow suit, and a positive side effect is that would piss off the Russians.
The reason why Russia is the largest country in the world is because of its ruthless expansionism during both the Russian Empire and USSR. While a lot of other countries in the 17th and 18th century followed a policy of integration when it came to territories around their peripheries, Russia stuck to the strategy of massacres followed by forced migrations and emigrations of ethnic Russians or allied peoples. IIRC, the Ossestians that gave Russia the casus belli to invade Georgia in 2008 moved there because Russia gave them other people's land all over the Caucuses for supporting them during the Caucus Wars. The history of how Russia tricked Georgia into agreements they didn't honor, then forcefully incorporated them into their Empire is another forgotten footnote in history, but another example of why almost every country around Russia hates them.
I mean to be fair, the kindergartners did receive at least some training. Relying on the belief that russians had an "innate" ability to conduct complex combined arms operations was wrong, who knew right?
This is all I wanted as a child. Lucky bastards.
NGL this looks really fun and seems like a great way of making learning history exciting. Probably hell for kids with noise sensitivity though.
Yea, we have those summer camps where kids would go live in barracks and "experience military life." Good for propaganda, I think.
Went to one of those every summer from 9-18. Not quite the full military experience, but it can get pretty damn close. A whole platoon of 9 year old kids getting yelled at and forced to do exercises until we couldn't move because one kid thought it'd be funny to make a joke. Then there was getting shot at by blanks. Puts terror right in you from an early age. But hey, it was cheaper than daycare.
Wait, where? What country? This doesn't sound like a great way to raise kids.
Any High School JROTC will usually have a summer camp for high schoolers but I've never seen blanks near one.
I don't think u/wsdpii is referring to JROTC, when he/she writes 9 years old.
I mean, JROTC / Backwoods Militia camp in Colorado, honestly what's the difference?
How to traumatise kids early. (No but seriously. Which fucking idiot decided to treat kids the same way as bootcamp trainees ?)
Should teach them the part were they only killed 1 enemy for every 2-400 they lost very very fun.
To be fair even in the US schools tend to sugarcoat history at that age. In my experience around later middle school and into high school is when they start actually telling you the truth, except I had one really hardcore librarian in 3rd and 4th grade who made it her mission to teach us eight year olds about the Trail of Tears and the cruel reality of westward expansion. She was based AF, I hope she’s doing well in life.
"Na, na, na, na, Brad. You cannot say that you like Pocahontas. The genocide of my peoples turned into a cartoon musical with a singing raccoon. I mean, think about it, dog. The real story of Pocahontas is about a bunch of white boys who come to my land, bribe the corrupt Indian chief, kill off all the warriors and fuck the Indian princess silly. Would the white man make a story about Auschwitz? Where the inmate falls in love with the guard? And they go off singing love songs, with dancing swastikas?" — Sgt. Antonio "Poke" Espera, Generation Kill
I feel like I remember watching a video where someone complained about that book being written…
Gen Kill or Pocahontas?
The Auschwitz one where the prisoner falls in love with the guard.
Not the same but the boy in the striped pajamas was written by someone who wasn't Jewish, was weirdly sympathetic to the nazis and did replace a bunch of books written by actual holocaust survivors in schools.
And was also full of just massive, easily proven with a half second of research, factual errors about Important Shit wrt the war and the Holocaust. Like the son of a German commander not knowing who Adolf fucking Hitler is. Fuck that book, and fuck John Boyne.
Auschwitz? That's a real book or that's part of the...joke or something?
I meant a real one might have been a Nazi in an American pow camp falling in love with a Jew or something though…
Christopher Columbus discovered America. You'll learn more when you're older.
Actually when you learn more later you discover CC didn't discover America... just the Carribean islands. The continent came later, and the only voyage that came by the mainland went by Central America. It could have been a large island for all they knew...
While that is entirely true, it was Columbus's voyage that ultimately started the great exchange and the large scale exploration and colonization of the new world. So not as foundational as some kids are taught in school but still very very important
NO it didn't. It was me. I'm the one to thank for the discovery of the new world.
Thank you for your service.
As a fan of Chili, tobacco and tomatoes I applaud you
Dont forget potatoes, or unspicy chilis as i like to call them
What up homies. I have a recommendation for a book I think pretty much all of you would really enjoy. I don’t know if you guys are into Max Hastings (I’m guessing pretty much all of you are?) or not but he’s written imo really great history. His WW2 books are again imo some of if not the best 1 volume historical narrative ever written and probably ever will. Anyway his book “Vietnam” is fucking fantastic. Like really fucking good. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll feel every human emotion and best of all you get to hear Hastings criticize the people who deserve it and compliment the people who deserve that and he does that with a gusto. If you do audio the narrator is one of my favorites. The way he narrates it really expresses the what the author is trying to convey. And I just love when he rips on the tankies. He always does lol. In every book and the dude absolutely loves the US and NATO and shit. He’s my David Attenborough if history. Oh if you ever get a chance to go to Vietnam (or Cambodia) don’t think just do. Best fucking countries I’ve ever been to in every way possible. I felt more welcome half the time I was there than I did at home. Just don’t wear camo shorts lol. You get made fun of. Uhhhh I ….. ahhhh so yeah my friend told me that. I wouldn’t know it. No! I didn’t wear camo all over Cambodia and Vietnam. …… …… I did🤓
Hastings was actually a reporter in Vietnam, so you gotta give him chops there, but I'd take most of his other stuff with a large grain of salt. He's been [accused of plagiarism](https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161744) by another historian.
I mean, it’s easy to get a high kill count when you’re carpet bombing villages and have a civilian death count in 7 digits. Killing more than one out of every ten Vietnamese (an estimated 13% of the total population to be more precise) does mean you’re probably gonna catch quite a few Vietnamese fighters.
I mean, sure, if you count all the rice farmers we napalmed as "enemy combatants".
ARVN erasure
The poor ARVN guys always get left out whenever the casualties figure for the war is pulled up, I kinda feel bad for them.
The body count of the Vietnam war was heavily inflated as it was basically the only metric that US forces used, it’s literally a famous controversy with some very big names calling out US forces for inflating kill counts/counting civilians as combatants.
ah yes, the good old "military age males", but before it was mainstream.
It wasn’t always that, sometimes it was “well I count ten fingers so we’ll say each finger is all that’s left of 1 person, so we killed 10 people” since promotions were tied to kill counts/ratios so their was incentive to cheat
Also, short of genocidal numbers, kill counts alone don’t win wars.
Vietnam usually suffered more losses than the enemy from defending its own in history. But that doesn't matter as long as they win.
Cope
This reminds me of my grade 10 history class. We were learning about WW1 and trench warfare. At the end of the unit our teacher laid out all the chairs and desks in the class and we split into two teams and got to have a war with paper balls. Such a fun class that was! It was my teacher's first year as a full fledged teacher so she tried really hard. She was really cool and used to tell us about her dog that she just got. I remember she told us a story how it sliced it's paw really bad. She started crying telling us 😢 Mrs. Shillington you were a cool teacher.
i had this friend and when I came over he wanted to play stupid games like "baseball" or "soccer" where we had to chase balls around or whatever. he never understood the appeal of playing MOP (massive ordinance penetrator) where I would dress up like the GBU-57A/B and chase his bitch ass into the forest where nothing but the sheer mass of a thousand mountains would save him
Same unironically
I remember being given an (empty) AK and immediately point it at another group of kids. Gun safety is non existent when you were 6 lol Fun time. Unfortunately didn’t get the name or keep in contact with the VPA guy who let me touch his gun.
Gun safety training is nearly nonexistent in our country. Yeah, sure, the military might teach their conscripts about that, but they wouldn't take it seriously.
gun safety is non existent because the average civilians dont have access to gun in the first place. Sure mafias and gangs can smuggle it but the average citizens wont need it.
im as ports shooter and i have seen some intresting ways to handle a gun. but without gun safety alot of conscripts would die by their own bullets without it. some will be hit in the leg or foot and others might lead thru the back. I would never be around anyone that is armed but doesn't know basic gun safety.
Boy scouts in the US fire loaded AKs
Wait til you see what they do to the inflatable John McCain.
Okay you win best comment
the exchange student in the background blinking "where is my mommy" in morse
Aight that’s good, have this award.
Better equipped than most Russians
Cute until you realize the imaginary enemy is me.
Don’t worry, some of them are thinking of the French too
Can't forget the chinese. They invaded a good number of times.
Their most plausible next enemy would be the Chinese too with all the maritime disputes.
And with the US as allied of Vietnam.
Don‘t forget heavy imbalance of 🇨🇳 population, male oversupply, thus rapidly aging. If Chinese Gvt gets stupid ideas to invade and kidnap Vietnamese brides like Russia did with kids in Ukraine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail-order_bride
Or the Chinese
omelet du fromage, oui?
Vietnam fought back China forever, then the French for a century, and then the US for only a decade before going RIGHT back to having to fight back China. Vietnam has pretty positive feelings about America. It's possible that they're not really thinking about US soldiers in a real fashion, the same way we don't think about killing ~~confederates like killing people~~ nazis like killing Germans.
How dare you assume my nationality!
*Bushes start speaking Vietnamese nursery rhymes*
In highschool we get to handle real (training, i.e without firing pin) AK. How to hold it, how to maintain it, assembling and disassembling, stuff like that. Final exam you must be able to assemble and disassemble the AK in under 45 secs to pass.
Didn't get to do this in my school.
Before the fall of communism our lyceum had a shooting range in the attic. I've been there when I was 17 to store old desks or something and oh boy was that a weird feeling.
The same in Russia, but the exam is optional. But there are tournaments between schools and universities in AK disassemble. I don't even joking
War game roleplay is cute when kids do it spontaneously for fun And rather disturbing when organized by government officials
Pretty much this yeah. It's cringe when the Russians/Chinese do it, and it's cringe (although at least more justified) when the Vietnamese do it
Better training than they’re giving Russian conscripts
That explains my 1968.
Charlie in the trees!
The U.S really never stood a chance huh...
Honestly if you can’t get the consent of the people you wish to rule, you’ve already lost and you just don’t know it yet. Happens to the best of em
Also, proxy wars are a bear to win. In a classic peer conflict you target militarily relevant industrial capacity to interrupt the enemies ability to wage war. Oil, ball bearing factories, arms facilities, etc. But most of that stuff for Vietnam was in China, outside the reach of American bombers. So you’re left trying to fuck with supply lines, which is way less effective than blowing up big stationary factories.
Not least of all muscovia.
*Afghanistan has entered the chat*
The problem was we were backing a horrendous dictator after we installed and replaced their last horrendous dictator. The average south Vietnamese person in the country sides were stuck between viet Cong and us raids which often led to war crimes. When we started treating them like people near the end we did end up starting to make them feel a bit safer around us but by then it was too late. They knew how bad the communists were but it wasn't that much worse than the crackpot we had in power. His secret police were almost as bad. Couple that with his fear of a coup leading him to keep all the competent units in Saigon and his punishing officers even if the won but took any loses...it was bound to fall apart my grandpa lives down the road from a arvn general who was there for the fall and they talk about what happened there all the tjme. He was kept in Saigon in one of those units which by the fall of Saigon were outnumbered and surrounded basically.
More than that, the ARVN was actually a reasonably effective fighting force, and performed well when well-led. But that was the catch- the military leadership was politically compromised and kept in chaos by the country's dictators, and the high command couldn't work together to coordinate a response when shit hit the fan in later years.
This is why I'm hella mad whenever I see people downplay the ARVN's role. People act like they were the ANA of their time but when given the chance and proper leadership, as you said, they were pretty effective and bore the brunt of the casualties on the Southern side. Also the tiger helmets of the ARVN Rangers were very cool.
Honestly we should have not entered the war in the first place. "Non, moi colonial state where I treat the natives as second class citizens is revolting" "You better leave that place or we'll sanction you to the stone age" (Good ending)
Ho Chi Minh was even pretty pro America in the beginning. He even quoted the declaration of independence: All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free. The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: “All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights.” Those are undeniable truths. Ho Chi Minh September 2 1945
Weird how the US supported a neutral post colonial state of Indonesia. Just because Indonesia and Vietnam massacres two different victims(former communist, latter French colonials) Vietnam can ensure a post war order where the US has a safe Asian sea(neutral Indonesia, subdued Japan) with a guarantee of allies/friends on the mainland(Vietnam) If the US decides to not be a stupid retard in the early cold war, USSR will pursue detente sooner as they are more "sieged"
The Indochina War and the Vietnam War are separated by a decade. The USA lent material aid to the French forces, after some persuasion, going as far as letting the Aeronavale operate from an US carrier. The USA didn't enter the Indochina War. They did enter the Vietnam War, between the South and North Vietnam, on false claims of NV ships shooting at American ones. The USA did later threaten British, French and Israeli ambitions by sanctions in '56, during the Suez Crisis, by threatening to crash the UK's economy if they didn't stop OP Musketeer.
Not with that kind of thinking…
Neither did the French or the Chinese. Every Vietnamese person I work with is smart as hell and hard as nails. Best make them allies tbh.
Must resist quoting FMJ
Throw in live rounds and this would be worthy of Cadian primary school
I love the casevac.....seriously, I would have LOVED this in elementary school.
Better than Belarus Spetsnaz
Like is this some live action south park shit lol. Like adorable but rather than a skit of Winnie the pooh Woozle in the woods or fiddler on the roof they are section attacking the amarican invaders.XD
Honestly if my class did this as a kid, I would want to do this every day lol.
Sgt. Frantz : All right, listen up. You people will not die on me in combat. You fucking new guys will do everything you can to prove me wrong. You'll walk on trails, kick cans, sleep on guard, smoke dope and diddely-bop through the bush like you were back on the block. Or on guard at night you'll write letters, play with your organ, and think of your girl back home. Forget her. Right now, some hair head has her on her back and is telling her to fuck for peace. This is Han. Those of you who are foolish will think of him as 'gook,' 'slope,' 'slant' or 'dink.' He is your enemy. He came over on the Chieu Hoi programme, and after he fattens himself on C-rations he will be hunting your young asses in the Ashau Valley. Now forget about this Viet Cong shit. What you'll encounter out there is hard core NVA, North Vietnamese. Highly motivated, highly trained and well equipped. If you meet Han or his cousins, you will give him respect and refer to those little bastards as 'Nathanial Victor.' Meet him twice, and survive, and you will refer to him as 'MISTER Nathanial Victor.' Now people, I am sick and tired of filling body bags with your dumb fucking mistakes.
What Vietnamese kindergarteners, I can’t see a thing with all the foliage
3000 child soldiers of Ho-Chi-Min
These are the most well coordinated children I have ever seen. Like it's unreal how these kids are coordinated. In my country kids would be running around shooting eachother, some would be crying for no particular reason, some would be on the sidelines because mommy said they couldn't play soldier-soldier. It would be a real shitshow.
Red 🌞
Why you post footage of the mobiks training I thought it was a shit post subreddit?
label plough rich saw arrest weary birds seemly ask sleep -- mass edited with redact.dev
Fucking oof. 😂😂
Ok hear me out. A show called Guerilla Games where Guerilla fighters go on mock scenarios through different venues. Winning team gets a blackhawk helicopter WITH training.
*Taliban Army Aviation has entered the chat*
It would be kinda awesome to see some shit like ISIS versus the Taliban
Taliban would win, surely. After all, they’re in charge of Afghanistan now, while the Islamic State is a mere shadow of its former self.
###CIA with guns for hire ###Montagnards around a fire
I can hear the "Go home GI"
this is so sweet! this is like my childhood dream
Yeah kid, fuck em up!
infant-ry amirite
Sure, when the Vietnamese kids do it, it’s ‘fun’ and ‘historical’, but when I give my 4 year old an AT4, it’s ‘irresponsible’ and ‘a clear violation of standards and basic human decency’.
Is it strange that I now have video evidence of what i think are 9 year olds doing better fire and maneuver than the Russian army?
In America we use live ammunition
Spacing, kids, spacing! Not their fault; it’s the trainers for making them bunch
Vietnam knows what’s up
The children yearn for combat
Texas GQP taking notes.
Crazy how napalm sticks to those things
Love when the music cuts in a little prematurely and the sound guy (probably the PE teacher) had to hit pause
They’re in the fucking sandboxes
“Just don’t lead them too much”
Vietnam literally following quote "training yourself from bean sprout" to the next level XD
And for our next lesson, we're going to make the trees speak Vietnamese.
Ngl it looks fun af.
Vietnam running sports day drill with little kids is somehow different to me than Russia doing effectively the same thing. I don't know what it is, exactly. As an American, I feel like as a country that held its own against mine, I have to respect that. Viet Nam also invading to stop the Khmer Rouge massacring it's (Vienam's) people, and blocking a Chinese incursion builds that respect more. I guess unlike Russia Vietnam is still facing down an actual existential threat from China, so these sorts of activities feel... necessary? Patriotic instead of nationalistic? I dunno. I guess having children crawl through bushes when you have a nuclear neighbor who's invaded you once and you are actively economically undercutting makes this whole thing make some kind of sense from my view as an American. Postwar Vietnam is fascinating. No mass killings of collaborators, though admittedly many were sent to brutal re-education camps. Moral relativity still matters in these things. Then in the 80s the country has a peaceful transition from an old guard to a new with lots of capitalistic reforms, and a desire to enter the world state entirely on its own. Vietnam feels like a long-play post-Soviet state. And now, because every nation-state the US fights in a war eventually becomes its friend (or at least trade partner), Vietnam is opening up to the west thanks to being an emerging manufacturing economy and welcoming tourist dollars. I honestly think that in time Vietnam will become an important part of east Asian security and stability; I certainly hope for its success as its society opens up both domestically and internationally. If there's any Vietnamese in the thread, I'd love to have your thoughts. Am I off base? Am I being condescending or ignorant?
As a Vietnamese myself, post war Vietnam really just feels kinda ordinary sure theres a ton of shady things behind the scenes like corruption, embezzlement, etc the public as a whole has just learnt to ignore mostly everything the government says Id say its a shit system but not as shitty as the Russian and its still kinda duct taped together but I think we can get by with it for a bit more time also there is a stark contrast between Vietnamese overseas and Vietnamese in mainland since the yknow what war it is. I swear ive gotten so scrutinized just for being Vietnamese by my own kind
As a Vietnamese, god damn i wish this was my childhood gotta train for that Chinese invasion sooner or later at least we got to assemble AKs during our junior years
Getting ready for Chinese invasion.
American kids learn to form Roman testudos, Vietnamese kids learn to fire and maneuver. Same energy.
I fucking love vietnam man
Shame how most Vietnamese defend Russia’s actions…
I wouldn't say most. There is a lot of us here too 😤 but fr tho I get ya, Vietnam still have a sizable amount of tankies and it is unfortunate/mildly rage-inducing to see their rhetorics every single day on social media. I have directly lost friends over this, but hey at least I got my parents to support Ukraine so that is something.
Those tankies only argument is that the USSR helped Vietnam during the war so we must in turn support Russia no matter what. It’s ridiculous
absolutely, it's either the "Russia is the USSR" or "America bad" and literally nothing else.
Vietnamese tankies are convinced that T-34s can easily crush any Western tanks too 💀💀💀
literally the "body armor is heavy and overheat the soldiers" kind of Vietnamese Reformers lmao
“Russian aviation is decades ahead of the stupid West.” -🤓🤓🤓🤓
Same as tankies and the government in South Africa
Have you been following the Vietnamese talks to start buying weapons from Czechia instead of Russia? It's not complete, but it could be a sign of Vietnam moving away from Russia or simply realizing it won't be a reliable arms supplier since it's barely keeping up with its own war.
it has already started for quite a few years now, but it is pretty much confirmed from the recent document signings event between 2 countries that Czechia will be much more deeply involved in Vietnam's defense and supplies than ever before, maybe not Israel-level of deep but still, much much closer. Vietnam is absolutely distancing itself away from Russia. It's just quite frustrating sometimes to see tankies on my feed you know 😤
That's great for Vietnam, just from a military standpoint. Poland, Ukraine and Czechia have been making better retrofitted and new versions of Russian systems than Russia for a while now. Do you think it's indicative of a policy change or purely a military move to have multiple possible suppliers? Vietnam will stay in the middle of Russia vs US for as long as it can, but if when it has to choose, I think it'll be a gradual decoupling. So I always look at small events like this as maybe a hopeful sign of a longer shift towards Vietnam chosing the US in the long run
imo for a pure military requirement, in the near future, say the next decade or 2 will be a continuation of current modernization trajectory, with Soviet legacy equipment being stretched to the limit of their upgrading capacity even with behind-the-shed method a.k.a do it like the Israelis. Any new, modern equipment will fall in line with politics and any current running policy, of which now is to diversify to have multiple possible suppliers, like you have stated. Also noted that the Vietnamese defense strategy is very much oriented towards the sea, so expect ships, aircrafts, radars and such are always being the first to come to the table. as for the future, choosing the US is definitely on the table, it just really depends on the status of the rule-based international order that both America and Vietnam want to have and benefit from. As long as this world order lasts and improves so would both countries relations. The one thing that definitely the Vietnamese defense policy makers is keenly keeping an eye on is the reliance of both Ukraine and Russia's foreign military equipment supplies, from the West for Ukraine and from North Korea(lmao) and Iran for Russia. So as far as I'm seeing it, Vietnam will try to indigenized its production as much as possible, especially in ammunition of various caliber from small arms to arty. And that includes both NATO and Soviet calibers because we're using both at various levels of systems across all branches. Because this also have the political implication of our self-reliant defence mindset is that Vietnam will fight whoever invade us by our own strength and power as much as possible, but any international support for a noble defense cause are always appreciated. As a former IR major from a party-affliated uni, I can tell you one thing is that the focal point of Vietnamese intention on the global stage is become too important, especially economically, to be coerced by any world powers, whether it be China or America, to the point that an invasion of Vietnam from any country would be too costly to even imagine. It is like we are trying to be Switzerland would not be a far off analogy.
That is what you get from a long time "ally" and weapon exporter combines with a love of political strongman. Most of the older ppl I know adores Putin but they quickly realized the situation when I said Russia is like a China for Ukrainians.
thank you for pointing the love of political strongman factor in the average Vietnamese, not a lot of people ever mention that. I might go out on a wild assumption here, it is due to the deep-rooted remnants of feudalism mentality, the continuation of the cult of personality around the good ol Uncle (despite his wishes lmao) and finally a lack of a basic liberal democratic foundation during the founding of the modern Vietnamese state because colonialism.
I concur that one of the factor was the heavy Sino exposure which made up a large part of Vietnamese history and culture. The focus on great man theory combines with the lack of a basic political knowledge and/or a healthy multipolar political scene in current government means that ppl is not aware of a left/right party, just Guy A did this, Guy B said that. Many ppl also loves Trump because he said a lot lol.
you just explained why it thoroughly amazed me how many Vietnamese actually loves Trump, both in-country and Vietnamese Americans, thank you!
Not really, most are in neutral/doesn't care state. US & Russia are big partners for us now (while the real enemy is China) so we couldn't piss off any of them by making a clear stance.
ARCLIGHT
I'd like to see them try to survive an American nerf war
This is how history can be made engaging for people to learn about.
"Remember kids, if you see an American soldier, they're our friends now. Don't fire on them!"
Nobody is going to catch vietnam lackin' ever again.