The U.S. lost claim to leadership with Vietnam, and then doubled down with Iraq. It is common in history for the most powerful leaders to mess things up. It is the cycle of life.
I agree with Iraq, but Vietnam, as messy as it was, I think, was necessary. Even Vietnamese I’ve spoken to believe it was the right thing. Sometimes things are clear cut and easy, other times they are messy and problematic.
Yep, every powerful nation or empire in the past has collapsed or faded in significance after some time. The question is, in our case, will it be a rapid collapse or a slow fade (like the British empire), and when?
> British empire was a rapid collapse [...] It collapsed within 20
It would be better to treat the British Empire and the United States as two forms of the same empire, as they both speak the same language The capital of the empire simply moved from London to Washington via an internal revolution, a process that's happened many times in the past, e.g. Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, St Petersburg to Moscow, Xian to Hangzhou, Kyoto to Tokyo. So the British Empire/United States reached a peak after 400 years, and is now declining for perhaps a few hundred.
The British Empire and the United States spoke the same language. Their homelands, i.e the places where they make up the majority of residents, are the same: the British Empire with its American colonies then, and the United States and its "special relationship" with the U.K. and other Five Eyes nowadays. The leaders of the American Revolution were leading British Imperialists immediately before, e.g. George Washington led the 1760's campaign against the French in the Mississippi valley.
For the British, I don't think you can say it "collapsed". The empire fell apart, sure, but it's not like life for the British people turned into living hell; they still enjoy a very high standard of living, among the best in the world, surely better than the Americans.
By comparison, when Rome fell apart (which admittedly took some time), the standard of living was objectively much worse for average Romans. They went from a civilization with plumbing, toilets, cities, aqueducts, a Coliseum with water shows, and probably the highest standard of living in the world, and a society with specialization of labor, education, rule of law and a well-developed legal system, to feudalism, where they lived under feudal lords as uneducated serfs living in huts and working in fields. It took over 1000 years for western society to get back to the level of technology and development they had under the Romans.
The U.S. lost Vietnam because rural farmers thought U.S. troops were working for land lords. Land lords would take control of rural areas and start charging farmers rent after it was cleared of Viet Cong. There is a similar problem in Afghanistan: the Afghan government raises most of its revenues from sales and excise taxes, and doesn't tax land owners on property privately seized from rural residents. Since it doesn't tax land and has not centrally issued titles to rural residents, it doesn't have good records on land ownership and can't prevent private land seizures effectively.
These are not inevitable problems. Our politicians just don't understand the difference between land and capital and have undermined U.S. efforts to promote land reform in Asia after it worked so well in Japan.
Interestingly, before it went downhill, US advisors told the S. Viet gov that the one thing they had to do to stave off revolution was land redistribution, in the least in the Mekong Delta, (I believe land redistribution was done to some extent in SK), but the S Vietnamese refused, and so the NVA had an “in”.
Sounds like one of those scenarios where the side we picked to support was itself corrupt, so the general population saw no good reason to support our side over the opposing side.
Yes, but it’s not so much the side we “picked” but the team that was given to us. Just as the Soviets often times had no choice but to work with truly bad people.
Hard to say, but given the realpolitik of the time, there doesn’t seem to have been much choice. The world was hostage to an indeological foe which took no prisoners and was looking to aggressively take over control of the world. That was their stated objective.
That’s mostly surface talk. They invaded fewer countries than the US has, sticking mostly to supporting rebellion.
The US and Europe squashed home grown communism mostly through things like social security, unemployment insurance, and a helping of good old propaganda. Yet, we where suckered into fighting ideology on foreign soil with military force.
I don’t think it was obvious at the time, but going forward we need to learn from these mistakes.
Korean War can be viewed North Korea as a separate country attacking South Korea, or a civil war. But, Vietnam war (including invasion of Cambodia) and a host of South American wars where much more clearly started as civil wars with Forein support not really invasions.
PS: Afghanistan is something of a wash with the US also invading the country.
