No Indochina Wars

[Adam]

Let's say, Ho Chi Minh's petition to US President Truman succeeds and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam is recognized after the August Revolution.

1) What are the POD conditions for this to take place?

2) What happens afterwards? Would the French threaten the United States with *insert something really horrifying, not*? Fast forward to the '60s. Would there even be a Vietnam War, or the advent of hippie culture?

Thoughts?

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

It's possible to have a Vietnam-type war in Laos, Indonesia, or Latin America around that time period, though the Latin America war would likely happen in the late '70s, if the lack of an apparent Soviet victory would allow communist governments to succeed to the degree they did at all.

 

[lounge60]

2) What happens afterwards? Would the French threaten the United States with *insert something really horrifying, not*? Fast forward to the '60s. Would there even be a Vietnam War, or the advent of hippie culture?

Whitout Vietnam war nothing "hippie culture,noting "counterculture"."Great Society" work,and LBJ become the greatest US President in XX century.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

By turning the U.S. into France?!?

 

[Melvin Loh]

Ho as Vietnamese Tito

Well, from Truman onwards there'd need to be a US mindset acknowledging Ho as like an Asian version of Tito, in order to accomodate Vietnamese nationalism, while also recognising the great hist and cultural differences between the Viets and Communist China. Then IMHO any such protracted US involvement in indochina of OTL would've been less likely.

Well, could butterflies come along to facilitae US involvement in some other open brushfire war in somewhere else of Coldf War interest like the Congo, central America (where during the early 1960s there were also American advisors leading local troops into combat against Communist insurgents as was the case in indochina) or even Cuba ?

 

[Adam]

Well, could butterflies come along to facilitae US involvement in some other open brushfire war in somewhere else of Coldf War interest like the Congo, central America (where during the early 1960s there were also American advisors leading local troops into combat against Communist insurgents as was the case in indochina) or even Cuba ?

I could see this as the basis POD for a horrifying timeline where the US invades Cuba after a latter Bay of Pigs incident in 1963, and gets smackdabbed by a whole ton of Soviet tac nukes, followed by a spiralling turn of events that leads to a global nuclear exchange.

 

[Beowulf2005]

I think Ho Chi Minh tried to speak with FDR before the war. He went to Russia - IIRC - because FDR didn't hear him out. With a little realpolitik thinking (and the fact that he hated the colonial empires as it was) I think a better POD would be FDR pledging help to the Indochinese, albeit at the risk of angering the French, but they'd find some way to be angry at us anyway.

 

[fhaessig]

There's one interesting consequence of France loosing Indochina when she's too weak to make a war out of it.

In OTL, France lost Indochina partly by defeat on the battlefield ( the other part was a recognition of the price and the unwillingness to pay it ) and squandered it's professionnal army ( at least it's light forces ) in the process.

In Algeria, OTOH, France won on the battlefields but lost because of political factors at home. Most of these political factors were linked to the use of a conscript army in Algeria. This was necessary because there were not enough professionnal forces to hold algeria ( it's also why the military victory was not achieved until late in the war ).

Without Indochina, France won't send conscripts to Algeria, so it's likely Algeria stays french, at least until the late 60s or 70s. That has some interesting consequences, especially after oil is discovered.

 

[Johnnyreb]

I think the USA would have backed France anyway. At that stage they were more interested in Europe, and wanted to keep France sweet for the new NATO. They were indifferent to France's colonial ambitions, but certainly did not want the communist Viet Minh to take power.

I think the hippie movement would have arisen anyway. It was based on pop music and boredom with the Boy Scouts, not particularly on Vietnam. Vietnam just made for more militant hippies.

 

[DTF955Baseballfan]

I think the hippie movement would have arisen anyway. It was based on pop music and boredom with the Boy Scouts, not particularly on Vietnam. Vietnam just made for more militant hippies.

One more comment before I sign off for a while, things getting very busy again - thanks for all the comments and such.

I didn't grow up then, so I don't know for sure - I know jus tthe normal course of events is for things to be like a pendulum in many societies, so that it's logical that it would swing *some* to the left, then maybe back to the right.

However, most of the popular music I associate with the hippie movement was written after the Vietnam War was in full swing. Summer of love...was that '67, going to San Francisco with flwoers in one's hair? Well, that's on the cusp, but the *major* stuff I see as like Woodstock, in '69.

I think a lot of hippies were a little bored, and wanted to try something different. However, I suspect that the most radical stuff happened because of some disatisfaction with the establishment over Vietnam and such. There was more a sense of hopelessness, from what I envision imagining myself being alive then. (And if i could see well enough to *be* eligible for a draf, and my muscles were better, and I could hear in stereo, etc.) I would think that many hippies felt a sense that they might as well party a lot now because they could be dead soon.

In other words, eithout that hopelessness, it's easier for many of the hippies to to be able to say, "Whoa, I've got a life in front of me, I can't be doing this to myself."

But, what do I know, I was always the geeky teen who talked about what he'd do in 20 years and actually *planned* for it, while not taking risks because I knew I could be throwing away my future. And, there aren't a lot like me, though there are some I know.

 

[Larrikin]

Hippies

I think the USA would have backed France anyway. At that stage they were more interested in Europe, and wanted to keep France sweet for the new NATO. They were indifferent to France's colonial ambitions, but certainly did not want the communist Viet Minh to take power.

I think the hippie movement would have arisen anyway. It was based on pop music and boredom with the Boy Scouts, not particularly on Vietnam. Vietnam just made for more militant hippies.

Correct, the hippies grew out the Beatniks of the '50s (hippie coming from the Beat term "hipster" which implied junior Beatnik), and was in full swing in Berkeley and the Haight-Ashbury area in 1963, well before Vietnam became and issue. The original hippies were dropping out from the rabid materialism of the post war economic boom and in fact it was the hippies that started the protests against US involvement in Vietnam, not Vietnam that started the hippies.

 

[Max Sinister]

Well, from Truman onwards there'd need to be a US mindset acknowledging Ho as like an Asian version of Tito, in order to accomodate Vietnamese nationalism, while also recognising the great hist and cultural differences between the Viets and Communist China.

Might work, since the differences were already there. Later they even made war with each other (IOTL).