The Vietnam War

Historical records show that Chinese attacks on what is presently Vietnam began in 258 B.C., with China conquering the northern part, renaming it Annam, in 111 B.C. They dominated that nation for almost a millennium before Vietnam shook free. Struggles between China and Vietnam continued over the centuries. Half a million troops led by Mongol/Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan (Genghis Kahn’s grandson) retook the area in 1284 A.D., but by 1428, with the Khan Dynasty (Yuan Dynasty) long since replaced by the Ming, the Vietnamese reclaimed their independence.

In the middle of the 19^th century, the French waged a series of wars, ending with the creation of French Indochina (of which Vietnam was a strategic part) in 1850. During World War II, the French Vichy government handed control to Japan, but the real French returned after the war, until their ignominious defeat at Dien Bien Phu, a small outpost in the far northwest corner of the country, by the Communist Viet Minh (backed by the Peoples Republic of China – the PRC). Communist forces seized control of the north, and pro-western forces took control of the south; Vietnam was split in half, very much along the lines of the split of North and South Korea.

After the French departure, communist forces continued to press southward, at first through local Vietcong partisans and eventually with NVA (North Vietnam Army) regulars, to attack the pro-Western government, all with the backing and support of the PRC. The U.S. had supplied the South with military and other aid, but by the mid-60s, U.S. military advisers played a regular role in training South Vietnamese forces to repel the communist advances. Fearing a sequential fall of southeastern nations to communist rule (the so-called “Domino theory”) and smarting from the Chinese attacks against U.N. forces in Korea in the early 1950s, the U.S. upped its forces in Vietnam from 900 advisers during the Eisenhower administration to 16,000 troops under the Kennedy administration in 1963.

In November of 1963, after a coup deposed the South’s President, the resulting instability drew the United States fully into this escalating conflict. The final excuse was a purported August 1964 North Vietnamese attack against two U.S. destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf, but the die for the U.S. escalation has long been cast. A long, bloody war, in which the American military suffered over 58 thousand killed and more than 153 thousand wounded, ensued with catastrophic results. “U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result of the Case–Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese [communist] army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War.” Wikipedia. We basically lost, and a domino fell. Some compare Vietnam to the combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and indeed, it is difficult to see how American interests will be served just a few short years after our inevitable departure… as forces hostile to the U.S. retake their land.

But there is another Vietnam war hovering just beyond the horizon that most of us don’t have a clue about, and it is between two long-term regional enemies who only recently found common cause in communism: China has its sights on Vietnamese-claimed islands in the South China Sea. Hundreds of miles south of China’s border lie the resource-rich Spratly Islands (fishing, plus oil and gas reserves), which China claims by reason of ancient maps from eras long gone. The islands also are claimed by Vietnam (which recently conducted military live fire exercises in the area), the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.

While the United States presses for open sea lanes in the area, China wants the world to know that it will take and hold those islands (including the rich surrounding waters) by force if necessary. Recent PRC naval maneuvers in the area made that point very clear: “On [June 17^th], [PRC] state television showed video of Chinese patrol boats firing repeated rounds at a target on what looked like an uninhabited island, as twin fighter jets streaked in tandem overhead. The report said 14 vessels participated in the maneuvers, staging antisubmarine and beach landing drills aimed at ‘defending atolls and protecting sea lanes.' … China has pressed its claim to the outcrops in the South China S ea more assertively in the last two years. Chinese civilian vessels have increasingly confronted fishing and oil-exploration ships from other countries operating in those waters.

“The latest spike in tension began [in late May] when Vietnam accused a Chinese fishing boat, escorted by two patrol boats, of deliberately severing a cable of a seismic survey ship owned by PetroVietnam, the national oil and gas company. Relations between the two countries are fraught: They waged a border war in 1979, and have since clashed occasionally at sea over the Spratlys as well as another island chain, the Paracels… The Vietnamese government is under pressure from its own intensely nationalist media and its citizenry to stand up to China. The sea skirmish in May sparked an anti-Chinese outpouring in Vietnam, and the government has permitted rare public demonstrations to allow a mostly youthful crowd to vent anger.” Los Angeles Times, June 18^th. Uh oh, here we go again…

I’m Peter Dekom, and the notion of global peace appears to be as far-fetched and remote as it has ever been.