We read all the lead to present a different history.
As we all know, the United States, as the only superpower today, is the most powerful country in the world today, with a huge economic volume and strong military strength that other countries cannot match, which also makes the United States have the ability to start a war on any scale in the world. Since the two world wars, the US military has rarely been defeated, and it can only be called a fiasco in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Curiously, the United States saved South Korea in the Korean battlefield, but failed to save South Vietnam in the Vietnamese battlefield.
South Korean soldiers stationed at Panmunjom
After the end of World War II, due to the confrontation between the two camps of the United States and the Soviet Union, many countries were forced to split into two in the process of independence, such as East Germany and West Germany, North Korea and South Korea, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. At that time, South Korea and South Vietnam were of great strategic importance to the United States, and South Korea was the foothold of the American East Asian strategy, which could contain the Soviet Union and China; South Vietnam held Cam Ranh Bay, which in turn could control Southeast Asia and the entire East-West route. If the United States is to realize its global strategy, it must control these two places, and in fact, in order to achieve this, the United States has launched two huge wars. However, as a result, south Korea has existed and developed into a developed country, but South Vietnam was completely destroyed with the end of the Vietnam War. In Zi Yuan's view, even if it is as powerful as the United States, it cannot save South Vietnam, and there are three main reasons.
Map of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).
First, South Vietnam and South Korea have different strengths. In the later stages of the Korean War, it was already a stalemate, the Chinese volunteer army and the North Korean army could not completely defeat the US and South Korean troops, and the US forces could not cross the 38th line to attack Pyongyang. Because the Korean Peninsula is too far away from the U.S. mainland, the supply speed of the U.S. army cannot be compared with the volunteer army, and can only choose a truce. The two sides will sit at the negotiating table on the basis of the fact that the militaries of the two koreas are still unable to distinguish between victory and defeat without the support of external forces. After several years of actual combat, the South Korean army has long been less vulnerable than in the early days of the war, at least it has the strength to protect itself, and if the war resumes, the United States will no longer need to send large-scale troops to support.
▲ Old photos from the "Korean War" period
The South Vietnamese side was much weaker, and even though it had 1.1 million troops and was equipped with advanced American weapons, it was still on the verge of collapse when facing the North Vietnamese army, and there was no resistance at all. If the United States must protect South Vietnam, it will only be mired in the quagmire of war and unable to extricate itself, which is unacceptable to the American people. The reason why South Vietnam will be destroyed is because of its own weak combat strength, if it has the strength to protect itself, it may not become the second South Korea with the support of the United States.
▲ Old photo of Brezhnev's meeting with Nixon in 1973
Second, the Soviet Union has grown in strength. Behind the Korean War and the Vietnam War were all great power games, which were another battlefield in which the United States and the Soviet Union competed for hegemony, and the victory or defeat of the war depended on the strength and weakness of the United States and the Soviet Union. During the Korean War, the Soviet Union had not yet fully shown its fangs, did not want to make a difference, and adopted a policy of concessions to the aggressiveness of the United States. During the armistice of the Korean War, the Soviet Union did a lot of work for our country and North Korea, so that the United States could so easily keep South Korea and keep the 38° north latitude line unchanged. During the Vietnam War, during the Brezhnev administration, the Soviet Union's military strength was unprecedentedly strong, and it also took offensive measures in the Vietnam War, which was undoubtedly a strong pressure on the United States. If the United States does not withdraw its troops, it will inevitably have to fight with the Soviet Union to the end, and a protracted war will be extremely unfavorable to the United States, and the United States has never been able to make up its mind to protect South Vietnam. In this way, the increase in soviet power led to very different outcomes in the two wars.
▲Old photos of U.S. troops in the Vietnam War
Thirdly, there is a huge gap in military spending. South Korea survived the armistice of the Korean War because the United States had a large number of troops stationed in South Korea, ready to rush to the front, posing a strategic deterrent to North Korea. The reason why the US military will choose to stay on the Korean Peninsula for a long time is because the South Korean side has taken the initiative to provide military expenses, and the US side has borne very little military expenditure, and it can achieve maximum benefits without paying costs. The situation in South Vietnam was completely different, at the end of the Vietnam War, South Vietnam was already unable to protect itself, the main cities had long been destroyed by the North Vietnamese army, and there was no economic basis to bear the military expenses of the US army.
▲ Remnants of U.S. tanks from the "Vietnam War" period
Coupled with the defection of neighboring Cambodia and Laos to the socialist camp, if the United States wants to station troops in South Vietnam for a long time, it is bound to pay huge defense costs, and the risk of war faced by soldiers is also very large. Moreover, at this time, the Soviet Union was imperative to Cam Ranh Bay, even if it was a hard consumption, it was necessary to take this strategic place, and South Vietnam was more and more like a chicken rib for the United States, and it was a pity that it was tasteless but abandoned, and it was better to end early with a strategic stop loss. It is worth mentioning that after the United States withdrew from Vietnam, in order to resist the aggressive Soviet Union, it took the initiative to extend an olive branch to China to ease Sino-US relations, which led to the Sino-US "honeymoon period" in the eighties of the last century.
Resources:
Chronicles of Nations: Vietnam, History of the Vietnam War