[20.g.3] Japan and Markets
The Domino Theory partially explains why the US intervened in Vietnam. If one little Asian country fell, then the "dominos would keep falling: Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Malaysia. Another is that Japan and France, hard-pressed after WWII, need raw materials and markets to sell its manufactured products outside the dollar-block. They could then convert this money into US dollars and buy US goods. Everyone would benefit. Historian Andrew Rotter argues that before the French defeat at Dien Ben Phu in 1954, the US upheld French colonialism in Vietnam to ensure France markets in which it could extract raw materials and sell and hence make money outside the dollar block. Supporting a French return to Vietnam violated the principle of decolonization, which was one of FDR's WWII aims, but the US prioritized Frances economic imperatives.
The same was true for Japan as that county imported most of its rice from Vietnam. The fear was that if countries like France and Japan became too dependent on US dollars, they might diversify their finances by getting closer to Russia or resort to the economic nationalism that divided global markets during the 1930s. So to close the Dollar Gap (which meant too much US support to shore up Europe and Japan with little coming back) and allow France and Japan to farm revenue beyond US financial aid, the US intervened to ensure Vietnam served the interests of key US allies.
[20.g.10] Accountability for Defeat
Historian Robert Buzzanco at University of Houston blames the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff for defeat in Vietnam. He claims they failed to plan for a counter-insurgency war (alternate words are guerrilla or low-intensity). Instead, the Pentagon concerned itself with avoiding blame for defeat (especially after 1968) even though it knew that the strategy of attrition was not producing winning results.
[20.h.7] Revolt in the Army
Drugs • AWOL • fragging • reform
[20.i.2] The Rise of Black Power
Last blank is revolution