Max Hastings in his book - which I also read there but I didn’t want to complicate this narrative - is full of praise for the Aussie troops. Small in number but very effective
Twas the British Empire then. There was no state called Australia or New Zealand. Their anthem was God Save The King and the only passport available to them was the UK one. They participated in wars because they depended on the Empire to protect them if their own dominion were to be attacked.
In Evelyn Waugh’s single volume of autobiography he made the point that his father’s speaking voice was “clearly audible in his writing.” I assume this is the same for you and it occurs to me that this is a great gift that children of writers have to hold on to, once their parent has died. Nice piece, thank you.
Vietnam feels properly strange and other - a country of 100 million people nominally still Communist, I guess it's on the same path as China. Your point about Ho Chi Minh being more a nationalist than a communist seems to be where both those countries have ended up. And it seems to be working. That business where the British happily arm their Japanese prisoners because they need some soldiers is also properly strange and other - perhaps it follows from an Imperial and martial mindset, one which we can barely recognise today. It obviously made some sense to the Japanese prisoner / soldiers as well, which is nice.
It also shows a fondness for fascism and militarism. Which isn't nice.
Nor is it nice that Western leaders in 1945 (after VE Day) seriously considered fightly alongside Germans in an invasion of Russia.
If George Patton had lived, it might have been a more serious possibility, but he died after a mysterious car crash in December 1945.
Of course, there are now many in the West who wish such a war had been launched, mainly because they wouldn't have been involved in it.
But the Second World War was a triumph of the Left over the Far Right. (As to a lesser extent, the First World War had been).
And the average Western person in 1945 wasn't the degenerate, consumer-capitalist dweeb that the West has produced in recent decades.
It would be good if our conservatives, always eager to blame liberals and the Left for the West's decadence and approaching collapse, would start blaming the real culprit - Capitalism (internationalist, unscrupulous, amoral, selfish, greedy) and the fatal corruption of character it has created via affluence.
Take an egg, there is a white and a yellow part. The yellow is better, nobody doubts that. If you mix them together the yellow will come out on top. Nobody doubts that.’ - I’ve lived in Hong Kong for 20 years; visited Vietnam, China and Japan many times - the first time I’ve heard this quote. Excellent piece and the egg metaphor is certainly on the money even today.
Yes, but - as a former long-term resident of SE Asia - I can tell you that without the white, the 'mix' is redundant.
The British left an enduring legacy of competence, contract law and tolerance. HK, Singapore and Malaysia would be infinitely poorer w/o British influence.
"Starting the war imbued with Greene’s cynicism about the American global project, he came to feel that their war was ultimately righteous and only collapsed because of the cultural revolution erupting back home. He also admired the South Vietnamese, whom most people regarded as corrupt and incapable of fighting for themselves."
Eric "Longshoreman Philosopher" Hoffer on the one hand believed that US forces couldn't be victorious in Vietnam because it couldn't defeat a sense of pride in Asian independence on the other side that was ultimately a stronger motivating force than Communism.
On the other hand, Hoffer was quite weary of the notion of Americans losing because he believed it would enhance the credibility of the radical left at home or, more likely, boost the appeal of a revanchist demagogue who would use a "stab in the back " story similar to Hitler.
Which, by scaring the Russians, almost led to nuclear war in the mid-1980's. Still, what's human extinction if you win the Cold War?
Which was in any case won by the USA when Gorbachev forsook Stalinism, because he disliked it, not because Reagan forced his hand.
Like other fanciful and untruthful legends, "Reagan Won the Cold War" was invented after the event. In fact, Reagan and Thatcher spent most of the Eighties terrified of losing the Cold War or being annihilated by nuclear war.
"His second to last trip, in the early 1980s after the war ended, was an extremely depressing time; Vietnam’s experiment with communism was as successful as expected, and by the mid-1980s it was the poorest country in the world, or by some measures second poorest, above only Burundi."
A nice diversion for breakfast. I have never been to Vietnam but grew up watching Tour of Duty, Magnum, and such later I met people who had served there- you get the terrifying third world traffic and odd things being sold in the street down as well .
Ho Chi Minh, who was largely a figurehead by 1965, is one of the few Communists for whom I can feel any affection.
The only other one of note being Rosa Luxemburg, tortured and murdered by far right Freikorps in January 1919, before power could corrupt her, but not before she had denounced the Soviets for their tyranny.
The thugs had been set on her by Ebert's Weimar government, which thereby ensured Weimar's later destruction by the Far Right.
I also admire the fearless foreign Communist who c.1934 denounced the Soviet Central Committee to their faces by saying:
"I can see the broken eggs - but where's the bloody omelette ?"
Ed West's dad was obviously influenced by his dislike of the Left back home, and of the Sixties Revolution.
The first consideration was irrelevant, the second hopelessly mistaken, as the Real cultural revolution had happened, completely silently, in 1945 - the page of history had turned, the publics in Western countries had decided not to fight any more wars.
And the entire Sixties scene (yes, even Mick Jagger) simply followed on from that.
Hence apart from Korea (where the West scraped a draw, thanks to the US bombers), the West loses every war in which it is engaged.
Whatever people may pretend (to themselves and others), they are never again going to die for flag or country, just as no one is prepared to die for te theological issues that tore Western Europe apart from 1517 to 1648.
Of course, the public mood changes, and a nostalgia for war has become gradually apparent in the West since 1990.
Thankfully, though, this yearning or nostalgia is the merest humbug and fantasy. E.g. despite all the pro-Ukraine ballyhoo in the West since February 2022, and the brandishing of the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag, approximately no one from the West has fought for Ukraine.
Great article - as ever! There's another (somewhat tenuous) British connection you might be interested to check out. An OSS officer called Charles Fenn met Ho when the Americans were trying to win over the communists to help defeat the Japanese; he gave Ho a pair of Colt 45s (I think) to signal US support, and that helped cement Ho's domination of the anti-French forces. Fenn was actually British (he'd emigrated to the US as a young man). A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times - and even in later life he still had a rather posh English accent!
Charles was a terrific character. Photographer, spy, night club owner in Hong Kong... He wrote a biog of Ho a few years back. Good BBC Timewatch from the mid-1990s that featured Charles too - it was called Uncle Sam and Uncle Ho.
I went to Vietnam back in 2011. Visited Hanoi along with Hue and Hoi Ahn and Sapa and Ha Long Bay. Food was incredible. Hanoi was scary and fascinating because of the endless tides of scooters and navigating them on streets with no sidewalks. Watched food markets on train tracks and when a train approached everyone scurried away for a few minutes, then business resumed as normal. The old French colonial architecture and villas. Fascinating city. Will emphasize how incredible the food was. And do have stories of the touts!
My earliest recollections - late 1970s - of aid appeals and media coverage of famines were all about SE Asia. Starving boat people etc. The region seemed to be more associated with poverty and misery than Africa was.
Perhaps the dire situation was caused by the wars. But I did read that one of the presumptions underpinning the American's 'domino theory' was that SE Asians were irredeemably poor and so would be predisposed towards communism.
1) War is inherently evil, therefore can never be righteous, only necessary and just
2) But for a War to be a Just War, much more is needed than merely a Just Cause. Other questions arise
- Is it truly a last resort ?
- Is the war even worse than the disease it is trying to cure ?
3) Countries don't go to war "for righteousness' sake", but from self-interest.
Britain's War against Hitler was Just, but arose from self-interest; he was too powerful a menace to ignore. Thankfully, it wasn't a crusade or jihad, however holy individuals in the British Forces may have been.
4) If your cause is Just, you mst declare war openly on your enemy, which the USA didn't do regarding Vietnam.
Moreover, you mustn't use horrifying methods of war - napalm, defoliation, carpet bombing (except possibly in a war of survival, which Vietnam wasn't).
Thus the US War in Vietnam fails the Just War tests.
Tremendous piece. I went to Vietnam in 2010 and was shocked by the capitalism of it all. Did a Facebook album called "What's Communist About This?"
Fantastic place and I would highly recommend. We got a boat trip down the Mekong Delta and it was probably the most colonial I have ever felt in my life.
"Although the French and Americans were the chief western participants, the small British role in the conflict is less well known."
The Australians, New Zealanders, and South Koreans also deployed some of their own ground-units to Southeast Asia.
Max Hastings in his book - which I also read there but I didn’t want to complicate this narrative - is full of praise for the Aussie troops. Small in number but very effective
Which of course inspired the unofficial Australian National anthem, Cold Chisel’s Khe Sahn
https://youtu.be/inKlN0ScObA?si=aj1ur2TKJGz0f11g
Twas the British Empire then. There was no state called Australia or New Zealand. Their anthem was God Save The King and the only passport available to them was the UK one. They participated in wars because they depended on the Empire to protect them if their own dominion were to be attacked.
…….and Thais and Philippines.
In Evelyn Waugh’s single volume of autobiography he made the point that his father’s speaking voice was “clearly audible in his writing.” I assume this is the same for you and it occurs to me that this is a great gift that children of writers have to hold on to, once their parent has died. Nice piece, thank you.
Yes very much so.
Vietnam feels properly strange and other - a country of 100 million people nominally still Communist, I guess it's on the same path as China. Your point about Ho Chi Minh being more a nationalist than a communist seems to be where both those countries have ended up. And it seems to be working. That business where the British happily arm their Japanese prisoners because they need some soldiers is also properly strange and other - perhaps it follows from an Imperial and martial mindset, one which we can barely recognise today. It obviously made some sense to the Japanese prisoner / soldiers as well, which is nice.
It also shows a fondness for fascism and militarism. Which isn't nice.
Nor is it nice that Western leaders in 1945 (after VE Day) seriously considered fightly alongside Germans in an invasion of Russia.
If George Patton had lived, it might have been a more serious possibility, but he died after a mysterious car crash in December 1945.
Of course, there are now many in the West who wish such a war had been launched, mainly because they wouldn't have been involved in it.
But the Second World War was a triumph of the Left over the Far Right. (As to a lesser extent, the First World War had been).
And the average Western person in 1945 wasn't the degenerate, consumer-capitalist dweeb that the West has produced in recent decades.
It would be good if our conservatives, always eager to blame liberals and the Left for the West's decadence and approaching collapse, would start blaming the real culprit - Capitalism (internationalist, unscrupulous, amoral, selfish, greedy) and the fatal corruption of character it has created via affluence.
We can only hope that Vietnam will survive it.
I think the brief from the US was: shed your empire but don’t let the commies have it!
Excellent.
Lots of valuable observations.
I have a piece for publication on 10th February about photo-journalism in Vietnam that you might appreciate.
p.s.
Richard Scarry reference…..😝
Thank you
Take an egg, there is a white and a yellow part. The yellow is better, nobody doubts that. If you mix them together the yellow will come out on top. Nobody doubts that.’ - I’ve lived in Hong Kong for 20 years; visited Vietnam, China and Japan many times - the first time I’ve heard this quote. Excellent piece and the egg metaphor is certainly on the money even today.
Thank you!
Yes, but - as a former long-term resident of SE Asia - I can tell you that without the white, the 'mix' is redundant.
The British left an enduring legacy of competence, contract law and tolerance. HK, Singapore and Malaysia would be infinitely poorer w/o British influence.
"Starting the war imbued with Greene’s cynicism about the American global project, he came to feel that their war was ultimately righteous and only collapsed because of the cultural revolution erupting back home. He also admired the South Vietnamese, whom most people regarded as corrupt and incapable of fighting for themselves."
Eric "Longshoreman Philosopher" Hoffer on the one hand believed that US forces couldn't be victorious in Vietnam because it couldn't defeat a sense of pride in Asian independence on the other side that was ultimately a stronger motivating force than Communism.
On the other hand, Hoffer was quite weary of the notion of Americans losing because he believed it would enhance the credibility of the radical left at home or, more likely, boost the appeal of a revanchist demagogue who would use a "stab in the back " story similar to Hitler.
A wise man, old Eric
The climate alone - hot and humid - was probably enough in itself to to defeat the Americans.
Few Americans had any experience of anything like ir.
Well, what the US (and the world) got when the dust settled was Ronald Reagan and his determinism to actually win the Cold War.
Which, by scaring the Russians, almost led to nuclear war in the mid-1980's. Still, what's human extinction if you win the Cold War?
Which was in any case won by the USA when Gorbachev forsook Stalinism, because he disliked it, not because Reagan forced his hand.
Like other fanciful and untruthful legends, "Reagan Won the Cold War" was invented after the event. In fact, Reagan and Thatcher spent most of the Eighties terrified of losing the Cold War or being annihilated by nuclear war.
"His second to last trip, in the early 1980s after the war ended, was an extremely depressing time; Vietnam’s experiment with communism was as successful as expected, and by the mid-1980s it was the poorest country in the world, or by some measures second poorest, above only Burundi."
At least it wasn't as bad as Cambodia I imagine.
That Communism was hopelessly wrong and bad, doesn't mean that Capitalism is wonderfully right and good.
A nice diversion for breakfast. I have never been to Vietnam but grew up watching Tour of Duty, Magnum, and such later I met people who had served there- you get the terrifying third world traffic and odd things being sold in the street down as well .
highly recommended, but food poisoning is a must - I mention that in part 2.
Ho Chi Minh spent some time living in Crouch End, remarkably.
Ho Chi Minh, who was largely a figurehead by 1965, is one of the few Communists for whom I can feel any affection.
The only other one of note being Rosa Luxemburg, tortured and murdered by far right Freikorps in January 1919, before power could corrupt her, but not before she had denounced the Soviets for their tyranny.
The thugs had been set on her by Ebert's Weimar government, which thereby ensured Weimar's later destruction by the Far Right.
I also admire the fearless foreign Communist who c.1934 denounced the Soviet Central Committee to their faces by saying:
"I can see the broken eggs - but where's the bloody omelette ?"
Ed West's dad was obviously influenced by his dislike of the Left back home, and of the Sixties Revolution.
The first consideration was irrelevant, the second hopelessly mistaken, as the Real cultural revolution had happened, completely silently, in 1945 - the page of history had turned, the publics in Western countries had decided not to fight any more wars.
And the entire Sixties scene (yes, even Mick Jagger) simply followed on from that.
Hence apart from Korea (where the West scraped a draw, thanks to the US bombers), the West loses every war in which it is engaged.
Whatever people may pretend (to themselves and others), they are never again going to die for flag or country, just as no one is prepared to die for te theological issues that tore Western Europe apart from 1517 to 1648.
Of course, the public mood changes, and a nostalgia for war has become gradually apparent in the West since 1990.
Thankfully, though, this yearning or nostalgia is the merest humbug and fantasy. E.g. despite all the pro-Ukraine ballyhoo in the West since February 2022, and the brandishing of the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag, approximately no one from the West has fought for Ukraine.
Hi Ed
Great article - as ever! There's another (somewhat tenuous) British connection you might be interested to check out. An OSS officer called Charles Fenn met Ho when the Americans were trying to win over the communists to help defeat the Japanese; he gave Ho a pair of Colt 45s (I think) to signal US support, and that helped cement Ho's domination of the anti-French forces. Fenn was actually British (he'd emigrated to the US as a young man). A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times - and even in later life he still had a rather posh English accent!
Charles was a terrific character. Photographer, spy, night club owner in Hong Kong... He wrote a biog of Ho a few years back. Good BBC Timewatch from the mid-1990s that featured Charles too - it was called Uncle Sam and Uncle Ho.
I went to Vietnam back in 2011. Visited Hanoi along with Hue and Hoi Ahn and Sapa and Ha Long Bay. Food was incredible. Hanoi was scary and fascinating because of the endless tides of scooters and navigating them on streets with no sidewalks. Watched food markets on train tracks and when a train approached everyone scurried away for a few minutes, then business resumed as normal. The old French colonial architecture and villas. Fascinating city. Will emphasize how incredible the food was. And do have stories of the touts!
My earliest recollections - late 1970s - of aid appeals and media coverage of famines were all about SE Asia. Starving boat people etc. The region seemed to be more associated with poverty and misery than Africa was.
Perhaps the dire situation was caused by the wars. But I did read that one of the presumptions underpinning the American's 'domino theory' was that SE Asians were irredeemably poor and so would be predisposed towards communism.
Facts:
1) War is inherently evil, therefore can never be righteous, only necessary and just
2) But for a War to be a Just War, much more is needed than merely a Just Cause. Other questions arise
- Is it truly a last resort ?
- Is the war even worse than the disease it is trying to cure ?
3) Countries don't go to war "for righteousness' sake", but from self-interest.
Britain's War against Hitler was Just, but arose from self-interest; he was too powerful a menace to ignore. Thankfully, it wasn't a crusade or jihad, however holy individuals in the British Forces may have been.
4) If your cause is Just, you mst declare war openly on your enemy, which the USA didn't do regarding Vietnam.
Moreover, you mustn't use horrifying methods of war - napalm, defoliation, carpet bombing (except possibly in a war of survival, which Vietnam wasn't).
Thus the US War in Vietnam fails the Just War tests.
Tremendous piece. I went to Vietnam in 2010 and was shocked by the capitalism of it all. Did a Facebook album called "What's Communist About This?"
Fantastic place and I would highly recommend. We got a boat trip down the Mekong Delta and it was probably the most colonial I have ever felt in my life.