Everything You Think You Know About Vietnam Is Wrong — Historian Mark Moyar

Summary

TRIGGERnometry Podcast Summary

Episode: "Everything You Think You Know About Vietnam Is Wrong — Historian Mark Moyar"

• Host(s): Konstantin Kisin & Francis Foster
• Guest: Dr. Mark Moyar (Historian, author of Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965)
• Date: May 9, 2026

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Overview

This episode dives into the Vietnam War, challenging widely held perceptions and media narratives. Historian Mark Moyar argues that much of what people "know" about Vietnam comes from politicized histories and Hollywood dramatizations. The hosts and Moyar untangle the complexity of the conflict, the rationale behind U.S. involvement, missteps in American strategy and leadership, the war’s connection to present-day U.S. attitudes toward foreign interventions, and the war’s long tail in American culture and politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How the Vietnam War Started

• Roots in Cold War Politics:
  • Post-1949: The communist victory in China triggers U.S. fears over Asian communism.
  • U.S. supports the French in Indochina from 1950 as part of broader efforts to contain communism (the “domino theory”).
  • After France’s defeat at Dien Bien Phu (1954), the U.S. backs South Vietnam against a communist North led by Ho Chi Minh.

“Vietnam clearly is aimed at preventing the spread of communism and particularly Chinese-led communism in Southeast Asia.”
— Mark Moyar [02:36]

2. Escalation to Full-Scale U.S. Involvement

• Early American Aid:
  • Initial U.S. discomfort with colonialism, shifts after the communist threat emerges.
  • The U.S. declined to intervene directly at Dien Bien Phu; supports only the southern, non-communist half afterward.
• Political Upheaval in South Vietnam:
  • Ngô Đình Diệm consolidates power but is undermined by a U.S.-approved coup in 1963—a pivotal mistake according to Moyar.
• The Gulf of Tonkin Incident:
  • Ambiguity about what really happened. At least one real attack, but likely covert U.S. actions led to North Vietnamese provocations.
  • McNamara and Johnson mislead Congress and the public for political convenience ([10:59]–[12:05]).

“McNamara deliberately deceives Congress about what's going on. ... He comes out as one of the most disreputable people out of all of this, I think.”
— Mark Moyar [10:59]

3. Military Strategy & Missed Opportunities

• Boots on the Ground (1965):
  • U.S. troops arrived thinking their role was limited; quickly escalated as South Vietnam teetered.
  • Early U.S. technological and artillery advantages gave way to stalemate as the North practiced asymmetric warfare, used supply routes through Laos and Cambodia.
• Limited War Theories and Political Constraints:
  • McNamara’s “gradual escalation” strategy is criticized as a key failure.
  • Joint Chiefs advised decisive, overwhelming force or withdrawal; civilian leadership chose half-measures.
  • American troops often hamstrung by political rules—unable to strike supply lines in neighboring countries or fully pursue the enemy.

“You either need to fight this war hard or you need to get out.”
— Mark Moyar [01:24], echoed throughout.

4. Tet Offensive and Public Perception

• Tet Offensive (1968):
  • North Vietnamese surprise attack during national holiday.
  • Despite military disaster for the North, U.S. media framed it as an American failure, fueling antiwar sentiment and political crisis at home.

“They take crippling losses at the hands of American and South Vietnamese forces. ... But you have an American media that focuses on just the magnitude of this.”
— Mark Moyar [28:15]

5. Political Turmoil and War’s End

• Withdrawal and South Vietnam’s Collapse:
  • Nixon’s “Vietnamization” and troop withdrawal.
  • Congress later cuts military aid to South Vietnam; Watergate scandal undermines Nixon’s promises.
  • North Vietnam launches a massive offensive (1975); the South collapses.

“South Vietnam is actually getting better over time. ... Another missed opportunity was this coup in 1963.”
— Mark Moyar [31:32]

6. The Hollywood Effect and Media Narratives

• Misrepresentation in Film:
  • Hollywood movies (e.g., Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July) cement a certain narrative—one of futility, criminality, and trauma—often at odds with the historical record.
• Lasting Cultural Impact:
  • The “template” of Vietnam is applied to later conflicts (Afghanistan, Iraq).
  • Moyar argues media, academia, and left-wing critics entrenched defeatist and antiwar interpretations for self-interested reasons.

“Hollywood hasn't done very good job on Vietnam.”
— Mark Moyar [52:09]

7. Racial & Social Dynamics

• Draft Inequality and Racial Issues:
  • The draft disproportionately affected lower-class and minority communities, fueling resentment ([35:37]).
  • Black casualties initially overrepresented; policy changes corrected this later.
  • Rising racial tension and the influence of the Black Power movement escalate after 1968.
• Veteran Experiences:
  • Despite psychological scars, polls indicate many Vietnam vets were proud and believed in the mission; their main complaint was being restricted by politicians ([66:54]).

8. Trust in Government and the Rise of Conspiracies

• Distrust Deepens:
  • Vietnam, Watergate, and the Pentagon Papers created a pervasive mistrust.
  • Legacy: increased belief in government conspiracies, exacerbated by media polarization and later scandals (e.g., “Crossfire Hurricane”, the Epstein case) ([85:01]–[89:22]).

“You have the FBI basically being used to try to interfere with the 2016 campaign ... So things like that I think have made certainly the right ... think government is broken and needs radical surgery.”
— Mark Moyar [86:34]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the War’s Strategic Mistakes:
  “McNamara also, again, brilliant guy, but yet they commit some terrible strategic blunders, which, again, I think this was not a foregone conclusion that it was going to end the way it did.”
  — Mark Moyar [58:19]

• On the Domino Theory’s Validity:
  “Most of the dominoes don't fall. But Cambodia and Laos fall ... And it's also worth noting this leads then to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia who kill some 2 million people in this genocidal conflict…”
  — Mark Moyar [60:27]

• On Why the War Was Lost:
  “You either don't fight or if you do fight, you fight to win. ... They tried to sit on two stools and ended up falling in between them.”
  — Konstantin Kisin [30:35]
  “That's correct, yes.”
  — Mark Moyar [63:35]

• Public Sentiment and Hollywood’s Impact:
  “...Even as someone who is not American ... if I had to tell you what the story of the Vietnam War was, it would be, you know, Platoon ... Those are not positive war movies. You're not looking at that going, we're the good guys here, and this was the right war to fight.”
  — Konstantin Kisin [64:48]

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Important Timestamps

• Origins of the Vietnam War: [02:36–06:34]
• U.S. escalation, Diệm coup, Gulf of Tonkin: [06:34–12:05]
• Strategy and boots on the ground: [14:05–17:25]
• Proxy war, Soviet/Chinese involvement: [20:14–21:52]
• War aims, comparison to Afghanistan: [23:41–25:54]
• The Tet Offensive: [28:11–30:35]
• Endgame, aid cuts, Nixon and Kissinger: [52:07–60:13]
• Domino theory, Southeast Asia postwar: [60:13–63:35]
• Hollywood and academic narratives: [64:46–66:22]
• Veteran psychological impact: [66:54–68:32]
• Lessons for Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine: [70:06–78:06]
• Mistrust of government and conspiracy culture: [81:20–89:22]

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Broader Reflections and Legacy

• Divided Lessons:
  The left took away “never again, don’t intervene”; the right, “fight to win or don’t fight at all.” ([70:06])

• Media and Trust:
  Deep mistrust and belief in “conspiracy” traced back to mismanagement and deceit during Vietnam, compounded by Watergate and later scandals ([85:01], [86:34]).

• Contemporary Impact:
  Vietnam is the mental template through which Americans—of all political stripes—view modern interventions, shaping public skepticism and debate over foreign policy ([71:06–74:48]).

• Historical Narrative Battle:
  The mainstream Vietnam narrative is rooted as much in the protest movement and self-interest (i.e., draft avoidance) as in the facts on the ground ([64:54]–[66:22]).

• Ethics and Public Life:
  Moyar closes with a call to address America’s “deficit of ethics”—arguing that a lack of shared values and public morality is at the root of contemporary corruption and mistrust ([89:34]–[90:54]).

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Conclusion

This episode offers a deeply revisionist perspective on the Vietnam War, challenging the Hollywood-driven and academic consensus of inevitable defeat. Moyar contends the war was strategically winnable, lost primarily through flawed leadership, political hesitation, and lack of will to “fight to win.” He connects the consequences of those failures to modern American cultural and political dysfunction, including cynicism, mistrust, and enduring polarization over war and peace.

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For further discussion and to submit listener questions, visit triggerpod.co.uk.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

One of the central controversies of the war. Just, was it something that could have been won or not? And a lot of historians, especially on the left, will say no, this was. You could never have won it. Yes. I mean, the Americans have air power, artillery. North Vietnamese don't have these things. And so it is very one side. In fact, that will be the general pattern. So they take crippling losses at the hands of American and South Vietnamese forces. They commit some terrible strategic blunders. This was not a foregone conclusion that it was going to end the way it did.

[A]

Hollywood's dramatizing things.

[B]

It is. Yes. Wow. Yes. Hollywood hasn't done very good job on Vietnam. There's still, I think, a pretty strong feeling among the troops that this is something worth fighting for. There is also this growing realization that the politicians are tying our hands behind our back. We either need to fight this war hard or we need to get out.

[A]

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Hillsdale College. Right after this episode, go check out their incredible online courses, which are absolutely free at Hillsdale. Edu Trigger. Mark, welcome to Trigonometry.

[B]

Great to be with you.

[A]

Great to have you on. We're going to talk about the Vietnam War. And as we discussed before we started, both the two of us and quite a lot of people watching this might not know very much about that war, but we feel like, you know, some of the conversations that have been happening in. In American society lately sort of seem to. There seems to be some connection with the things that happened, the. The conclusions that were made at that time, the impact on the collective psyche of this country. So tell us what happened? What was the Vietnam War? How did it Happen? When did it happen? Why did it happen?

[B]

Well, that's a great question. And I think if you want to understand the roots of this war, you have to go back at least to 1949. And that's when the Chinese Communists won the Chinese Civil War, which is an aspect of our history that most people really don't know very well. But it's one of the most important events of the 20th century. And up until that time you had the Truman administration, a lot of other people claiming that communism isn't really a big deal in Asia. We shouldn't be too worried about it. And for a while a lot of people thought Mao was just this nice sort of nationalist who said he was going to be democratic. But finally when he takes over, suddenly reality sets in that these Communists are actually pretty bad folks who are going to kill lots of people and try to take over the world. And so you see Then in 1950, the US starts aiding the French in Indochina, Vietnam, and then the US also goes into Korea to fight the Korean War. And so a lot of people second guess and kind of forget about these underlying sources. But I think it's, you've got to fundamentally understand that there's a war against communism, and this is an ideology that killed 100 million people in the 20th century, which again, relevant today because you now have young people who don't really know the history saying, oh, socialism, communism, are, you know, really not that big a deal. But Vietnam clearly is aimed at preventing the spread of communism and particularly Chinese led communism in Southeast Asia. And so when the French war ends in 1954 and the French just decide they're sick of this, the United States decides it's going to help a new government in South Vietnam as part of the effort to contain communism. Because what almost all the Americans at this time thought was that this so called domino theory meant that if you lose a place like South Vietnam, the other countries in the region are going to, to fall. And that will be actually the guiding principle for most of the war.

[C]

And so we've got the domino theory. But what people probably don't know as well, Mark, is that America was financing and helping to support the French financially. I mean, they were paying billions of dollars even back then, which was a lot of money. It's a lot of money now. But back then it was even more money.

[B]

Yes. And you know, initially the United States was not very keen on this French effort because it was in Roosevelt. And then Truman kind of thought European colonialism is kind of passe and we're not going to support it. But then when they saw this communist threat, they agreed to help the French. And the French also made promises to the Vietnamese that they could have a greater degree of independence. It's also interesting when you get to 1954 and the French are surrounded at Dien Bien Phu. They come to the Americans and say, can you bomb the communists who have surrounded us? And Eisenhower actually goes to the British and says, we'd like you to join us in sort of an anti communist coalition. And the British say, well, you know, you didn't help us out in India. So we're not really that keen on helping save the French in Indochina. And so for that reason the United States holds its hand out. It creates an interesting what if. I do think had we bombed actually we could have perhaps saved the French. But we didn't really know that at the time. We didn't realize the Viet Minh, the Communists, as they called themselves, had committed almost their entire army to Dien Bien Phu and were very vulnerable. But again, we didn't know that at the time. So we, the US then decides we're just going to hold onto the southern half. French leave and so we support this new government in South Vietnam.

[A]

Well, the French surrender once again. What a shocker. So how do we get from this situation, the communists have the north, the American backed non anti communists have the South. How do you get from that to American boots on the ground?

[B]

So at the beginning, the new president of South Vietnam is Ngodinh Diem, a very religious Catholic Vietnamese. And a lot of people don't think he's going to succeed because there's a lot of chaos in the South. But he is able to consolidate power. And the communists initially think they can beat him with just political agitation, but that turns out not to be the case. And so as his regime gets stronger, The Communists decide 1960 to launch an armed insurrection, basically using the techniques of Mao for mobilizing the peasants. And so you have that begins in 1960. Diem regime struggles at first they start to get their act together in 1962. President Kennedy helps puts a lot of aid there. Things are going pretty well in 1963. And then all of a sudden you have we call the Buddhist crisis, which is a hugely complicated and convoluted story where supposedly some Buddhists in the population were dissatisfied with the government. And this was all really ginned up. And we know in fact the communists were helping give the propaganda behind us, but they duped some of the American press into believing them and so ultimately, the US government supports a coup to overthrow President Diem in 1963. And to me, that is a watershed moment in the war because the war effort suddenly goes off a cliff. Now, a lot of historians have overlooked some of this, but I think it's quite clear. We now know from North Vietnamese sources this is a huge moment. So the South Vietnamese government goes into a tailspin, and then we have Lyndon Johnson come in. Kennedy's assassinated just a few weeks after President Diem. And lyndon Johnson in 1964 is focusing on getting reelected in the 64 election. So everything to him has to be looked at that lens. And so you get to the Tonkin Gulf incidents of August in 1964. What happens is that a couple American destroyers are out on the high seas and. And the North Vietnamese attack them. And President Johnson then is confronted with decision what to do. You know, Johnson doesn't want this in the newspaper. This is not something he was hoping for. But now he's confronted with this fact and so decides he needs to do something. And here we hear him listening to Secretary of defense Robert McNamara, who is really the architect of the war for both Kennedy and Johnson. What McNamara says is, we need to convey a signal of our intent to the North Vietnamese. And here he's drawing on academic theories about conflict which are not based in history, which it's really kind of remarkable how influential these especially economists, are. But he buys into this theory that we'll use force to communicate. And so they undertake a very limited raid on the North Vietnamese naval base nearby. Now, the North Vietnamese see this, and they take away the very opposite message that the Americans are trying to send. They see Americans just did a little pinprick strike. That must mean they actually are not serious, because if you were serious, you'd hit them really hard. So this leads them to believe that Johnson is going to throw in the towel on Vietnam or not make a big fuss. And then in the election, Lyndon Johnson portrays himself as the peace candidate and says, I'm not going to send American boys to fight wars that Asian boys can fight. And so the North Vietnamese see this and they say, yet, you know, South Vietnam is now ripe for the taking. It's in big trouble since this coup. And now Lyndon Johnson's saying he's not going to send an American troops. So soon as Johnson wins the election in November, 64 North Vietnamese launch an invasion with, for the first time, sending entire North Vietnamese army divisions. Up until this time, they've sent smaller forces, recruiting the South.

[A]

So their plan is, I'M so sorry to interrupt. Can I pause you for one second and just come back to the Gulf of Tonkin incident? Because our friend Joe Rogan, he brings this up as, like, I think when I asked him what his favorite conspiracy is, he said, well, the Gulf of Tonkin is one of them because it was a pretext for war. That was false. What's your reading of. Of the. Some of the narratives around that? Yes, well, situation.

[B]

It is a complicated situation. So there are two reported attacks, and one of those attacks clearly took place because there were, you know, bullet fragments found on the American ships. The second one is still kind of a mystery. The Americans at the time, though, did think there was a second attack based on communications intercepts. Now, some of those intercepts maybe refer to the first one. Now, what is misleading, and I think maybe what feeds into conspiracy theories is McNamara deliberately deceives Congress about what's going on. He says, this was an unprovoked attack. Now, we know, and this was not known at the time, but time US is actually conducting covert operations against North Vietnam and probably has something to do with the fact that. That they attack the American ships. And so McNamara, he comes out as one of the most disreputable people out of all of this, I think, and this is a case where he misled the American people.

[A]

Do we know why he did it?

[B]

I think he just felt that it might get a little too messy if people knew that there was some gray areas in here that maybe this was not purely unprovoked aggression. And again, that also wouldn't probably look great with the election coming up. But we do know LYNDON Johnson and McNamara, they are already talking about bombing North Vietnam in 1965, even when publicly they're trying to claim that they're not going to send American boys. So there is a great amount of deceit. In fact, Johnson's advisors come to him several times in 1964 and say, you know, we've actually got a pretty bad rap, Democrats, because we had Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt promise they were going to keep us out of war, and then they get us into war, and we could be heading down that road this way. So we may be fighting a war, so you might not want to talk about being the peace guy, but he ignores them and keeps going on this. So it is a, you know, a rather sorry aspect of the conflict. And do you think there's any truth

[A]

to the idea that actually there were some forces that really did want this war to escalate within the American administration

[B]

at the Time, there are some who see that it's probably going to happen. And there's a big debate between the ones who are in the McNamara camp who bind these academic theories, and they think they can kind of keep this as a limited war, and then it's going to continue. Now, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others in the military say, you know, that doesn't make any sense if we either need to fight this war hard or we need to get out. And so that undercurrent is running for the next several years, and for the most part, you know, McNamara is the number one guy, so he largely prevails. And so he pushes this idea that we're going to fight a limited conflict rather than, you know, going all out or getting out.

[C]

So 1965, when was the moment American boots hit Vietnamese soil?

[B]

So the first American troops come ashore in March of 1965. And at that point, the situations continue to get worse in the South. And the American, they said, johnson's already thinking about doing some bombing, but he thinks that they can bomb the north, but it's going to kind of keep on a somewhat modest pace. They don't know that this big invasion is coming. So they send these first troops thinking that they're just there to guard American bases. They're not there to actually get into the fighting. But what happens then is May of 65, the North Vietnamese, these divisions that are coming from the north, they launch a big offensive. And by June, it's clear that South Vietnam is probably going to fall unless the Americans get in. So in June and July, Lyndon Johnson decides, thinks this over, and will ultimately in late July, say, okay, you know what? Yeah, maybe I said we weren't going to send boys, but actually we need to send our boys because otherwise Vietnam's going to fall. And the consequences of that are things that we just don't want to accept. It's too, too damaging. Again, going back to the dominoes theory, this is going to lead to the fall of other countries in Asia, because

[C]

when we look at the American armed forces, at that point you go, this is the most technologically advanced armed forces in the world. This is the richest country in the world. They were up against, let's be fair, a technologically limited Viet Cong. That should be an easy win, shouldn't it?

[B]

Yeah, you might think so. And the first battles are very lopsided. The first big one is Operation starlane, August of 65. And yes, I mean, the Americans have tanks and amphibious vehicles. They have air power, artillery. The North Vietnamese don't have these things. And so it is very one side. In fact, that will be the general pattern. But what happens is that the North Vietnamese are able to withdraw when they don't want to fight or when they're taking it, when they're taking too much damage. So they can either go into remote jungles and mountains and hide out or then going to Laos and Cambodia. And this is one of the problems that actually begins before 1965. There's a big debate in the US over the country of Laos, which is where the Ho Chi Minh Trail will come in existence. And Kennedy, when he's president, he thinks about sending American troops into Laos, because between north and South Vietnam, you have this narrow demilitarized zone. And the North Vietnamese can't easily sneak things across. They tried it, and they were stopped. So they decide they're going to go through Laos and build this Ho Chi Minh trail. And then some of the US military says, let's go into Laos. Cut that hoim trail. But Kennedy listens to his civilian State Department, and they decide to negotiate neutralization, which means North Vietnamese are supposed to leave and the Americans. But the North Vietnamese, being good Communists, violate the agreement and they keep going in. And so you have an unending supply of equipment and manpower. So the North Vietnamese will take very heavy losses, but they can keep sending stuff down through the Ho Chi Minh Trail and keep things up indefinitely.

[C]

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[B]

Well, and this is also a point of a lot of debate. Now, General Westmoreland, who's the commander at the time, argues that the American forces should concentrate on what he calls search and destroy. So go look for big enemy units, no matter where they are, even if they're in the furthest reaches of the country, in the mountains and jungles. And the South Vietnamese are partners. They will focus on securing the villages and towns where the people, most of the people, live. And this does have the advantage of keeping Americans, for the most part, away from the population, because Americans don't speak Vietnamese. They don't understand the customs. Now, one of the problems is the Vietnamese government this time is in disarray. So they're not very good at this kind of stuff. But the Americans, the search and destroy is also a very interesting topic because most of these operations, they don't find the enemy. So a lot of people say, well, this was kind of wasteful. But we now know, especially from looking the North Vietnamese side, that, for one thing, they still inflict very heavy losses on the North Vietnamese because sometimes they do catch them. And that this really keeps the North Vietnamese off balance. And if you were just to let the North Vietnamese run free, they would be able to mount massive attacks, you know, concentrate in overwhelming numbers at a city or a base. And when they are able to do that, the only way you stop them is destroy the city, essentially, which occasionally happens, but for the most part, doesn't.

[A]

One thing we haven't talked about yet, and I think it's quite an important part of this is, of course, this is a proxy war. And the North Vietnamese are not fighting by themselves. They're getting support from China and also the Soviet Union, right?

[B]

That's correct. Yes. And in the early years, China is the main partner. And there's a myth that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh really were not on good terms with the Chinese. They didn't really like them. That is actually not the case. We do know they were quite close, especially Mao and Ho Chi Minh themselves. Now, there'll be a falling out later, but initially the two of them are quite close to one another. And it goes back to Dien Bien Phu. We know the Chinese had sent a thousand trucks to help the Viet Minh win there. And so the Chinese do see this as a major front in dominating Asia, pushing the United States out as a major power. But the Soviets are also there and the Americans know the Soviets and the Chinese aren't on board. But this American intervention actually sort of widened the Sino Soviet split because what happens when the Americans come in? The Vietnamese turn to the Soviets for anti aircraft weapons because there's so much American air power. And so when they start getting more from the Soviets, the Chinese start getting jealous and you start to see a falling out. And then you have the cultural revolution in China. And so eventually the Soviets will become the principal benefactor of the North Vietnamese.

[C]

So 1965, boots on the ground. At the beginning, the Americans were making inroads, high fives all round, kicking commie ass. When did it start to turn?

[B]

Well for the troops themselves, they're still pretty motivated for several years now. Robert McNamara himself starts to become disillusioned at the end of 65, and this is one of the reasons why he's so unpopular, is that he's actually now having doubts, but he's not talking too much about them. So a lot of people say, well, should have maybe resigned or maybe told people that we had to do something different. But the reason he gets discouraged is that when the troops go in the middle of 65, he is still believing that we have these limited war theories that tell us that one side restrains itself and the other side will restrain itself. Well, the Americans limit themselves, but late 65 they find out North Vietnamese are sending in a whole bunch more people. And so this theory has been essentially destroyed. And so now McNamara realizes that it's not going to work and the war is getting bigger and bigger and he can't really figure out a way out of it. Now you have the military at this point continuing to say we need to either invade Laos, invade North Vietnam, bomb in a much more powerful fashion. But the war will continue to go pretty well for the Americans certainly for the next several years. And there's still, I think, a pretty strong feeling among the troops that this is something worth fighting for. But there is also this growing realization that the politicians are tying our hands behind our back and not letting us win this conflict. And that will increasingly become the sentiment of American troops.

[A]

What was the stated war goal? What was the objective for the US?

[B]

The. Well, officially it was to protect South Vietnam against North Vietnamese aggression. You had the model of the Korean War where you had North Korea invading South Korea. And so the hope was that we could maintain independent South Vietnam. Now, once the American troops go in again, there is pressure from the military, let's go into the North, Lynn. John said, well, we tried that in Korea, and the Chinese came in. Now, it turns out to have been a huge miscalculation because we now know the Chinese, they had taken a terrific beating in Korea, and they said, we're not doing that again. But the United States again decides to limit itself to the southern half of the country. And so you're playing defense all the time, and you have an enemy that can keep infiltrating through the Ho Chi Minh Trail. You know, ultimately the hope is we can build up the South Vietnamese to the point that they can deal with most of this on their own, which, you know, will bear some fruit later in the war, ultimately runs into trouble.

[A]

Well, sounds for younger generations, this feels kind of like Afghanistan. You know, you stabilize it, you train the local people, everything's great. But the moment the American forces aren't there, it reverts to the mean.

[B]

Yes, Well, I will say that the South Vietnamese government was quite a bit better than what we saw in Afghanistan, Iraq. But on the other hand, the enemy was also much stronger. And the US Shot itself in the foot several times in Vietnam in terms of promoting especially this coup in 1963, I do think in the case of Vietnam, we had viable partners. A case of Afghanistan, I think clearly that was kind of doomed because we never really found anybody. Of course, as soon as we withdraw our air support, the head of the country flees the country. I mean, the South Vietnamese will continue to fight as the US and the Congress pull out aid.

[A]

And so you mentioned that it's going pretty well for the first couple of years, first few years, and the first demoralization for the American forces there is the realization that they're not being allowed to go in and do the job that they need to do to win the war. And they're basically sitting ducks, just waiting for the Viet Cong to attack rather than going out and cleaning them out, basically.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. The initial period is kind of a emergency rescue operation. You got to push all the North Vietnamese back. And so that's all quite effective. But, yeah, after a while, when things just start to drag on, then you do increasingly have people wondering, are we just going to sit here forever? And this is similar to Afghanistan in that you have Afghanistan when the Americans were there. We kill Taliban day after day after day, but they kept coming in from Pakistan. And so the American people generally don't have an un unlimited patience for that sort of thing. And, you know, I think big part of the problem too, was Lyndon Johnson never really made an effort to sell the war. He himself will admit that. He will admit that he was so focused on becoming a domestic policy president, he was going to have the Great Society in civil rights that if he talked too much about the war, that was going to distract from this. But again, that will lead to some of the ultimate disillusionment when, if the President's not out there explaining to you why you're fighting, it's hard to understand.

[C]

But not only did he not explain why they were fighting, didn't he also downplay the way that the war was going and the casualties that were being incurred as a result of war?

[B]

Yeah, and he was certainly trying to put a positive spin. And he initially is going to be a candidate in 1968 for the presidency. And so he will bring General Westmoreland back to kind of give pep talks and say how things are going well, rather than saying it himself. But this is partly to assure people that, in fact, things are going okay. Then you get to the Tet offensive, which in 1968, which seems to contradict that. Now, again, that's the.

[A]

Tell us about the Tet offensive. Before you talk about this, what happened?

[B]

So early 1967, the North Vietnamese, and they keep losing battle after battle. And so they at first think things are going well. In early 1967, they finally figure out that they're taking crippling losses and that their own commanders in the south were kind of deceiving them about how things were going because they didn't want to lose face. So they were always claiming they killed all these American South Vietnamese. Somebody finally did the math and said, well, wait, the Americans and South Vietnamese are getting stronger, even though you claim you did. So they finally kind of figured out we got to come up with a new game plan. So since fighting in the remote areas of South Vietnam's not working, what they're going to do is target the cities of South Vietnam, which they've largely left alone. And these are controlled by the government. Their thinking is that if we go in there, the people there are going to rise up because they hate the South Vietnamese and American capitalists, and they think it's going to be kind of like in 1945 when they go into Hanoi. So they attack. They attack during the Tet holiday, which is the biggest holiday of the year, violating a ceasefire. So they have the element of surprise. But turns out the people are not ready to rise up. In fact, almost none of them do. And so now they're stuck in the Cities. And it's not easy for. They don't, you know, they're not familiar with the cities, so they don't know where to go. They can't just run away, you know, easily. So they take crippling losses at the hands of American and South Vietnamese forces. But you have an American media that focuses on just the magnitude of this, suggesting that they showed that they were stronger than they were, which isn't really the case. But again, Lyndon Johnson has mismanaged the. The war of ideas. And, you know, some of the American hawks say, okay, this is like a Pearl harbor moment. We can tell the people there's this dastardly surprise attack, time to really take the shackles off, sending more troops. But Johnson doesn't want to do that. And so there again, people, you have an opportunity to capitalize on this let's win the war sentiment. But instead, he decides he doesn't want to do that, and he ends up dropping out of the presidential race partly because of Vietnam, partly for other reasons.

[A]

So reading between the lines of everything you're saying, my sense, and correct me if I'm wrong, is your perspective is you either don't fight or if you do fight, you fight to win. And the reason that the Vietnam War ended up not being a success is Lyndon Johnson, McNamara, they tried to sit on two stools and ended up falling in between them. Is that fair assessment?

[B]

Yes, there's certainly, I think, a lot of truth to that. Now there is. There were other opportunities too, I think, because one of the central controversies of the war just was it something that could have been won or not? And a lot of historians, especially on the left, will say, no, this was. Could never have won it again. I think the Americans could have gone North Vietnam, and maybe there was still been some resistance, but it would have been a much more manageable problem or that we could have cut the Ho Chi Minh trail. But you also do have. Towards the end of the war,

[A]

the

[B]

US decides to cut off aid to South Vietnam. But South Vietnam is actually getting better over time. And so that was another missed opportunity. And then the one other huge missed opportunity was this coup in 1963. I think had we not done that and sort of torn the government apart, it never would have gotten to the level that it gets to.

[A]

And why does America cut off aid to sass them down?

[B]

Because Congress is getting fed up with the war. It also happens, coincides with Watergate. And so Congress is getting angry at Nixon. Nixon has promised that he'll go help the South Vietnamese, but Because of Watergate, his hands are tied. And you have increasingly large anti war sentiment within Congress. Who thinks has a very benign view of Vietnamese Communism and unduly harsh, I think view of our Vietnamese allies.

[A]

Is that really fair? Mark? Is it possible also that, you know, because of the draft and because the people who are going to fight and die and be maimed in Vietnam are just normal people who didn't volunteer for this, who didn't want to be professional soldiers, that the sentiment among the American public at this point has already turned or is that not true?

[B]

Oh, the Nixon actually has been very mindful this. And he actually will end the draft for that reason. And so he does take that issue away. I do think a lot of the hesitation and reluctance is because of this draft issue. In fact, when you look at how the war is written, a lot of the people who dodged the draft end up becoming very harsh critics of the war. But towards the end, you know, it's not a big, you know, the draft is no longer an issue, but it's part of. It's just some people are saying, we're tired of this, we need money for other things. Again, I think a lot of it too was naivete. You have George McGovern is the presidential campaign, presidential candidate for the Democrats in 1972, and he's saying Ho Chi Minh is the George Washington of Asia. And you have just incredibly, I think, misguided notions that these Vietnamese Communists are nice people. Of course, after the war they do all sorts of terrible things to clearly show that's not who they are.

[C]

I have a theory that the best summers happen when you have absolutely nothing nagging at the back of your mind. No loose end, no vague sense that you should probably be doing something you're not. Finances are usually somewhere on that list of things quietly nagging. And today's sponsor has actually helped me with that. Monarch is a personal finance app that tracks everything. Accounts, investments, saving goals and spending. Get 50% off your first year with Monarch. Just 50 bucks for the whole year with Promo Code Trigger. I started using it a few months ago, and the first thing it showed me was that a genuinely embarrassing percentage of my monthly spending was going on things that I hadn't really noticed adding up. It's one of those moments where you can't unknow what you're looking at. The AI Weekly Recap does the monitoring for you and flags anything worth knowing before it becomes a thing worth worrying about. You can ask the AI assistant direct questions about your finances and get a straight answer. There's also an investment view that tracks your portfolio against the S&P 500, which I now check with the same frequency. I probably shouldn't admit to use code triggeron.com to get 50% off your first year. That's 50% off your first [e-mail] with code trigger. But also as well, we have to say that, you know, the draft and the people who were going to war were blue collar people, blue collar men from, you know, deprived backgrounds, working class backgrounds, et cetera. And there were plenty of people in the upper classes and middle classes who dodged the draft. That must have caused a hell of a lot of resentment.

[B]

It did cause some. And the. If you look at the numbers, I mean, the lower classes are disproportionately represented. You do have. Some of the upper income classes are contributing, but actually there's a big regional divide. So from the southern and Western United States, you'll have people of all classes signing up in the Northeast or the upper Midwest. That's where you tend to find a lot of the more affluent people are finding ways not to go into the military. And that does, I think, certainly cause a lot of friction and distrust and anger, which I think some senses is still with us. If you look at the group of Americans from the baby boom who did not go to Vietnam, most of them ended up in the political left and came to dominate the media, academia, play a very important role in our politics

[C]

because a lot of those people, like you said, they got scarred by this war because they see this war, it's a place Vietnam, most of them have never been. Most of them, if you're gonna be honest, probably didn't quite understand what was going on. But then they would see young men being sent away, some of them as young as 17, returning in coffins. And eventually they would probably think to themselves, not only is this deeply unfair, but what are we getting out of it? Why are our boys dying?

[B]

Yeah. And that's where. Why it was so problematic that Lyndon Johnson is not out there explaining to people. And, you know, a lot of his own aides are saying, you look what Franklin Roosevelt did in World War II. He was out there telling people why it's important for our sons to be going over there and risking their lives. And that did a lot to help sustain morale because it's an enormous risk any family takes or any young man to go put your life at risk. So it should be something that the people understand its importance. Now, when Richard Nixon comes in, he does address this problem, and he Gives his famous silent majority speech where he does make a real effort to explain the war to the people, which should have been done long ago. But as I said, I do think actually the pretty strong case to be made of why this war was important. But unfortunately, Lyndon Johnson doesn't really make that case.

[C]

But it's also as well, there were huge figures at the time like Muhammad Ali, who's. No, no, no Viet Cong has ever called me the N word. You know, this huge cultural and sporting figure who refuses the draft on principle. I mean, that's gotta have a huge impact not only on the Zeitgeist, but also on the black population as well.

[B]

Yeah, so the, the black population is interesting because in the early years of the war it's not a big issue. For the most part. You do have Martin Luther King coming out. But you know, the, the American forces in Vietnam are seen as sort of a model of racial integration because you don't have much in the terms of racial friction from 65 to 68. And now after 68, you increasingly see the influence of the black power movement and that causes a lot of problems in Vietnam as well as in the US and increasingly you have this notion that this is a, a white man's war. Then you also have some prominent media actresses, Jane Fonda being the most well known example, who come out basically in support of the enemy. And so that was also very distressing for the American troops. A lot of them still will never forgive. Jane Fonda, she goes to North Vietnam and poses with the North Vietnamese anti aircraft weapons. Basically looks like she's helping the guys. We're trying to shoot at our pilot. So you really have a sense of betrayal that you don't see really in earlier conflicts.

[A]

And you mentioned that the perception was eventually that this was a white man's war. Is the implication it's a white man's war being fought by black, disproportionately by

[B]

black people, is that, well, there will be allegations made like that in around 1967. And at that point, I mean, it's interesting too, because previously until the Korean War, blacks were generally kept out of the combat units. And so at least the combat units that were doing in the most difficult parts of the fighting. And so through integration, some senses it was an advance. For now they're integrated in these combat units. But, and I don't know the exact number, something like maybe 15 to 20% in those first few years of the casualties were blacks at a time when they were about 12% of the population. So they are overrepresented. Now, after that becomes an issue, the US Actually changes the policy so that there is not this disparity. And so for the war as a whole, the. The blacks are right around their. It's right around 12% of the population overall, and they're also 12% of the casualties.

[C]

Because there was a lot of talk, and it'd be good to actually delve into this, that there was a real problem with racialization, racism within the armed forces in Vietnam.

[B]

Yes. Now, the. Having spent a great deal of time looking at that, I think just about anyone, any veteran, will tell you that this problem was not that big of a deal once you were in the field, because your life depended on cooperation. And so the real friction all took place in the rear areas. You know, we had people with too much time to do, you know, maybe 10% of, you know, American forces are actually out. You know, the rest of them are on these support units. And so that's where problems are really bad. But you also see this, you know, happening all over the world where the US has military bases, Germany, Korea, et cetera. You have this strong racial antagonism that is really corrosive starting around 1969.

[A]

And when. When you say starting around, I would assume that the racial antagonism is simply the legacy of the history of slavery and Jim Crow and all the rest of it in this country. Is that what's driving this? Or is there. Is there a new dimension? You know, you mentioned the Black Power movement, etc.

[B]

Yeah, I do think the black power movement is sort of starting to change people's attitudes. You had. I mean, for one thing, a lot of the blacks who fight early in the war had volunteered for service. You know, a lot of them, I think, believed in sort of the vision of Martin Luther King, that we want sort of a colorblind society. And, you know, of course, a lot of people decided after you have the Civil Rights act, there's not progress as rapidly as some people might want. So then you start to see. I mean, it's a little bit like what we saw, too, with the George Floyd movement more recently, where people say, well, the colorblind society isn't doing enough for us, so we need to take a more radical approach and one that is more confrontational towards whites.

[C]

Because you had the problems within the Army. There was also problems with drug taking, wasn't there?

[B]

Yes. And that also is more prevalent in the rear areas because, again, people kind of know that this could get you killed. Now, the combat truce, they may Use drugs. They probably won't be doing it when they're out in the field probably too, because their other soldiers would get really angry at them for doing that because you're putting everyone's lives in jeopardy. But yeah, the drug problem's also getting worse about the same time. And it's very easy to get marijuana and heroin then also becomes a problem. That of course is a much more serious matter. And so there are real problems. It's not the case, I would say that the US forces are becoming less effective. I mean, there is one thing that's happening in this period that probably does more than either race or drugs to undermine performance. And that is when the Americans start withdrawing under Nixon, you start to have people saying I don't want to be the last guy to die in Vietnam. And, and here Nixon does not probably do a good enough job. Although you also will see this in World War II or Korea. You also have this near the end of the war, nobody wants to be the last guy to die. So you do have morale problems as a result of that in the latter stages.

[C]

And you also have scandals going on. So that had a very real impact particularly on Americans view of their boys. I mean there was a scandal with rape, mass rape happening. So let's talk about that. What were these scandals that really damaged Americans viewpoint of their army?

[B]

Well, the one big war crime was the My Lai massacre which took place in 1968. And you had a part of a company of American forces went into a village and killed and, or raped over 400 people. And now he actually was stopped when an American pilot saw this was going on and came in and intervened and then told higher headquarters. But it was a horrific war crime. And now this was done by low level officers. But officers at a higher, higher level thought that if this word gets out that this is going to be catastrophic PR nightmare. So let's try to hide it. So they're able to hide it at first. But about a year later the story comes out. And so that is hugely controversial. You know, there's Lieutenant Callie, who's the leading perpetrators put on trial, will get convicted. Americans actually have divided on this. I mean some people think that Callie was just being made a scapegoat. Other people thought, you know, Callie fully deserves this, he was doing this. Now there's then speculation, maybe there's. This was happening all the time, I think clearly, and we know it wasn't, this was an aberration. But it does become sort of a rallying call for anti war movement and Others who are saying, look, we're, you know, committing more crimes. I would add to, you know, Americans have committed war crimes. I mean, most wars have some crimes and oftentimes they don't get as much publicity. But this one, you know, they have pictures that are circulated. And so it is very harmful for the American cause. And then you have the Pentagon Papers where Daniel Ellsberg releases this study that had been put together actually under the Johnson administration. Now, it doesn't come out till Nixon's president, but it does reveal some of the deceit and mistakes that were committed BY People like McNamara and Johnson and all the, you know, disastrous errors that came from that. So that will certainly provoke a lot of controversy. Now, Nixon himself is not covered in the Pentagon Papers. And at first he's kind of thinks, I'll just let this go. But then Henry Kissinger, who is his leading, who's his national security advisor, tells him that we have to figure out who did this and punish them ruthlessly and that there's actually probably a conspiracy involved.

[C]

Can I just pause you there, Mark, because we skipped over, we didn't skip over, but we kind of didn't really delve into what the Pentagon Papers actually said. What, what, what, what were the accusations? What were the mistakes made, what were the crimes that were committed? And then we can come back to this bit which is Kissinger and saying we need to punish our enemies and the people who did this.

[B]

Yeah. So the Pentagon Papers expose the American role in the coup of 1963. And up until this time, it wasn't clear what role the Americans had actually played. But now these make clear that fact. The U.S. embassy is supporting this coup. The CIA is involved. And so that was quite disconcerting for a lot of people on both the right and the left who were wondering, why are we actually overthrowing this allied government of ours? You have information about the Tonkin Gulf suggesting that maybe it was not quite what we were told, that in fact there was some provocation involved. You have documents indicating about that they're actually planning to go to war. When Lyndon Johnson's saying that he's the peace candidate and you have talk of the war strategy and one thing we haven't talked about yet is Robert McNamara had what he called the strategy of gradual escalation. And his skin goes back to these game theories that he's pulled from academia. But he believe, he argues that when we start bombing North Vietnam in early 1965, we should start off at a low level and build up gradually. And that's part of our plan to communicate our intent and also to limit our risk. Now the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the same time this also comes out pending papers. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are saying that's crazy, hit him hard right away. And so, and clearly the strategy of gradual escalation doesn't work. And in fact what happens is it gives the North Vietnamese time to build up their anti aircraft defenses. So you have a lot of strategic incompetence being exposed here in the Pentagon Papers.

[C]

Right. I'm going to level with you. I'm not a gamer, even though I look like one. I'm not going to pretend I've been grinding through RPGs between recordings or although I have strong opinions about which Final Fantasy was the best one. I think it's Japanese and I think there's a sword that's genuinely everything I know. But our social media guy showed me this app and I genuinely thought that's quite clever. It's called Snaxy. Basically, game publishers need new players and they're willing to pay to get them. Snaxy just passes that money onto you. You play games you were probably going to play anyway. You earn coins and you cash them out for real rewards. PayPal, Amazon, Netflix gift cards. If you prefer gaming credit, you can redeem for PlayStation, Xbox, Steam and Nintendo or cash out your Enable wallet. I've got no idea what that means. Actual money, not just points that expire. It takes a few minutes to set up. You open the app, swipe through the game offers, pick something that looks decent, play it, earn, redeem. That's the whole thing. There's a sign up bonus worth up to $10 if you use our link, which is in the description of this episode. That's S N A K Z Y Snacksy. Click the link in the description to get started and when you sign up, use the code Triggerpod, that's T R I G G E R P O D to claim your $10 bonus. And the app is mobile only, so click the link from your phone, not your laptop.

[A]

And Mark, this takes us into the realm of Hollywood, which actually is a big part of this, but probably after the war. Well, one of the things that's been depicted in a number of movies, one of them, I think American Gangster with Denzel Washington is the idea that actually the Vietnam War becomes a big drug trafficking operation and a lot of drugs are coming to the United States through that. A lot of the army is involved, the CIA is involved. How much truth there is is there to that?

[B]

I think A lot of it's been exaggerated, probably some truth to it. You know, a lot of the drugs taking place are just taking place within that theater. They're not going back and forth necessarily with the United States. I mean it does get a little murky when the US is supporting various groups in Laos and Cambodia that are also involved in the drug trade. And so it sometimes looks like the, the US is supporting them. A lot of that's the CIA side of it still. Actually we don't know that much about it. They don't release records on those things. But yeah, I don't think it's probably as serious as people might imagine.

[A]

Hollywood's dramatizing things.

[B]

It is, yes, yes. Yeah, there's a lot of Hollywood, Hollywood hasn't done very good job on Vietnam.

[A]

Well, we'll talk about that. But before we get there, take us, take us through to the end of the war. We've got to this point where the morale is dipping. The soldiers on the ground are starting to realize we can't actually win cuz the politicians won't let us. Eventually the rot sets in. The American media's on it. You've got these racial tensions, morale is dropping further. As you said, no one wants to be the last guy to die in Vietnam. What happens then and how do we get through to the American withdrawal and

[C]

just before probably we'll do with the Kissinger actually go and punish the enemies then get to that point.

[B]

Okay, yeah. So yeah, so after the Ellsberg disclosures are made. So Ellsberg turned himself in but Henry Kissinger and others tell Nixon that there may be a broader conspiracy here. It might involve some State department people, some think tanks. And so Nixon decides to set up a group that will become known as the Plumbers to go find out and dig dirt on these people. And so one of the people they target initially is a psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg and they go and raid his apartment with you know, without really proper legal clearance they end up not finding anything. But this will become important because it basically sets the stage for the actual Watergate break in which, which is what's going to take Nixon down ultimately. And so Nixon so he has gives a silent majority speech. In November of 69, 1970, there's a coup in Cambodia, throws out the pro communist leader and the US then decides to go into Cambodia to help the Cambodian government which is useful in reducing sanctuary. And one of the things we find out is that the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville was a massive hub for North Vietnamese Supplies coming in, so we're able to shut that down. So that means the only place really they're getting supplies is Laos. So the next year 71, Nixon supports a South Vietnamese effort. It's all South Vietnamese forces to go in and they have a big fight. It's not as successful as they want, but it has short term benefit, buys time. In 1972, the North Vietnamese decide they're going to launch a huge offensive. This is 14 divisions. This is clearly far beyond any sort of guerrilla war. And it's almost all North Vietnamese coming into the south at this point. American ground troops are gone, but US Air power is there and inflicts a crushing defeat on the North Vietnamese. And so this is one of the indicators that the South Vietnamese are getting their act together, that they can fight off 14 divisions without American ground troops. Now then what happens is you have a peace agreement in late 72 is really, I think mismanaged by Kissinger. What Kissinger ends up doing is cutting a deal that allows North Vietnamese troops to stay in South Vietnam. And South Vietnamese go crazy when they hear this. And Nixon was actually doing this without telling the South Vietnamese. And so there's a huge conflict between the Americans and the South Vietnamese. And then North Vietnamese are why does Kissinger do that? He, I think partly didn't realize how bad of an idea it was really. Yes, he, you know, he also. So Nixon for a while he's been trying to sort of cement his legacy as, you know, great diplomat. And so, and it's, you know, if you look at other diplomatic endeavors, especially actually not all that similar. Some people get so obsessed with the deal that they just start giving things away just so they can say they struck the deal. And so what ultimately happens is so the South Vietnamese complain, then Kissinger goes back to the North Vietnamese and says, well, we kind of need to change what we agreed to because maybe that wasn't such a great idea. And the North Vietnamese say, well, we're not, you already agreed to this other stuff. So then Nixon bombs them in what's called the Christmas bombing, very heavy bombing in December of 72. And Nixon easily thinks we're going to clobber North Vietnam. They're going to be hurt for so long and they won't be able to do anything, at least not for a while. And we're going to declare this peace agreement. And he promises the South Vietnamese that he will protect them if the North Vietnamese in fact do launch another big offensive. Now whether he was going to actually live up to that, we don't know, because he's gone by 74. The South Vietnamese, you know, basically the peace never really happens. South Vietnamese are fighting North Vietnamese, and it's going pretty well until about the middle of 74 when the American. The aid cuts by the Congress are taking effect. So now South Vietnamese dominant fuel for their aircraft. And to defend some, like South Vietnam, you need aircraft. You know, they don't have enough ammunition. And this gradually gets worse and worse. And so North Vietnamese see this and launch an offensive in early 75. And they kind of wait to see, too. Are the Americans going to come do anything? By this time, Nixon's gone. The Americans don't do anything. And so the North Vietnamese then are able to, you know, with 600,000 troops, defeat this depleted South Vietnamese force.

[C]

When you tell the story and you outline it like this, it does sound more and more. And something that I didn't appreciate through watching the movies. And we'll, we'll come on to that. It's. It just sounds like political and strategic incompetence. But what you said about Kissinger, I mean, to me, that just blows my mind. I mean, this is. This was obviously a fantastically intelligent man. I'm not the brightest, but even I can work out leaving the enemy in the cities isn't a good idea.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. And he will catch a lot of heat. As you said, he was a brilliant man. McNamara also, again, brilliant guy, but yet they commit some terrible strategic blunders, which, again, I think this was not a foregone conclusion that it was going to end the way it did. You had both of those guys making, you know, very terrible decision. Now, you also had McNamara and Nixon who, you know, listened to these guys. And I think that's part of the problem is they thought, well, these guys are so smart, they must know what they're talking about. Now, we do know in the case of McNamara, Johnson actually near the end of his presidency, concludes that McNamara doesn't know what he's talking about because McNamara wants to, in late 67, he wants to cut the bombing because he says the bombing's really not doing anything. But there's so much information that says it's, in fact doing things that McNamara has become deluded. And yeah, Nixon also, excuse me, Kissinger commits some huge and costly mistakes. I mean, another thing he does is he comes up with this whole agreement with the North Vietnamese before he even shows it to the South Vietnamese. And then keeping the North Vietnamese troops there is not the only huge problem they have in there. And Kissinger didn't even appreciate that some of the. Just the language that's in the document, you know, the Vietnamese are very attuned to language. And he had signed off on these terms that he didn't. He had no idea that the Vietnamese were going to attach some importance. You know, for example, how do you describe the demilitarized zone between north and South? You know, the US didn't think was a big deal, but the semantics of this were huge to both Vietnamese. And so he just tied the US to this deal that had all these problems without even getting the concurrence of our allies. And it just. Yes, it just did not go at all well.

[A]

So the war was fought because of the domino theory, the idea that if you let Vietnam get overrun by Communists, communism will spread in Asia. Well, Vietnam does get overrun by Communists. Was domino theory correct?

[B]

Yes, great question. So I think it's first worthwhile. One of the big problems with Vietnam War is oftentimes people don't understand the different phases. I mean, it goes from 60 to 75. And a lot of times people think the world's kind of static, but in fact, the world's vastly different in 65 when the US goes in than when it. When South Vietnam's overrun. 75. What you see in 65 is that, in fact, there are lots of countries under threat from communism. The most important one, which doesn't often get its due attention is Indonesia. At this time, there's a civil war brewing between Sukarno, who is a communist, essentially, and his military. And that will actually come to a head in September of 65, and the military will end up overthrowing Sukarno. But they will actually say later that the reason they took the stand was because they realized the Americans were not bailing out and had we given up on South Vietnam, I mean, no country in Asia is going to want to be your ally if they see you send 50,000 troops to a country and then leave when the going gets rough. So it was actually, I think, very important in the case of Indonesia, also Thailand, Singapore, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, it's very explicitly come out and said that Vietnam bought time for Southeast Asia to solidify and build up its strength against communism. And another thing that happens is American intervention will drive North Vietnam and China apart for a few reasons. One, as I mentioned, now all the Soviet aid is coming in. American intervention also, I think, plays a role in the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966, which, you know, Mao had thought he had this big period of expansion in Vietnam and Indonesia. Both those get crushed, and he now turns inward for enemies and he loses interest in international affairs. And so by the time you get to 75, Chinese and North Vietnamese have turned against each other. And in fact, they'll fight a war in 1979. So most of the dominoes don't fall. But Cambodia and Laos fall, so those are significant. And it's also worth noting this leads then to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia who kill some 2 million people in this genocidal conflict, which, again, I think worth keeping in mind that this is a fanatical ideology. Vietnamese also kill a lot of their own people. Most of it goes under the radar. But, you know, I think ultimately the US While it loses, ultimately loses South Vietnam, it holds on to a lot of other Asian countries, which today are actually the main US allies in this ongoing competition with China.

[A]

And again, reading between the lines of what you're saying, it sounds to me like your view. And of course, there'll be historians who disagree on this, but your view, I guess, is it was the right war to fight. It was just fought in the wrong way. Is that fair?

[B]

That's correct, yes. And that is. Yeah. And those are, I mean, really the central issues of the war and unfortunately, so politicized in this country that to make that argument is sort of radioactive in American academia.

[A]

The show is called Trigonometry for a reason, by the way. I honestly didn't know that was gonna be your perspective. You know, you were recommended to us by a friend and really interested in your thoughts on it. So it's an interest perspective. It's one I have heard from other people. And as you say, it is very toxic. And I imagine that is partly because, well, look, it might not be true. There will be people who say it's not true. But also, I think because of just how powerful the Hollywood narrative that was created after the war was. And I'm not saying that narrative is false. I'm not qualified to assess whether it's true or false. What I'm saying is, even as someone who is not American, who wasn't brought up in America, if I had to tell you what the story of the Vietnam War was, it would be, you know, Platoon. It would be, what's the one with Tom Cruise?

[C]

Born on the 4th of July, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Like, those are not. Those are not positive war movies. You're not looking at that going, we're the good guys here, and this was the right war to fight.

[B]

Yes. And, I mean, the country very much split along political lines. You know, Ronald Reagan describe this as a noble cause, but most of the left has taken the view that it was unnecessary, unwinnable. And a big part in my view of why the left pushed out so hard is that what's interesting? Look what's going on college campuses in the middle of the 60s when the US goes into Vietnam, there's actually very little protest. Again, this is one of those areas where it's worth keeping in mind the chronology. The protests don't start till 1967 and it coincides exactly with the reduction of draft deferments for students, for college students. And so suddenly, and I'm not the first person today, but I think it's true that a lot of this opposition is driven by the fact that when you tell some, you know, students, these college students didn't care that much about the war until they said, well we're going to send you there. And now some of them don't want to go. And if you look in the nation's history, it's almost always the case that the manly thing, the civic thing to do is to go when your country calls you. So if you're going to not go and not answer the country's call, you have to come up with a reason. And so the reason is this was a terrible war and we never should have fought it again. I think much of this is for self serving reasons. And if you actually look into the facts of the war, they don't bear those things out.

[C]

A little bit of pushback to that. So I have American friends and I know some people who've actually Vietnam veterans. One whose father committed suicide, came back completely damaged because of what he saw. Young man ended up killing himself before the age of 30. Another one had diction issues. I think as well we need to acknowledge, Mark, that there was a very real psychological scar that was imprinted amongst a generation of young men, particularly blue collar working class young men.

[B]

Well, I think there's certainly cases of that. Now it is interesting the polls that have been done Vietnam veterans, there was a survey done a few years after the war and about 90% of them said they were actually proud of their service. Now most of those people also said the problem was that we tied our hands behind our back. So again they weren't that they did have gripes, but it was about how it was fought. Now the question of psychological damage is interesting one too because you have the rise of certain psychiatrists who are arguing that there is some unique mental illness. And we're gonna call PTSD that's coming out of Vietnam. I think that's mostly been debunked just in that if you look at any war, there are people with these same problems coming back, probably a little bit worse, given that when people came home, they weren't greeted as heroes. Yeah, I would say that. But you know, any war, I mean, if you talk with veterans of World War II or Korea or, you know, Afghanistan, there's a lot of veterans coming back from Afghanistan, Iraq, who have committed suicide as well, tragically. But I think it's worth keeping in mind that in many senses, it's really not any worse of a war than most of the wars we fought, because all the wars we've fought have been pretty awful. But again, when you compare the Hollywood version of World War II, movies don't look quite like Platoon or Apocalypse Now.

[C]

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[B]

I do. And I think, you know, the left and the right took different lessons. I Mean, the left's lesson was basically, we want to stay out of wars. And left pretty much stuck with that, you know, for decades. And, you know, every time a war came, they said, this is another Vietnam. It's been interesting with Ukraine. Suddenly they've now become the party of war they were actually for. They got us into several wars. In the 20th century, the political right came out with the message that if you're going to fight, you fight to win. And so we saw in the first Gulf War, the Bush administration was very intent on saying, we're going to use maximum force. And it worked there. Then you get to Afghanistan, Iraq. You know, in both of those cases, I think the US didn't really know what was coming. We weren't expecting a war. We thought we. A protracted war. And so. And neither of those went quite as. As expected.

[A]

Can I say that?

[B]

Yes. So I think that's what's.

[A]

You know, I was going to ask you about that because do you think the Vietnam War and the portrayal of it, rightly or wrongly, in the media, in Hollywood, among, you know, a lot of people in the country as well, it's the template onto which the failure of Afghanistan and the failure of Iraq fit very nicely. Because, you know, I hinted at this when we. Right at the beginning of our conversation. I kind of. It's strange for us because we're not immersed in American culture nearly as much when we look at conflicts that are happening now. Ukraine, Israel, and, you know, the left and right split in different ways on those issues, both within and against each other, et cetera. But you hear a lot of people say this thing like, I'm not dying for Ukraine, or we're not sending American boys, which is kind of like, weird in the current context, because that really isn't remotely what's happening in either of those conflicts, nor is it the direction of travel, nor does the United States have a draft. So even if America did put boots on the ground, which it has no intention of doing, they would be people who volunteered for that. But the cultural dominance of this thing of like, we're not gonna. We're not dying for a foreign country, does that come from Vietnam?

[B]

I think on the left, but it's been interesting on the right. You know, that was not, as I said, that was not the main message that the right took. The right took away the message that you fight to win. It's not that you just don't fight. Whereas I think in recent times, mainly, I think because of Iraq and Afghanistan, you increasingly hear people on the right who are questioning whether we should get involved in these interventions. But again, I think the right now is thinking more in terms of Iraq, Afghanistan, how those things were costly and at a time when you've got rampant inflation, people here conscious of how much we spend abroad. And so, yeah, there is a lot of reluctance and I think there is. And within the Republican Party, of which I'm part, there's been this big split between the neoconservatives and sort of the neo isolationists. The neocons kind of get blamed for Iraq and Afghanistan. And they were kind of the principal architects. And so now you've had this, this other element that's very hostile to them. There's also, I think, in between those, a large group, which I would say maybe sort of the Reagan conservatives, who are sort of not either super eager to get in every war, but also not necessarily opposed to war and willing to fight when American interests are at stake.

[A]

Well, again, as an outsider, that does seem like the smart position because those two other extremes, you know, the neocon wars of the 2000s, didn't don't seem to me to have been beneficial to anybody, including especially America, say nothing of the people that were killed, et cetera. And the neo isolationist position or the isolationist position seems to me a little bit naive. We had a big debate about this with a guy called Dave Smith, who's a very popular representing that point of view, because if you are going to be the most powerful country in the world, you are going to have to control territory beyond your own borders. And sometimes that means getting physical. So to go so far, another extreme seems kind of incompatible with America being the most powerful country in the world.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's right. And I do think there is some naivete and what you know, and I have debates with people. I'm kind of considering myself in the middle on this. But there are some who would say, well, yes, having a military is important for deterrence purposes, but we should do is just have a big military, but then we never use it. But I don't think you can really have deterrent power if you take that position because people are going to call your bluff or if you're out there advertising this. So, you know, sometimes, as you said, if it's the world's greatest power, sometimes you are actually going to have to do something or you're not going to be the world's greatest power. Especially we have this rising China. I do think we also see today what we saw before is that American politicians have not done a good job explaining to the American people why Ukraine or Israel or whatever other causes why this is actually so important to us. And, you know, I spent a lot of time teaching college students, and that's one thing they say they don't really understand, you know, why are we spending all this money here? But it hasn't really been explained to us.

[A]

How do you explain it to your students?

[B]

Well, you know, I take. I think both of them are tricky issues. They're not as. Not as compelling as the case you have for Vietnam. I mean, I think in the case of Ukraine, we obviously still have great interests in Europe. You know, it's not a. If Eastern Europe gets unsettled, we have, you know, problems of migration, which, of course, that's a big issue here. Potentially, you know, Russia could keep pushing west or though, you know, I'm not convinced that Russia is going to ever go attack Poland. But, you know, there is also the sort of human element that you have, you know, mass killings of civilians. And at some point, you know, as the world's greatest power, that's something we may not want to be willing to tolerate.

[A]

I'm not hearing much strategic interest for the United States in that explanation, though.

[B]

Right. Well, that's the, that's the thing, too, is I think it's harder to make the case for strategic interest, which is perhaps part of why, you know, you don't hear a lot of people in Washington make that case. I mean, the other reality you have is, you know, we now have a situation where Russia seems to be just using attrition and they've kept sort of calculating on their larger population that they're eventually going to grind Ukraine down, which I think would just, you know, be terrible for all concerns. So, you know, in my own view, is ultimately need to find some kind of solution to stop this, which probably means, you know, the Ukrainians may have to give some things up, which is not great either. I mean, you don't want to set the precedent for, you know, countries taking territory and then keeping it. But it's really, to me, just a nasty problem without a lot of, you know, very good solutions at this point. You know, I think, you know, the Biden administration, I remember a couple years ago they were. They thought that the Ukrainians were going to, you know, prevail militarily. And, you know, the Russians did very poorly at the beginning. And so I think they thought that was going to continue while it's not. And so I think they miscalculated.

[A]

And, well, the weird position of the Biden administration was. Is like, Ukraine is going to win, but we're not going to give them the weapons to do it. So it's like, well, they could have won, maybe. Or, look, it depends. You know, the Ukrainian flag's not going to be flying over the Kremlin anytime soon, but they could have pushed Russia back to the 1991 borders. Now, unlikely, but if you've given them proper support, they might have done that, but you can't. But it's sort of. It was like it was all pom poms and. No. No actual support.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It wasn't zero, but it wasn't the support that they needed. So this kind of. This is kind of how I certainly think, and I'm from Russia and I have a lot of Ukrainian family, how we've ended up where we are. What about Israel and the war against Hamas? How do you talk to your students about that?

[B]

That's. That's an interesting one, too, because they are. Historically, the Republican Party has been pretty strongly pro Israel. It's much more divided now, and I think partly because, well, certainly we have some very influential figures on the right who are kind of questioning us from the national interest perspective, you know. Exactly.

[A]

Does America have a national interest in being allied with Israel?

[B]

With being allied with Israel? Yes. I think the harder point, what people struggle with more, is do we have a national interest sort of supporting what's going on in Gaza? But I mean, I think even on the question in terms of is it our national interest? I think that one's something's been debated, too. I mean, you probably saw there was a big flap with the president of the Heritage Foundation a week or so ago. So clearly there's a lot of conflict around this.

[A]

I think by the time this episode goes out, everyone will have forgotten about Kevin Robertson. We've had on the show, by the way. But what I'm asking is, what is the strategic interest for the United States in being allied with Israel? Forget about Gaza. That's where the conversation on the right in America really is. And by the way, on the left, too, I think, why is America allied with Israel?

[B]

Well, a lot of it, I think, you know, has to do with history. I mean, we have. There's a sense in this country still, although, again, this is sort of fading, that, you know, in the aftermath of World War II, after all, it was inflicted on the Jewish people that they deserve to have a homeland and a place, you know, where they could live in safety. You know, we've always also had this competing View. Well, we also want to be friends with the Arab countries and Islamic countries around them. You know, I think this was easier case to make when we were us was more concerned about the Middle East. We had these fears of terrorism that, you know, Israel's an ally in terms of dealing with the terrorist threat. But I think that's partly why it's harder to get support now, because, you know, most Americans, I don't think now think about terrorism in the same way. You know, I think also there is, you know, in terms of. We consider Iran to be one of our top enemies, which I think makes sense. Clearly, Israel is a. Is critical in terms of keeping those guys in check.

[C]

Mark, doesn't it also represent what we're talking about, the scars of Vietnam, in that there's a lot of people in this country who simply don't trust government because they go, you've lied to me repeatedly. You lied to me over Vietnam, and it's just gone right the way. Weapons of mass destruction. Why should I believe you? Why should I believe a single word you say about Israel, Ukraine or anything else?

[B]

Yeah, I think that's a valid point. I mean, certainly you hear a lot of that coming out, and not just Vietnam, but also, you know, Watergate reinforces this. And I said, the Pentagon Papers are part of this because clearly people are being lied to. Now, I do think it's exaggerated. Some people say, well, up until Vietnam, America trusts its leaders. Well, if you actually go back and look at your history, Americans have always had a certain suspicion of our leaders, you know, going back to, you know, George iii. So. So I don't think it's quite the case that we just, you know, never thought that our leaders would lie. I mean, you know, if you look in the early Republic, too, they're flinging all sorts of mud and, you know, saying how the other sides are all a bunch of scoundrels. So I think it goes in cycles, too. I mean, yes, in the 90s, and that's partly what, you know, when you get to the first Gulf War, there is, you know, a lot of people think, okay, well, yes, there are weapons of mass destruction and they seem to know what they're doing. But again, obviously, that turned out to be huge. And so now we're back in one of those periods of deep distrust. And, yeah, I'm not sure what gets you out. I mean, I think it could be a president who, you know, I think that's one of Ronald Reagan's big accomplishments, is that he was the kind of person who could help restore a certain degree of trust in the government. And I don't think we've really had a figure since then in this country who's been able to do that.

[A]

The thing is, the media environment is now so, so different. Social media, podcasting, the plurality of voices as such. And also, you know, as I said, this episode will go out some time ago, but we just had a story in the uk and who knows if the BBC still exists by the time this conversation's aired? Because, I mean, we now know that large swathes of the media, and I say this as no fanboy of President Trump. You know, I think he's great on some things and not so great on other things, but they lied so much about him. They literally did election interference while accusing him of election interference that it's just hard for people, I think, to trust media they don't already agree with, you know.

[B]

Yes, I think. And certainly there's been great distrust in this country. And actually Vietnam really saw probably the first time you had very deep distrust of the media among some parts, because it clearly became evident that the media was increasingly monolithic ideology and clearly left of center. And so conservatives complain for long, for a long time. There really actually wasn't much recourse. And when you have Fox News and the Internet, it's actually changed things a lot because people have other sources of news to go to and. Which I think's important. But, yeah, I mean, it is unfortunate. And I think we, I think, in this country gave up a while ago and hoping for something more impartial, which the BBC still strives to be. But, you know, RLR media here pretty much is either left or right, so. And I always tell students, you want to listen to both to make sure you're getting the information, but a lot of people only listen to the side they agree with, which isn't healthy.

[C]

No, it's not. And you know, Constance and I always talk about this, and forgive me, because it might be slightly offensive to our American viewers and listeners, but. But you bloody love a conspiracy theory. Here you are the nation of conspiracy theories. Whenever you sit down with somebody, doesn't matter how smart they are, what side of the political spectrum, they all go, you know, who's really interested, how much of that really is to do with Vietnam, where expose after expose after expose, people lying. I mean, that is that government gaslit a nation whilst they're at war. That's got to have an effect. And then weapons of mass destruction, again, that has got to make a population more conspiratorial I mean, now you do

[B]

have a good number of conspiracies before Vietnam on the political right in terms of, although sometimes seen as communist conspiracies actually have been validated to have been true. But yeah, you certainly see a rise in the distrust of government and a willingness to believe that the government is going to do bad things. And I said, I think it did subside for time. I will tell you more recently things that might have been some kind of conspiracy theory. Crossfire Hurricane is an example of the government's actually doing some crazy things and you think there's no way the government is actually going to do this. And I personally tend not to believe in conspiracy theories. But at the same time, when you see something like that, you say, tell

[C]

us about that a little bit. What was that?

[B]

Well, that was surrounding in the 2016 campaign, the FBI, and this was when Obama was still in power. They used this so called Steele dossier, which had all these crazy allegations against Trump which turned out to be false. They used that to open FBI investigations into Trump's associates. And some of this is still being sort of pushed out now by the new government. But you have the FBI basically being used to try to interfere with the 2016 campaign and very senior FBI officials and some of them end up getting fired. I mean, Kevin Kleinsmith, this is one I'd like to tell my Democratic friends. I'll say, tell me who Kevin Klein Smith, and most of them don't even know what he was. This FBI official who falsifies a warrant, spy on the Trump campaign. And there's, you know, Peter McCabe or Andrew McCabe, excuse me, he gets fired by, I mean, so there's actually quite a few of these very senior FBI officials who are caught up in this. And so things like that I think have made certainly the right. And I think partly what you're seeing on the right is sort of a backlash against this and a broader sense. Yes, the government is, is broken and it needs radical surgery. Now, how you actually fix it tends to be a little more difficult than destroying the bad parts.

[C]

Because what we also saw, and it was people stopped talking about it because of the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk. But people kind of forget that before that, the big story was Epstein. And it looked like the Jeffrey Epstein scandal was going to do significant damage to, to Donald Trump's presidency. And you go look, well, obviously the Epstein scandal is a big thing, but why this above everything else? And to me, it was the conspiratorial element that was almost Making people lose their minds, like they couldn't get past that.

[B]

Yeah. I do think this is one area. I think the Internet's been problematic. Cause theories like this would not have been spread 30 years ago in. In the way they are. But we now have, partly because people just go to where they like to get their information and they tune out things that might contradict that. And so, yeah, I mean, certainly it's been incredible how much play that issue, the Epstein issue, has been receiving. Now, again, a lot of other people aren't paying much attention to it, but of course, you also saw with the Charlie Kirk thing, you have all these conspiracy theories about who was involved in that as well. So it is an unfortunate element of our politics.

[A]

Well, it's been great having you on. Thank you so much for talking to us. Before we head over to our substack, where our audience get to ask you their questions, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

[B]

Yeah, I'd say the question of public ethics in this country is something we don't talk enough about now. People are getting very spun up about corruption scandals, and rightly so.

[A]

But you had some experience yourself with all of this.

[B]

I did, yes. In the first Trump administration, I became a whistleblower, essentially reporting corruption, and then they came after me. And I certainly saw a deficit of ethics in our government. And this is part of a broader cultural problem where historically this country was comfortable talking about ethics in terms of the Judeo Christian tradition. Some of our population still does, but we also have large segments who want to be so secular that we can't talk about any of that stuff. And they assume that through some sort of cosmopolitanism, we can still maintain a culture of ethics. But from my experience, ethics isn't something that just arises out of thin air. This is actually a problem, and we see a lot of unethical behavior in our society. If we really want our government to cause us less harm, we probably need to figure out our cultural, social, religious moorings so that we are actually behaving ourselves better.

[A]

All right, Mark, thanks so much for joining us. Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where you get to ask Mark your questions. To what extent did Nixon and Kissinger sabotage the Democrats peace negotiations ahead of the 68 election? And to what extent does Mark think they should be held as culpable for tens of thousands of potentially unnecessary deaths in the years that followed?