The consequences of the US defeat in Vietnam are still being feltToday, the Vietnam War (see "The echo of the Vietnam War is heard in Ukraine", "HBO" from 17.02.23) is perceived as an event of the rather distant past.
However, in fact, we are still living, feeling its consequences – as well as the consequences of the First and Second World Wars. This cannot be said about the rest of the wars of the twentieth century, although there were many of them, including very large-scale and bloody ones. [...]
MILITARY RESULTSThe air war over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (see "Phantoms" against "MiGs", "HBO" from 03/24.23) had a tremendous impact on the technique and tactics of combat aviation and its weapons, on the one hand, and the technique and tactics of ground air defense, on the other.
We can say that both of these classes of equipment still stand on the Vietnamese "foundation". [...]
The Soviet S-75 anti-aircraft missile systems (SAMs) achieved very impressive results in the fight against American aviation, which led to some reassessment of the capabilities of the anti-aircraft missile forces (SAMs) in general. In fact, ground-based air defense is passive by definition, this is its incurable disadvantage. The initiative always belongs to aviation. In addition, today the air defense is facing a lot of new challenges, which simply did not exist at that time (see " From the cannon to the sparrows ", "HBO" from 30.04.21). But in any case, it all started in Vietnam. And the S-75 is likely to remain forever the most effective anti-aircraft missile system in history (see "Not even a fly will fly ", "HBO" from 07/14/17).
However, in Ukraine today – for the first time since the Vietnam War – ground air defense is stronger than aviation, and on both sides. Because both sides are armed with Soviet air defense, created following the results of the Vietnam War.
The guerrilla war ("mutiny war") after Vietnam generally became mainstream for many decades (see "The myth of the invincibility of the guerrillas has long been time to reconsider ", "HBO" from 10.03.23). Even though the Vietnamese Communists lost just this kind of war, and put the winning point during the classic war (see " Classic the war in the Vietnamese interpretation ", "HBO" from 07.04.23).
However, for some reason the whole world thought that now the classic war would be almost completely supplanted by the insurgent war – especially since the Soviet Union also received its Vietnam (this is exactly how it was formulated) in Afghanistan (see " Afghan Lesson for Russia ", "NWO" from 06.04.18). Insurgent wars at the end of the XX – beginning of the XXI century and indeed it has become very much. Perhaps the Ukrainian events will change this trend.
However, the political consequences of the Vietnam War turned out to be much greater than the military ones.
ON GUARD OF PEACE AND SOCIALISMThe Vietnam War affected the socialist camp very much, and especially its two main pillars – the USSR and China.
Moscow's relations with Hanoi were extremely difficult, since Beijing stood between them in a direct (geographical) and figurative (political) sense. Since the formation of the DRV, both the USSR and the PRC have actively helped North Vietnam, but by the time the Vietnam War began in earnest, these countries themselves had completely quarreled with each other. At the same time, Hanoi initially leaned towards Beijing. However, China simply could not give Vietnam the necessary military equipment in the right quantities. Therefore, the rapprochement of Hanoi with Moscow has become inevitable.
North Vietnam continued to maneuver between the USSR and China anyway (until the early 1970s, when the rapid reconciliation between China and the United States began and, accordingly, the complete divergence between China and Vietnam, which reached the 1979 war). And in relation to the Soviet comrades, the Vietnamese comrades sometimes behaved in a peculiar way. For example, Soviet ships were specially detained in Haiphong, and even anti-aircraft batteries were placed on the berths right next to them. The calculation was that the Americans would not risk bombing Soviet ships. Captured American equipment was also not always shared with us and not immediately.
Nevertheless, the Vietnamese had to do something to fight the Americans. And the Russians had to beat the Americans with someone else's hands, at the same time testing their newest weapons on them.
As a result, the USSR made a huge contribution to the victory of Vietnam, and Vietnam helped the USSR achieve parity with the United States in strategic weapons and bypass them far in conventional weapons. Because for many years the United States had to invest in conventional weapons (especially aviation) to the detriment of strategic ones – and these conventional weapons were buried in gigantic quantities in the Vietnamese jungle.
At the same time, the Soviet Union, in fact, betrayed Vietnam, starting to put a lot of pressure on it, demanding the signing of a peace treaty with the United States as soon as possible. Because the USSR was already bankrupt in the early 1970s, both economically and politically. He simply could not feed himself, and even very quickly got hooked on the "gas needle" in relations with Western Europe (if we were then under such sanctions as we are now, the USSR would have started a severe famine with great casualties, perhaps at the level of the 1930s and 1940s). Therefore, Moscow's foreign policy, which looks very brutal, in reality became more and more cowardly and servile (see "The Ghost of the USSR roams Russia ", "HBO" from 03.11.17).
However, China betrayed the "cause of socialism" quite openly, directly moving to the opposite camp and becoming an informal "16th member of NATO". The logical outcome of this betrayal was his direct aggression against Vietnam in 1979 (see " What is the treachery of the eastern partner of Moscow ,"HBO" from 04/13/18).
By the way, Moscow did not provide direct assistance to Hanoi in this case either, although it was obliged to do so in accordance with the agreement between the two countries. The USSR limited itself to supplying Vietnam with weapons and demonstrative exercises near the border with China.
In any case, it was clear that the socialist commonwealth was going haywire in all spheres.
POSTMODERN SUICIDEHowever, the Vietnam War had an even stronger impact on the capitalist camp.
The information war, brilliantly won by Hanoi from Washington (see " TV attacks and wins ", "HBO" from 21.04.23), led to the psychological breakdown of the American army and American society (with massive post–traumatic syndrome in Vietnam veterans - both soldiers and officers). Which led to the immediate rejection of military conscription in the United States and the transition to a fully contractual principle of manning the Armed Forces.
A certain part of our public still considers this option ideal, putting forward an absurd slogan that it is necessary to serve "by vocation". In fact, they become officers by vocation. Or in mercenaries (in private military companies – PMCs). In the regular army under contract, in the vast majority of cases, lumpen marginals who are unable to find a place in civilian life, but at the same time are absolutely not going to die for their Homeland, enter the regular army. They join a peaceful, non-belligerent army.
Moreover, to the countries of the West, where the standard of living is very high, all this applies to the maximum extent. In order to attract at least some high-quality contingent in at least some acceptable amount to the "professional" army, huge funds have to be invested in the maintenance of personnel - and still receive mostly lumpen. Who immediately run away if the country suddenly has to wage war. The Americans have tested all this for themselves, for example in Iraq (see " Why the United States lost the war in Iraq ", "HBO" from 03/16/18).
Accordingly, we have to strive to fight without losses at all, investing huge amounts of money in high-precision weapons and their carriers. After that, not only these carriers (primarily airplanes and helicopters), but also the ammunition itself (missiles and projectiles) become abnormally expensive. As a result, even the most militarily and economically powerful Western countries are forced to severely limit themselves in the procurement of weapons and equipment (in quantitative terms).
As a result, even a war against the obviously weakest enemy turns into colossal expenses. And it becomes simply impossible to fight against an opponent equal in strength and capabilities. Firstly, because of the lack of weapons. Secondly, because of the unpreparedness of the army and society for high losses.
We are witnessing all this today in Ukraine, where the collective West is simply not able to provide Kiev with the help it needs. Because if you give Ukraine everything that it requires, NATO itself will have almost nothing left (see " Who needs a small army ", "HVO" from 21.10.22). And even the strongest of the NATO armies with such an expenditure of ammunition, as both sides now have in Ukraine, will be able to fight for only a few days.
All these seemingly purely military moments fit perfectly into the much broader context of the triumph of postmodernism and left-liberal madness over humanism, enlightenment and classical democracy, which began in the West in the 1960s. And the Vietnam War (more precisely, the social movement against this war) became one of the most powerful catalysts of this process in combination with racial demonstrations in the United States and leftist student riots in Europe.
Now the West, apparently, is already in the final stage of this process. The left-liberal ideology has finally become the only true one. Elections and freedom of speech are turning into empty shells, behind which there is a struggle of some left liberals with other left liberals and such a suppression of any dissent, which even Stalin's chekists and prosecutors could partly envy.
What, for example, the current "culture of exclusion" has to do with freedom of speech and democracy, or the criminal prosecution of Westerners for the Z sign on the car window is an exclusively rhetorical question. Concepts such as "heroism" and "self-sacrifice" are not only not welcome, but have become something almost shameful. Meanwhile, it is impossible to wage war without these concepts.
Accordingly, the left-liberal ideology finally finishes off Western armies, and with them Western societies as a whole. Moreover, this process seems irreversible. In the 1960s and 1970s, neither the Vietnamese communists, who talk about the corrupt and completely undemocratic Saigon regime, nor American journalists, who humiliate and destroy their own army, did not expect such a powerful and long-term effect. "It is not given to us to predict how our word will respond."
The current Ukrainian events will clearly restore the significance of the classic war, completely erasing the line between it and high-tech war and showing that it is more important than the rebel war. However, the importance of information warfare may increase even more. Or maybe not. At least until now, Western and Ukrainian propaganda has not achieved even a minimal share of the success achieved by the Vietnamese Communists while conducting propaganda in the United States in the "foreign field" (that is, in Russia).
For the West, this conflict is becoming no less existential than for Ukraine and Russia. Because the issue of survival of the very postmodern left-liberal system, the creation of which was launched in the 1960s under the influence of fighting in the Vietnamese jungle, is being solved. Now the future prospects of humanity will be determined in the Ukrainian steppes.
Alexander KhramchikhinAlexander Anatolyevich Khramchikhin is an independent military expert.
