Thread by @MacaesBruno

I think one could make the case China is today a threat to the US while Russia is not because the US never won the Cold War in Asia. Lost in Vietnam which is today ruled by a communist party

https://twitter.com/themindscourge/status/1434231413830668289

Also the destruction of Vietnam removed a limit on Chinese power and made China’s rise easier from 1975 to 2000. So Vietnam defeat is a large part of the reason US is today under pressure from China

Something Mao understood well: that America’s defeat in Vietnam was critical to China’s rise over 50 years. Vietnamese political and economic weakness out of the war was a bonus

Did Vietnam have consequences? Of course and they are everywhere present today. You just have to place it within the confrontation with China rather than the Soviet Union

Had the US won in Vietnam, a US-dominated Southeast Asia (rather than China) could have emerged as the centre of Asia’s economy. As it happened I think by 75 all the conditions for China’s economic miracle were in place