How did Vietnam advance the US in world standing. To the world we were keeping a small nation from achieving unification and freedom from western colonialism. How did being kept at bay by a third world nation with little or no air cover for it's troops in the south. How did slaughtering Vietnamese by the hundreds of thousands with all kinds of bombings, more tonnage than used in WWII, gains respect. Vietnam was a mistake geopolitically I.e. tHe Domino Theory; and morally by maintaining colonialism and blocking the self determination of a people. And yet today the Vietnamese people love the US and want strong diplomatic and trade relations. It is really amazing to meq
Me too for that matter. I`ve met many Vietnamese people in my lifetime and they were all very friendly and easy going, always willing to lend a helping hand but cross them and your in trouble, they don`t fuck about and are a proud people.
But I do think that China wants the Spratlys and its vast resources for themselves and they will likely occupy the islands that are the causus belli, and that is it, for now. And yes, they will get cocky and likely throw their weight around a bit more. That is what happened to Mao after the initial successes against MacArthur's woefully ill-prepared forces.
He pushed the Chinese general, Peng, who was in charge of the "intervention" to go farther & faster, and wound up making the same mistake Mac did - overextended, out ran his supply lines, forces not concentrated. The Chinese died in staggering numbers once Ridgeway brought some common sense to the US side.
Which brins up another issue when dealing with China in a military confrontation, China cannot risk losing in any conflict they start. They will move in really heavy, is my take on it. They are being talked about as the next global superpower. The Party has let their citizens know they are a rising power.
If they cannot even handle a border war, they lose face in a massive way. The Chinese military is 100% subordinate to the Party, and will sacrifice men in a way totally unheard of in Western democracies in order to protect the Party's image and to achieve victory.
When you can absorb kill ratios of 10, 20, even 100 to one against you, and still stay in the fight, it is a form of power in its own right. I believe it was Josef Stalin himself who once said that "quantity has a quality of its own" and the Chinese have got enough cannon fodder to bleed almost anyone dry.