the domino theory used for fighting in the vietnam war

[holly coffin]

why was the domino theory not a good way to fight the vietnam war?

[jno]

it wasn't a method of fighting. It was the theory that if you let one south-east Asian country go communist then one by one they all would, like a row of dominoes toppling. This proved to be wrong. Vietnam did, others didn't. Things may not have seemed so clear cut at the time, though.

[dot.hawkes]

yes jno is right, as ever
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory#Arg uments_against_the_domino_theory

[dundurn]

Domino theory was never totally dis-proved. Regardless of the fact that Vietnam eventually went communist, America showed great resolve over 4 Presidencies, both Republican and Democrat, in its attempt to "stop the rot". The fact that they did may well have had effects in both Peking and Moscow. If the US had walked away from Vietnam at the first sign of trouble its credibility in Europe might have been severely weakened. Would we be looking at a reunited Germany if Vietnam had never happened?

The theory is alive and well in modern politics. Yugoslavia had its anti-Serbian domino theory. The USSR sees Chechnya as the first of several potential dominos and they also see fundamentalist Muslim ideas affecting several of their former autonomous republics. There are also those in South America who never saw Castro as an real problem but who have a more concerned view of Chavez.

I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to consign this theory to the dustbin just yet.

[jake-the-peg]

That is the most dodgy logic I've heard outside of religion and spirituality.

It attempts to credit US foreign policy with every collapsing communist regieme whilst totally ignoring ones that have not collapsed like China.

I think the idea that US credibility was strengthened by it's ignominious retreat from Vietnam is laughable.

We have a United Germany because Russian communism was rotten from the inside. The west had justified all it's military spending with "Russian Superiority" for so long it couldn't come clean to the population when it started to discover that all those tanks and rockets in Red Square were being driven around the block a dozen times!

I dare say if China had collapsed in the same way you'd claim that as a foreign policy victory too - as it is we have the interesting situation of much of the western democraciess being in Hoc up their necks to the worlds only communist super-power.

A victory for commu- er- capit- er "China-ism" I guess!