Why didn't USA move into Laos to block Ho Chi Minh trail?

[Graf Zeppelin]

"We shouldn't be invaded by France, or we'll lose our colonies!"

No, it does not work that way. You asked what the first piece to fall was. The setup for the domino effect was of course more complex.


That said it does not need a genius to realize that losing your country to a foreign power has alot of ill effects.

 

[gagenater]

I don't even see the point of talking about the merits of domino theory. It's a new term for something not new at all. Like minded people help each other out. You can't really deny this. Rather you should argue about whether that justifies imposing extremely violent military governments run by Japanese collaborators and colonial governors

There is one major difference, in that in many (maybe even the majority) of the cases where nations became aligned in the cold war, there was little if anything connecting the superpower backer, and it's actions except that it would hurt the other superpower. The US didn't begin backing Pakistan because it was a democracy, or tolerant, or diverse, or capitalist, or wealthy, or any other descriptive word you might use for American society. It backed Pakistan so it could use access through and intelligence services in Pakistan to hurt the USSR. The USSR didn't back Angolan rebels because they were gung ho fired up atheist proletariat who were seeking to redistribute the wealth of society and create a state controlled economy. They backed Angolan rebels, because unrest in Angola created civil and military problems in South Africa, and a place to train guerrillas and special forces . South Africa at the time was a key provider of a variety of minerals that the US and western Europe depended on, and which the USSR had in abundance.

Indeed, both the USA and the USSR usually preferred to back strong dictatorships, or radical revolutionaries that ignored the desire of the common people, because these forces or powers could be counted on to do what they were told. Dictatorships require military might to crush their opposition - military might that they got from their superpower sponsor. They rely on the sponsor, because they aren't sufficiently popular on their own to easily lead a legitimate government without that aid. Revolutionaries require military power to fight effectively, and by arming and training only those revolutionaries willing to follow instructions, you ensure that they will tend to be some of the most active and politically useful rebels in the region. These kind of revolutionaries are forced to do the bidding of the superpower because they lack sufficient popularity to depend on the local population for support, so they tend to 'stay bought' i.e. stay loyal to the sponsoring superpower.

 

[MCMartel]

Short answer? They did with operation Lam Son 719, and it didn't work.

 

[LordTempest]

Short answer? They did with operation Lam Son 719, and it didn't work.

How dare you derail this thread by giving an on-topic answer to the OP's question?

 

[MCMartel]

Follow-up: Here is an article from a relatively decent periodical on the subject in easy-to-read language
http://www.businessinsider.com/unco...-of-the-vietnam-wars-bloodiest-battles-2015-1

 

[gagenater]

"We shouldn't be invaded by France, or we'll lose our colonies!" it requires a lot, lot of hindsight. You can't prevent that, which defeats the domino theory.


1. French revolution has a bigger hand in it. Specially since the US, for a while, was an ally of Spain.
2. Not my problem if the theory "cannot into reality".

Actually it didn't require much in the way of foresight at all to imagine that if Spain lost the power to control it's colonies that trouble was going to come knocking. The Spaniards themselves actually had that much foresight, and went to rather dramatic lengths to prevent the French from messing everything up, first to defeat the French from 1793 - 1795, then when it looked like the French would win they switched to the French side hoping to avoid getting destroyed, from 1796 to 1805. By 1805 they realized siding with France was going to cost them dearly, but they couldn't get out of the war, and their nation was doomed. Invasion, occupation and a bloody guerrilla war against France ensued from 1808-1812, and with aid from massive British invasions, Spain was a country again by 1814 - a war torn, poor, and ripped to shreds country, but a country. It's colonies were either already gone, or nearly so before they were even in a situation to try and regain them again - which they could not with a broken husk of a nation.

Spoiler: The gory details if you want them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_Wars

The peace of Basel, getting Spain out of the first war against France in July of 1795, just after it lost a crushing defeat near the Border with France at Black Mountain, leaving Spain open to a major invasion by france.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Basel

The Treaty of San Il De Fonso in August of 1796 put Spain into the war on the side of France. The Spanish feared reprisals from the French for having fought against them earlier. Convinced the French were about to win victory against their enemies, the Spanish went over to the French side.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Treaty_of_San_Ildefonso

This put Spain at war with Great Britain in alliance with France. When France failed to win quickly, the British rather quickly severed the maritime links between Spain and it's colonies. Critically, in 1797 the British won the battle of Cape St. Vincent. This destroyed the bulk of the Spanish Navy, and allowed the British to almost completely sever all trade and communications between Spain and it's American colonies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_St_Vincent_(1797)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Spanish_War_(1796–1808)

There was a peace/truce from 1802 to 1804, when Spain was at peace, and the wars of French Revolution were over. Communcations with the colonies, which to this point had all remained loyal was re-established. War with the UK, as an ally of France re-started in 1804 - now renamed the Napoleonic wars. . Almost immediately in 1805, the British crushed the combined French/Spanish fleet at Trafalger, once again severing Spanish communications with the colonies. The Spaniards were forbidden from cooperating with their colonies via the continental system that Napoleon created. The Spanish flouted the continental system in order to try and keep their colonies alive, and the British let them, in hopes of prying the Spanish away from the French. In the spring of 1808, having defeated a variety of other land based enemies in the East, Napoleon realized that his continental blockade was innefective at crushing Britain, due to the fact that Spain was ignoring the rules, and Portugal never agreed to them. A rapid invasion of Spain and Portugal by Napoleon ensued, and the Spanish army crumbled. Napoleon overthrew the king and queen of Spain, and installed his nephew as king of Spain. The colonies of Spain, immediately revolted, because they stayed LOYAL to the orginal king and queen of Spain. This state of affairs lasted until 1812, when the Kingdom was restored. From the time that Ferdinand the VII became king in 1814, he made a series of fatal errors. He more or less assumed he could re-create the status quo ante-bellum in the Spanish colonies, when in fact the 15 years or so of sustained self reliance by the colonies, and the greatly weakened financial and military capacity of the government of Spain after two massive nationwide campaigns and a 5 year long guerrilla war against French occupation meant that the balance of power between the colonies and the home country had changed dramatically and irreversibly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_wars_of_independence A quick review of the new/old 'King' of Spain might give you some idea as to why the colonies refused to be ruled by him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_VII_of_Spain

Following the 'setup' of Spain invaded by France, then an idiot as king, the 'dominoes' were in place. Once one nation of South America declared independence, the others followed in rapid succession. The Spaniards fought hard to stop them, but once they made peace with one, and made IT independent, peace and independence with the others rapidly followed suit.

 

[Kgw]

San Ildefonso. It's a whole (apparently Visigothic) name But thanks.

 

[ThaHoward]

Because the war in Vietnam was controversial enough as it was, and US actually wanted to de-escalate the war early on. And when Nixon invaded Cambodia with 30.000 troops the reactions wasn't that good. USA was also afraid that a prolonged presence in Laos would provoke China or USSR to intervene. This is of course very simplified.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Pol Pot was bankrolled by the CIA tho obviously the best method would have been to have unified democratic elections, but for some reason they never happened

Yes and no. And you know how much it kills me to remotely defend CIA.

Pot had a variety of backers. Yes, a merciless air campaign foolishly drove the population into his waiting arms, both CIA and MI-6 handed him a few convoys of supplies now and again, and SAS trained his troops for anti-communist operations; but they were not his only support. No, CIA did not engineer that nightmare.

 

[BaronNoir]

The basic issue with various scenarios (invading the North, invading Laos) is simply that the US mlilitary did not had enough troops to keep situation in control in South Vietnam, let alone North Vietnam and Laos
(I certainly hope that at one point, the Pentagon realized that bombing the trail was not working adnd that they would have to occupy areas of Laos and Cambodia to interdict the trail)

That's not that the ''politicians In Washington'' did not wanted to let the military do it's thing : where would they have found the men to occupy even key areas of Cambodia or Laos ? Let alone North Vietnam...

 

[Klausewitz]

West Germany...