> That’s really splitting hairs.

As software people are keenly aware, accuracy in writing is important.

> The Republic of Vietnam was a dead man walking, but it was a United States puppet state, and they finally collapsed in 1975.

I don't disagree. In hindsight, the U.S.'s political strategy was disastrous. American decisionmakers — like all of us — had to make their best judgments based on education and experience (and the often-malign influence of groupthink). Some factors were especially salient:

• As WWII ended, the "Atlanticists" in the State Department supported France's insistence on retaining their Southeast Asian colonies (IIRC, because the U.S. wanted a strong anticommunist France to help stand up to Stalin and the Red Army after Germany's surrender). Also IIRC, FDR was inclined to support Ho Chi Minh's independence movement, but he was gravely ill by then.

• The American political class was very much aware of the lessons of Munich in 1938; of Stalin's conquest of Eastern Europe in 1945; and of North Korea's invasion of South Korea in 1950. It wasn't unreasonable for them to fear the spread of totalitarian communism.

• The governing Democratic Party was acutely aware of the political impact of McCarthyism in the 1950s, including being incessantly attacked by the GOP for having "lost" China in 1949 (as if China was ours to lose).

• Douglas MacArthur's advice to President Kennedy — not to put troops on the ground in Asia — didn't carry the day. [0]

Those interested in this debacle should read David Halberstam's magisterial book The Best and the Brightest. [1]

[0] https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/a-new-take-on-general-macart...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest

Hanoi’s humble beer glass and the memory of a nation