why never join forces against siam?

lirelou,

While there where many wars of mutual aggression between the mainland SE Asian kingdoms, Champa was by far the most aggressive.  Vietnam and Thailand were always in parity.  Historically, neither was ever really stronger than the other.  The Khmers and the Loatians were always the weakest.  If it wasn't for the French, both Vietnam and Thailand would probably have annexed Laos and Cambodia.  Indeed Vietnam lost a big slice of land due to the French.  But then again, it was given back to its rightful owners.

Although after the Vietnam War, or the "American War" if you're Vietnamese, Vietnam was and probably still is much stronger than Thailand.  When Hanoi invaded Cambodia, they could have gone clear thru Thailand if they wanted to, but both the US and the PRC knew this and repeatedly warned Hanoi of a joint attack on Vietnam if that were to happen.  The Vietnamese army was invading Thailand at will.  (Thailand couldn't have gone up against superpowers like China and the US, as N. Vietnam did.)  Of course, I seriously doubt Hanoi wanted to invade Thailand, even though the Thai took part in the Vietnam War, and of course they were supporting the Khmer Rouge who repeatedly attacked Vietnam.

The Chinese invaded Vietnam at least 10 times in the last 1000 years.  The Vietnamese are batting 1000.  Never lost once.

Do you think the Chinese would have stopped at Vietnam?

During the first millenium when Vietnam was a Chinese province, the very fierce and aggressive Chams were in a way the gatekeepers of SE Asia.  They actually raided Vietnam repeatedly, i.e. they were raiding China, since Vietnam was a Chinese province.  Of course the Chinese were constantly attacked from the north by the Mongols.

No matter what, Burma is not China.  BTW, how big were the Chinese forces sent into Burma?  The ones sent into Vietnam were typically 200,000 or more.  The biggest was a 500,000 Mongol/Yuan army.  They came, they saw, they were conquered.  

Actually Mr. Snide remarks, I'm referring to the people North of the 17th, and the official government position.  Hanoi is correct to call it the "American War".  Declassified CIA papers prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that every single election in South Vietnam was rigged because the communists would have won every year, from 1955-75.  No Saigon regime was legit.  They could only act within a box.  Leave those parameters and Uncle Sam immediately gave the green light for the next clowns to step into the Presidential palace.  

Future generations will refer to it as the American War.

BTW, I'm not a communist by any stretch of the imagination.

And we should further add the Chinese always have their own motives, such as reannexing Dai Viet during Ming invasion when they also destroyed our national records going back 1500 years.

Any Vietnamese ruler foolish enough to trust the Middle Kingdom is not fit to rule.

First, I read this from a scholarly source several years ago.  So my memory as to what it said exactly is hardly verbatim.

Regardless, I still have to disagree.  There's a reason why shady regimes don't hold free and fair elections:  They're gonna lose!  BIG TIME.

I remember from my Vietnam War history class, which I took with an enminent scholar, who spent a lot of time in-country during the war... He discussed how US advisors unsuccessfully tried to convince Diem to "win" a presidential election by only 60-70% (or something to that extent), but Diem was adamant his victory had to be well over 90%. LOL, in the US, 55% is considered a landslide.

The communists where very popular right after WWII.  They had done a decent job resisting the Japanese.  They liberated grain silos and distributed food to the starving.  (Recall the horrific famine of 1945 cause by the Japanese (and perhaps the French as well), i.e. they were using rice as fuel run their trains.  This famine killed two million people.  In 1912, the French were responsible for another 2 million deaths when they kept exporting rice, which under the Vietnamese emperors was strickly forbidden; so famines never ever occured before nor since their ouster in 1954.  There numerous famines under the French.)

The communists were also very popular when they ousted the French, i.e. Dien Bien Phu.  The US and the PRC, each with its own motives, conspired to keep Vietnam perminently divided in 1955.  The US promised to hold free and fair elections, but they broke that promise, which then was all Hanoi needed as justificcation to violated the 1955 Geneva deal. 

One of the biggest problems for non-communist nationalists, was that the communists had killed off so many of the good leaders, leaving only pathetic clowns like Diem, Thieu, Ky, etc., to run South Vietnam.  And no less against a leadership such as in Hanoi which was doing circles around Washington when it came to strategic thinking.  Hanoi completely outclassed Washington.  Washington kept arrogantly relying on technology; Hanoi knew this and turned America's strength into her weakness:  Bankrupt the United States with a prolonged War.  Technology is expensive; armies are expensive, as we all know.  Vietnamese have been doing this to the Chinese invaders for a millenium.  Dynasties, Middle Kingdom and otherwise, fall when the people live in misery because they are being taxed to death to support a war of aggression, i.e. an un-necessary war.  Hanoi, which still does not allow free press, did the same with America's other strength:  Freedrom of the Press.  They used it to a devastating advantage.

Had South Vietnam survived, it would have become like South Korea.  S. Korea was a ruled by a corrupt military junta up until 1979.  It took them 27 years to become a democracy, and they were at peace the whole time!  Vietnam was in the middle of raging war.  Democracy would have taken decades to achieve!

Mind you, my guess is that as early as 1978 or 1979, if the communist in Hanoi were to have held elections, they would have lost in a landslide.  That's human nature.  When you're literally starving to death as in 1912 or 1945 thanks to French and/or Japanese colonists, or being bombed to death by the "Yankee imperialists" in "free fire zones", then any alternative is great, including communism.  But when things just suck due to an embargo, then communism sucks and the commies would lose in a landslide if they were to hold free and fair elections.  They certainly would lose now.  About two years ago, a poll carried out by a Vietnamese newspaper in Vietnam found that Bill Gates was the most admired man in Vietnam, rather than Uncle Ho.  Needless to say, that particular edition of the paper which published the result was quicly confiscated by the government.

I don't know much, but I know this:  Germans love David Hasselhoff.  And Vietnamese love Bill Gates.  He was mobbed like a rock star. 

FYI, my father was an ARVN colonel.  Grew up very consevative, but became a dirty-pinko-commie-liberal in college.  (Not really a commie by the way, since I believe in one person, one vote.) 

But we're gettin' way off topic...

Geeze Loise, we've not just hijacked this thread, but it's turning into quite the quagmire.

lirelou, I'll start a new thread on the Japanese occupation of Vietnam.  I'll debate you a little on that stuff.  I'm not gonna debate you on S. Vietnam vs N. Vietnam.  It'll take forever and neither side will concede to the other.  I know what I know.  My statements are based on highly regarded scholarship.  I don't cite N. Vietnamese communist scholarship, nor S. Vietnamese scholarship, both of which I consider scholastic atrocities.

My favourite authors are:

Stanley Karnow

David Marr

Alfred McCoy

Gabriel Kolko

One of these bozo's was my prof. 

How many votes did our past emperors, such as Le Loi,  win when they ruled?  Answer:  ZERO 

Please tell me you're joking.

Do you have any idea how many democracies have been overthrown by the CIA in the last 60 years, much less governments in general?  Chile, Greece, Iran, Guatemala.... to name just a few.  And these were DEMOCRACIES.  The so-called "War on Terror" has its very roots in the overthrow of Iranian democracy in 1953.  You do know that it was for oil right, just as Iraq is now?

It is well know Diem was "removed" because the US wanted him out.  

He was free to do whatever he was told.  When he stopped...

No subsequent regime nor coup d'état took place without explicit White House approval.  No one, Khanh, Kỳ, Thieu etc., dared to take power without Uncle Sam's blessing.