Was Vietnam a Disaster From the Outset?

Good afternoon. My name is Britney Donald and I am a sophomore here at Hills Dale. Though I am a North West girl through and through born and raised in Spokane Washington, I cannot think of a better place to grow in knowledge and hopefully wisdom than here at this small yet resolute college and it is my privilege to study history and biology, an interesting combination I know but there is liberal arts education for you. And now it is my distinct honor to introduce to you our speaker for this afternoon, Michael Lind who holds a Masters degree in international relations from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Texas is the white head senior fellow at the new America foundation in Washington DC. Mr. Lind has been an editor or staff writer of Harper's magazine, the New Yorker the New York public and the National Interest. He writes frequently for numerous publications including the Washington Post, Financial Times, The Atlantic Monthly and the New York times and he is the author of a number of books on US foreign policy, politics and history including "Up From Conservatism", "The Next American Nation", "The American Way Of Strategy" and "Vietnam, The Necessary War". Please join me in welcoming our speaker, Mr. Michael Lind. Thank you Britney and I would like to thank Hillsdale and the CCA for having me take part in in this very important conference with a very distinguish roster of of names many of whom you have already listened to. In thinking about what I can say that's fresh and provocative about the Vietnam War reminded of an older New Yorker cartoon which showed a dyeing medieval armor outside of a hut telling his wife, "I am off to fight the hundred year war". And of course the point was at the time they didn't know it was gong to be 100 years in fact for much of the 100 years war they didn't even think it was a war there was a conflict here, a battle there, a siege there and so on sort of only in retrospect. that you see there actually is a pattern here as with the 30 years war, somewhat later in history. Again at the time, most of the participants in this overarching conflict thought it was they were actually fighting smaller scale battles over in this bishop break and and on cue and this kingdom and so on. But nevertheless, it is legitimate to speak about the 30 years war and hundreds war in in the case of Vietnam, the cold war. And so the provocative thing that I will start off with is may be we shouldn't talk about 'The Vietnam War or 'The Korean war' or for that matter 'The Afghan War from 1979 until the Soviets left, may be we wish to talk about the cold war in Vietnam and the cold war in Korea and the cold war in Afghanistan and in Cuba and in central America and in other places around the planet. Because from the beginning to the end, a contrary to what is received wisdom found on of on found on on many university campuses today. The Vietnam War was not a separate anti colonial struggle that had nothing to do with the cold war that was an element of anti war propaganda during during the conflict itself. It was clearly false then and is certainly false now, but when we have the archives from the soviets, the terrific tension from the Chinese, the North Vietnamese communist. From the beginning to the end the cold war in Indochina was a great power struggle, it included Vietnamese, they were the ones who suffered the most on both sides, they were the ones who died in great numbers they were the ones whose country was devastated. But though it had have been solely a conflict among Vietnamese, had it been solely a civil war? It would have been like a civil war in Honduras or something I mean it might have been tragic and and bloody but we wouldn't remember it today and and it wouldn't have been a turning point in the history, not just of the US but of the world, but it was a central battle in the cold war in which the two super powers - The United States and The Soviet Union took part in one regional great power - China. So I think that what we have to do is we have to think about - you don't start off the way its often done in discussions of the Vietnam - war with Vietnamese history. And then suddenly the Americans appear in the 1964 may be earlier, you know with the French you know and the you know you start off with cold war and then is you zero in on Asia and then is you zero in on Vietnam, but not only Vietnam, Korea and Taiwan and so on as well. So so the first question has to be what was the cold war which we can look at now that its over now that is a historical pattern like the hundred years war, the thirty years war, yet in - we know the answer, it was the third world war, it was world war three. Now during the cold war people often spoke of world war three as something that might happen, if there were direct conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States you know a nuclear war but also may be a conventional war like World War two with the Soviet armies overrunning Europe and and you know the US troops fighting directly with the Soviets. But it seems to me just as a matter of conceptual analysis, it makes more sense to say oh well you know this was a world war, it wasn't fought directly, between the super powers but it was a global struggle, it wasn't fought directly first because of atomic weapons but that's not the only reason you know we put a much emphasis on the possession by both sides of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, the sheer cost to the Soviets as well as us of conventional war even in the absence of nuclear weapons might have deterred you know direct Soviet American confrontation in in Europe for example. But it was a it was a World War, it was a World War fought by means other than armies smashing into each other - on the territory of the two superpowers or bombs falling on their capitals, it was fought by arms races, it was fought by embargos we tend to forget the economic aspect of the cold war, but there was an institution called Co Macon that imposed embargos of the industrial democracies on on the Soviet block all the way until the end of cold war that was essential to crippling the Soviet economy. And it was - for the purposes of this seminar and this talk, it was fought through proxy wars. A proxy war is a battle in a country in which outside powers, arm, train support and subsidize participants in a local conflict. Now and this doesn't mean a proxy war cannot be a civil war, most proxy wars are civil wars. But its more than a civil war, its also a global conflict where outside great powers are fighting each other indirectly rather than directly in the wars Indochina, and I just want to recall the Vietnam war, but the first Indochina war in the 40s and 50s that ended in in the mid 1950s, the Afghan war in the 1980s the Korean war, these were the major proxy wars and and the cold war but there were a lots of others from central America and and Malaysia and around the world. Most of the people who fought in the cold war were not Americans and were not soviets they were Asians and Africans and in some cases Europeans and Middle Easterners fighting in these proxy wars and and they are they might not have cared about the relative merits of capitalism and communism although they are obviously vote in communists if not vote in capitalism on both sides in these conflicts. But from a strategic point of view, it's clear that the fact that the Soviet Union was backing one side and the United States another turned these conflicts whatever their local worlds have named in into proxy wars in this global struggle. So that's what we can see looking back at the cold war, its just still - I would give it a name like the hundred years war except people disagree about when it began and when it ended you know that it began in 1946 or 1948, did it began in - during World War two I don't think you say begin in 1917 when the Soviet when the communist took over Russia because, yes there was ideological warfare and there were tempts of subversion by the Soviet Union and other countries and indeed there was a proxy war between the Soviet Union and fascists in the Spain in 1930s. But I think it for analytical purposes it makes more sense to say that cold war emerges in the last years of World War two or the early year's right after it. And then it ends depending on the history on US 1986 when Gorberchev repudiates Soviet's foreign policy ideology and says the Soviets will abide by the liberal norms of the world order under the UN charter or in 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrates, by that's basically from the 40s up until the 19 - late 1980s early 1990s. Now the central countries, the central battle grounds during this you know 40 - 45 year period were four nations, could you name them? Four nations that were divided between communist and non communist regimes, those four nations are Germany, China, Korea and Vietnam. Germany was divided in the years after World War two when Stalin persuaded to communize the eastern half of Germany that he controlled and the British and French and the Americans merged their occupation zones into what became the federal republic of Germany. China's division came a few years later in 1949 - 1950 when Mao and his communists supported by Stalin took over mainland China and Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist regime then retreated to Taiwan and Taiwan is quays independent even though it is recognized as legally part of China, it has different governments to state. The division of Korea and the Vietnam was solidified as a result of the Korean war, it's never been ratified - President Bush got into some trouble in last weeks saying the Korean war had not ended what he say yeah he is basically right I mean you know there is an narcissists but there still no treaty you know there is no settlement. Legally I think he is on pretty solid grounds and Vietnam as a result of the first Indo- China war the Geneva accords partitioned in 1954, partition in north and South Vietnam. So by the time we get to 1954 - 1955 we have these four nations, one the large and most populus in the world, China one the most important European power Germany, two others Vietnam and Korea substantial nations I mean when people say Korean Vietnam these are small nations. No these are not like Costa Rica I mean you know these are major countries. But nevertheless these countries really share nothing in common with each other except for the fact they were divided in two and we had a communist regime supported by the Soviet Union and a non communist regime supported by the United States and its allies and the non communists regimes obviously had very little common with each other apart from being non communist, you had a democracy in West Germany, you had military dictatorship in South Korea, you had kind of a personalized dictatorship under Diem in South Vietnam and then it became a military dictatorship after he was assassinated. In the China we had the remnants of this nationalist regime which was an authoritarian state with its own quos Leninist ideology actually you know it wasn't a traditional military dictatorship. But when these four countries were responsible for many of known most of the crisis of the cold war, well why use that because it when I say that it is a World War, it's not a World War in the sense that you are rushing to cease the Ukrainian oil supplies for military logistical purposes, you know these four countries were not significant for your traditional geopolitical reasons now grand that Germany, great rich industrial country didn't want its resources as as a whole falling into the Soviet hands, China population resources, Korea, Vietnam you know they didn't have intrinsic strategic importance. There stood the importance of the context of the Cold War was extrinsic, it was contextual as I say in my book "Vietnam The Necessary War" these four countries Germany, China, Korea and Vietnam were not contested because they were important. They were important because they were contested and if any of you when you were kids growing up with your brother or sister, you know fought over a line in the middle of the bed that you shared, the issue was not the issue as they said in 60's you know the point was not the particular line, it was the fact that there is a line and there is a conflict of wealth so as you see we are narrowing down on what we think of this as "The Vietnam War" or "Vietnam war" its origins date back at the earliest to the mid 1950's at that point the United States is committed to defending the territorial integrity of west Germany, Taiwan, South Korea and the south Vietnam. The four non economist fragments of these four divided nation states and it is doing so not - again not because of their intrinsic importance but because of symbolism. For the same reason, there are repeated crisis in Berlin. Berlin is a little outpost within what became communist east Germany where the world war two allies continued to control sectors of the city and so it was the fact of its kind of the Cold War in miniature because we have the western half with the eastern half in it was totally surrounded by communist east Germany and Stalin and his satraps in east Germany repeatedly tried to you know cut off access and so on and then the US - we go to the brink of war over that but why I mean who cares its actually the city in their territory you know if they want to concrete they can and there is no one stop it short of all that work because it was a testing, it was testing resolved and great power of credibility is always important in all times in all places but the credibility of united states was particularly important. By credibility I mean the resolve to protect its allies, even its less significant allies. Particularly its less significant allies, you know I mean everyone will defend the bad guy you know who is harassing your wife or your kids or your mother, but if you going on the work path because he insults your cat you know you are going to be taken seriously and there was this kind of wild west logic you know in in this very dangerous - which as I say was a world war of that was being fought by indirect methods. Let me just read you a famous statement from John McNorton a and a advisor to Lyndon Johnson in March 25th 1965 "listing the goals of the US and Indochina, 70 percent to avoid a humiliating defeat to our reputation as a guarantor, 20 percent to keep South Vietnam in the ages of territory from Chinese hands, 10 percent to permit the people of South Vietnam to enjoy a better free way of life". So this is how the Johnson administration saw wasn't that they didn't want to help the South Vietnamese but that's not why we are going to war. We were going to war - 70 percent to avoid a humiliating defeat to our reputation as a guarantor but what would happen if you had a humiliating defeat to America's reputation as a guarantor at the height of the cold war? Well here we have to go back to World War two in the way we fought World War two because we fought World War two not as the imbalance of power war, but as a war of debolation, that's a fancy legalistic term for an annihilation. The US decided that it was not going to fight Germany until it was so weak that we would then have a balance of power in Europe between a slightly weakened Hitler's Germany and the Soviet Union. We decided we are not going to fight Japan till we have a slightly weaker imperial Japan that can balance against Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist china, there were so called realists who argue that we should have done that and indeed many of the leading Nazis including Himmler all the way to the end of the war kept expecting the US decide any moment well we don't want you to be too weak you know because of Stalin over here but for better or worse and I think obviously for better giving the nature of Nazi regime and and the atrocities of imperial Japan and Asia, it was all to the better, this was the policy of US pursued I the goal was to knock Germany and Japan out of the ranks of military powers at least for a generation, forever who knows but you know this was Roosevelt's goal and Churchill's as well and when they were assured by - their whole time ally Stalin. But what that meant was, when the soviet challenge began and then it was always a possibility that that Roosevelt for Sandy hoped that he could - Stalin after world war two, would act as a status world power and you could maintain this US British soviet alliance but clearly even by the time he died things - Stalin was proving much more aggressive what that meant was there was no Germany and no Japan to help contain Stalin. The British empire was so bankrupted by the cause of world war two that Britain cease to be a super power in the year or two after world war two by 1946 - 1945 and so we have this truly bipolar world, there were two super powers military super powers soviet union was never an economic super power which pure raw military force it was. Now of course in James Bond films, Britain continued and continues to the third super power but but in real life that was not the case so that what does this have to do with avoid humiliating and defeat our reputation as a guarantor? The nightmare of American strategist was that the major industrial democracies particularly demilitarized Japan and demilitarized West Germany which had most of Germanys population and resources would conclude that the US cannot protect us from the soviet you know lacks the capability or lacks the will, so there fore we are going to cut the deal with it - we are not going top become communist I mean that wasn't the fear that communist may take over in the two most important industrial nations out side of the US, Germany and Japan, the fear rather was that conservative Germans - imprudent conservative German business man and politicians were just you know do the math and they would say you know we have to cut a deal with the Soviet Union on their terms and at that point you have some kind of - the western alliance is broken apart, Japan and Germany are separated from the US and its other allies, they went through trade deals with the communist block, begin to take the pressure of of the soviet economy and at their own industrial resources indirectly to those of the soviet block this was the nightmare of American strategists and so was always on their mind was if we back down in Berlin, in Korea, in Vietnam those countries themselves may not be that important only Berlin - as the city is not all that important but our our weak demilitarized protected allies particularly demilitarized Germany and and Japan will conclude, we can no longer protect them so in that sense all of these symbolic proxy wars resulted from the US policy on world war two of of wiping out German and Japanese power and incorporating them in to an alliance with industrial democracies which because we have got rid of Germany and Japanese militarism, the US had to protect. These world wars these world wars of it's not an imperial protector but its a "Hegemony" that's a Greek word meaning general or leader or commander in the US during the cold war was the leader of a hegemonic alliance system with these protectorates that it had to defend. So that brings us you know that's - that's the commitment to Berlin, to Taiwan, to South Korea, to South Vietnam. The other factor as we are narrowing, we have now narrated on from the cold war, as we are narrowing gradually towards our Vietnam war, the other factor that I think is neglecting all of this as China, but if you you know looking back from 2007, clearly the central event of of the cold war in Asia was the triumph of Mao in 1949 because until that point - yes Ho Chi Man and his communists had been battling the French in Indo-China, you had there was this North Korean communist regime under Kim Il-sung that was supported by the soviets, but this was an enormous wind fall to the communist block and in fact it resulted very rapidly in the biggest expansion of the block that boom boom boom - over the next couple of decades a - lot of the discussion of the Vietnam war and the cold war is often said of the domino theory, it wasn't true, well it may not have been true in literal terms after 1975, in the sense that Thailand and Malaysia and Burma did not go communist. It was certainly true after 1949, and we know now from the soviet archives and from some of the Chinese archives that contrary to what was along the argument on on among opponents of the cold war in the west, Stalin and Mao were collaborating on a near daily basis, through out the late 1940's the soviets were providing pilots, training, money, weapons it was streaming into China, Chiang Kai-shek did not fall, because his wife was wicked, were because they were corrupt, that all may have been true, but the nationalist regime in China was destroyed by combination of it's own military incompetence but also it was killed by the soviet union through the soviet in effect it Mao worship Stalin and continue to do so after Stalin died, he despised Stalin's successors, but he thought that there was his great succession of communist genius states men Lenin, Stalin and Mao. But as long as Mao was alive, he took directions, from Lenin's era for the most part that there was some squabbles and so and this is what shapes American policy, because Mao comes to power immediately they began planning for a war with the Americans to take over Taiwan we know this now from the Chinese archives which are recorded it's incomplete record, but the Chinese - when they had good relations with, the soviets were in the habit of sending mimeograph copies of notes of their Polit Bureau meetings to Moscow and so so peoples researching soviet foreign policy history have also found this cache of it's not obviously incomplete but all these meetings from Chinese communist officials so the plan was we now know in 1949 1950 the Peoples liberation Army China is preparing for war over Taiwan, at that point Stalin concludes that the US will not go to war over South Korea and some one he send to Moscow he gives them the Green light the red army draws up a lot of the plans for the North invasion of South Korea, all of the stuff if you studied history in the 1950's and in the 1960's 1970's you would have to fill out every thing you learned, right, because the old story was that Stalin was taken by surprise by North Koreas invasion of South Korea, in 1950, in fact he planned it months in advance with Kim and Mao, and Ho Chi Man. They all knew about it, before it happened, because Stalin wanted them all to prepare for the coming Korean war, when did Stalin shock? The Americans and their allies sent troops, and repulsed the North Koreans, at that point Stalin called on Mao to send in Chinese troops, and again this is why history is is being vivid as we have access to these archives, you know this was the story the story I got you know from my professor in the 1970's was Mao was surprised by the up break of the Korean war and took no interest in it, until McArthur crossed the Yalu river and old Chinese emperors and mandarins always cared about the Yalu river blab la blab la blab a total nonsense total nonsense in fact we now know that - from Chinese source that the Government of Chinese confirm this in articles published by the existing PRC government now wanted to go in immediately, but he wasn't yet an absolute dictator, it was still kind of an oligarchy and the Chinese army did not because they didn't want to be diverted from Taiwan. And It was only when Stalin said okay I am going to have to pull the plug and the Americans were going to occupy the entire Korean peninsula, it's only at that point that Mao had this standing with the other Chinese communist party leaders to say "look if even either we go in now, Stalin is right or the whole thing is lost you know. So the Chinese go in and the suddenly the United States find itself fighting the biggest country in the world in terms of the population, it's poor but in these resources of population and so the Korean war turns into this bloody stale mate, many reverses it ends after Stalin dies and there is a good question as to whether Stalin had lived whether it would have ended only they have the arms since 1953 you know this is one of the fortuitist things. But so so now we get up to the Eisenhower administration, we get to the Kennedy administration, the Johnson administration and is just a factor you cant think about Vietnam without China in the cold war because this is the two nightmares haunting, this America's strategists, republican democratic liberal and so we didn't had I - I mean there is a common strategy here, are two things first the Soviets and their proxies will kill one of our protectors and and that's just the nightmare you know we would be exposed as we came helpless and our allies will start rethinking their options as president Kennedy depended on us or not, that's their first nightmare. But the case of Vietnam, the other nightmare was another war with China because the Korean War was not a war by Americans against the North Koreans alone it's a war against the people republic of China. You know when people nowadays say you know there is a danger of war with China they should say you know we fought a war with China - say the Korean War. And so this brings us up to our Vietnam war 1964 to 1975 the reason it was fought the way it was fought was fear of Chinese intervention and historians to this day debate this, there is a school of thought that said this was a hallucination, you know that the Chinese would not have interfered under any circumstances, so therefore the US could have gone it all over very quickly simply by invading North Korea and I am sorry North Vietnam or taking over Laos or something like that I mean this is an argument you know some historians make. Other historians including Chinese - scholars fluent in Chinese, both Chinese American and not who have looked at their available documents which I hasn't add are still incomplete disagree with this, they think that is quite likely that if the United States have invaded North Vietnam in 1964 1965 - 1966 that we would have been at war with Mao in China. Now does what does this mean? Well it means that the US because of this strategy of proving credibility had to do something to save South Vietnam but because of this fear they are fighting China for a second time within a decade, it couldn't do the obvious thing which is to wipe out the aggressive regime, you know but for China the US could have made quick work of North Vietnam you know overwhelming military in the same way we did with Serbian, Kosovo and in disposing Iraqi regime you know what followed in Iraq the insurgency that's different you know you could have knocked over North Vietnam fairly quickly where not for this fear of the Chinese intervention. In my book I argue that the Kennedy and Johnson administration and fairly Nixon administration which ruled out this option were not the fluent there were sometimes claimed to have been, that they were quite rivals if they did not know the full extent of Chinese participation in the Vietnam War itself then I will just read you a a little bit "between 1965 and 1968 China provided massive support for north Vietnam in addition to supplying Hanoi with military equipment and civilian goods Mao's government dispatched anti aircraft artillery troops to the northern part of North Vietnam. Even one point that Hanoi's request and this is between 65 and 68 the hype of the American intervention, China sent engineering troops to repair and expand the North Vietnamese railway system so that it would not be disabled by American bombing. The Chinese troops also freed North Vietnamese regulars to journey into Laos and keep supplies moving down the Ho Chi Man trial in all China sent and this is according to the Chinese government itself and in all China sent 327,000 troupes to North Vietnam. 327,000 troupes, that's more than twice the troupes we have in Iraq. China these were - army I mean I am sorry people's liberation army, Chinese put actually in North Vietnam. As the historian Shen Shian has observed, although Beijing support may have fallen short of Hanoi's expectation, without the support the history even the outcome of the Vietnam war might have been different the soviets were there too. Don't let anyone tell you that it wasn't. Some years ago I was moving in from an apartment in New York and there was a polish emigrant a young man who was helping me move my my few and meager possessions and yeah I was working on this book at the time, he asked me what I was working on and he said oh my father fought in Vietnam but say they were Polish fighting in Vietnam? Oh yeah Polish, East Germans you know military historians know this, the US knew it to some degree. But that - the the extend of participate - mostly the advisors don't exaggerated but there were people from the Warsaw pact and from Russia on the other side. Our troupes encountered them sometimes you know and again I would just read briefly as many as 3000 soviet advisors took part in the Vietnam war between 1965 and 1968, the instructed north Vietnamese soldiers and the use of Soviet supplied equipment manned the ground based anti aircraft system and participated in combat action against the Americans and south Vietnamese on occasion, the soviet government carefully concealed the extend of soviet involvement in Indochina forbidding soviet personal and their families to discuss the destination of there units. Soldiers heading for Vietnam wore civilian clothes and on arrival done Vietnamese uniforms. During the Korean war soviet pilots and another military volunteers had to wear Chinese or Korean uniforms. One historian says, "the American knew only two well that Vietnamese planes of soviet design were often flown by soviet pilots", well who is that historian? Some kind of right wing crook from National Review? No, a former soviet colonel Alexei Vinogradov. In fact there is soviet pilots now who in their old age are taking you know great claim in their bragging rights about having shot down Americans disguise over Korea if not of Vietnam. So this was a world war and the question, so I will wrap up so that we have time to discuss it we wasn't doomed from the outside well I just want to - to reframe the question from this little piddling debate among - tactics you know, should we have cut off the Ho Chi Man trial first, so there have being counter-insurgency you know this than the other its kind of like Pickets Charge Atgetisberg I mean you know historians in war bus can discuss this forever. I don't know the answer I don't know the answer - but it does seem to me you can say the real question is this should we have extended this commitment to south Vietnam to creating a a South a non communist South Vietnamese state around the same time we extended the commitment to South Korea?. Well you know hind side is 2020. Let's look at these four divided countries today, in 2007 alright two of them are still divided. One of them Germany was reunited when the communist regime was overthrown by some people after the soviet who prompted up victory and then the people in east Germany voted to join the federal republic of Germany, so there is this peaceful annexation of East Germany by West Germany. One of them in 1975 Vietnam was consolidated into a single state because North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam in a conventional soviet supplied military invasion after the US left and after congress cut off all military aid. The other two are still there. Taiwan and and mainland China and North Korea and South Korea. Now today in 2007 in the absence of the cold war, there are some tensions between us and the Russian and the Chinese, but it's not at the level of you know major great power rivalry yet it may turn out that way, even so in the absence of this context of this entire global struggle, the US is prepared at this very moment to go to war if north Korea attacks South Korea and it's possible I can't estimate the likelihood but it's quite possible that if China today invaded Taiwan, there we would find out ourselves with war with China by the time of the evening news, it's possible. May be president would make other decisions and so my point is just this if in 2007 soviet union's history like the Hapsburg empire, there is no global ideological threat except in the form of jihadism which which is a threat but it doesn't control any you know military economic super power. Even in the absence of all of these conditions in the cold war the US for reasons of credibility alone might very well go to war over Taiwan over South Korea or both. Then why on earth would any American president in the 1960's not go to war for South Vietnam? I mean it is just given the context given these initial commitments, these trick lawyers every president understood and agreed that the soviet block is not going to kill any of our proxy our our client states, it just not you know will we do about it? Then you go to the realm of strategy and tactics and you can argue that the cost wasn't worth it and indeed I think after a point it wasn't because these were limited commitments at the end of the day. You know they were worth paying a certain amount for - I hate to use this callus calculation but that's what states men do - you know they have the budget in blood and a budget in treasure and if in their responsibility to the tax payers and the soldiers is to decide when to cut losses sometimes was worth an investment of blood and treasure but it's not. So you know that's the tragic dilemma and and I think if it just to wrap up about the Vietnam war having started the cold war and then narrate it down to the Vietnam war, you know I would not if like to its being the US president in 1960's because even if north Vietnam had decided to abide by its border with south Vietnam, Kim Il-sung could have invaded south Korea you know Mao at the height of his craziness in the cold war revolution could have invaded Taiwan in fact to me as a historian, the most interesting thing about the cold war is the war that we never fought, the Taiwan war you know we were always on the verge of doing and it just never happened. But I have spoken long enough and to we will have sometime for conversation thank you.