Lecciones del Conflicto de Vietnam

Victor Davis Hanson sobre los verdaderos paralelismos con Vietnam:

There are lessons here. When the United States has stayed on after fighting dictatorial enemies — admittedly for decades in Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea and the Balkans — progress toward democracy and prosperity ensued. Disengagement from unresolved messy problems — whether from Europe after World War I, Vietnam in 1973, Beirut after the Marine barracks bombings, Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat, or Iraq in 1991 — only left murderous chaos or the "peace" of dictators.

Fighting sometimes intensifies just before the end. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's horrible summer of 1864 almost broke the Union. The surprise of the Bulge cost more American lives than the 1944 drive from the Normandy beaches. Okinawa was not declared secure until a little more than two months before the Japanese surrender. It was the worst-thought-out campaign of the Pacific and cost about 50,000 American casualties.