US troops fleeing Viet Nam in 1975.

US Lessons from the Vietnam Defeat
To Them, the Right Lessons;
To Everyone Else, the Wrong Ones
William J. Astore / LAProgressive

(May 2, 2025) — We just marked the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. Did American officials learn anything from the disastrous Vietnam War?

Of course they did. Just not the lessons you’d have wished they’d learned.

So, What Did They Learn?

• They learned that wars can indeed last forever, but that Vietnam wasn’t the best “forever war” for the military-industrial complex because it became deeply unpopular and was disrupting cohesion within the military itself. The best forever wars are open-ended “wars” like the global war on terror. And perhaps a “new Cold War” with Russia and/or China. Wars that don’t involve the deployment of over half a million men (unless that “new” Cold War turns hot).
• They learned to control the narrative. No more journalists traveling freely in war zones as in the 1960s in Vietnam. Journalists are now most often embedded in US military units. Embedded reporters, dependent on the military for acce ss and protection, know what they can and can’t say, even as they tend to sympathize with the troops they’re with.
• They learned that forced conscription via a draft doesn’t work well for unpopular wars. So they transformed the military into an “all-volunteer” force. Draftees may well be resentful, rightly so, but volunteers? Too bad—they volunteered for this.
• Along with “volunteers,” they learned to indoctrinate US troops to be “warriors” and “warfighters” rather than citizen-soldiers. Warriors exist to fight wars, so shut up and blast away.
• They learned to keep the American people isolated from war and its deadly effects. Recall that under Bush/Cheney, Americans weren’t even allowed to see flag-draped caskets. During Vietnam, war was in America’s living rooms during dinner, complete with body counts. Coverage of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere was sanitized, almost bloodlessly so.
• They learned never to talk of sacrifice (except by those volunteer warriors) by the American people. Taxes aren’t raised in the name of war. There are no war bond drives. America’s leaders tell the rest of us to enjoy life, to visit Disney and to go shopping, while “our” warriors fight overseas.

Together with those “lessons,” they continue to preach “peace through strength,” attacking those who truly seek peace as misguided (at best) and treasonous (at worst). As ever, they tend to attack those who’d dare criticize the US military as ungrateful backstabbers. And of course they consistently obscure the truth of how poorly wars like Iraq and Afghanistan were going while holding no one in the upper echelons responsible and accountable for rampant corruption and disastrous endings.

All these “lessons” ensured that Vietnam wouldn’t be the last example of hubris, folly, and atrocity, and indeed it hasn’t been. Until the right lessons are learned, expect future repeats, tragic variations on a theme of Vietnam.

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Venezuelan Leader Salutes Vietnam 50 Years
after Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Cong Defeated the US
Nicolás Maduro Moros / Ultimas Noticias

(April 30, 2025) — On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the “Liberation of Saigon,” when communist troops from the North entered the presidential palace of South Vietnam in 1975 and ended the war, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, expressed his admiration for the people of Vietnam, for being a beacon of inspiration for countries around the world.

In this context, the President described Vietnam’s victory as a catastrophic defeat for the American empire, as their courage demonstrated that “when a people want to be free, they achieve it, and Vietnam defeated the greatest military machine on planet Earth.”

He also said that Ho Chi Minh’s heroic war was an example of the struggles against colonialism and imperialism and against all forms of foreign domination.

In a document issued this Wednesday by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, it was recalled that this historic date marked the end of the war and the definitive victory over colonialism and imperialism, which allowed for national reunification under the luminous legacy of Comrade Ho Chi Minh.

In context, on April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese military personnel entered the South Vietnamese presidential palace, ending two decades of conflict.

Long live Vietnam, long live Ho Chi Minh!, exalted the leader of the Nation.