Reply #92: One of the problems with Vietnam was that it was expensive and it was

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causing inflation at home (because when the military buys up a lot of raw materials and takes away labor to fight in the army, it drives up the price of goods and the cost of labor). The war you describe would have been very expensive, and it would have caused even more economic problems for the US than the one we had. That would have raised an even more serious question about costs and benefits. We might have turned ourselves into a banana republic in order to defeat a rice republic.

Also, what do you do once you've invaded a country with an army of 700,000? I would think that Vietnam (and China and Russia and other countries) rolling over for us would be one of the least likely of possibilities. You know how we talk so much about Iraqi security forces taking over Iraq, and you know how, in the Philippines, we tried so hard to make Filipinos the face of the occupying forces? It's because we know that if the US is the face of the occupying force, it increases resistance.