he most incorrect assumption was that Minh was a tool of the Soviets and Chinese and that Vietnam was going to become a belligerent state hostile to its neighbors. In fact, relations between Vietnam and China cooled considerably and even led to a brief border war between the two in the late 1970s. Vietnam also never became a threat to its region. While undoubtedly communist, Vietnam has never become a stridently aggressive Marxist state in the mold of North Korea, or even Cuba.The Cold War was to the rubric with which America Foreign Policy was formulated during the post World War II era. Confrontation and what was thought to be an inevitable war with the Soviet Union became the starting point of all American Strategic thinking. In this context, the U.S.s relations with all countries had to be looked upon with the Soviet Union and communism in mind. This particularly held true with regards to Vietnam. Having lost China and gone through a war on the Korean peninsula, American policy makers felt that any more communist aggression had to be stopped at all costs. Mixing in the fact that an important ally was intent about keeping her colony, and distrust of Ho Chih Minh and his regime all combined to draw the Unites States into a conflict that was neither winnable or so unimportant as to allow the United States to disengage itself....
