Impossible to tell, because before the Vietnam war, Vietnam was a french colony undergoing revolution. When the french started losing (badly) to the single unified body of Vietnamese, the US stood up and said "no, those little gooks can't have a revolution unless they have exactly the same democratic philosophy that we had when we had OUR revolution, and they call it the same thing!"
The biggest key thing about the Vietnam war that I never see in the west is that it wasn't a communist overthrow of a legitimate government (as was the case in China, Russia, Cuba, etc) but rather a single unified organized body throwing out an invading foreign body- the french- who were notoriously bad in their treatment of their colonies. The Americans jumped in because they didn't understand that there has never been any good relationship between china and Vietnam, and that was the fear at the time- That the southeast asian nations would fall like dominoes. This explains quite a lot about the state of these nations today, even- Thailand got a big boost from the US and a lot of propaganda for it's king in exchange for a staunch anti-communist support in SE Asia and a place for the troops of Vietnam to have some R&R- in the Thai fishing village of Pattaya. This was the basis of the sex tourism industry that exploded in southeast asia after that. Last but not least, China and Vietnam have been at war for thousands of years, and this tiny little country has won enough of the time to stay this tiny little country.
The biggest key thing about the Vietnam war that I never see in the west is that it wasn't a communist overthrow of a legitimate government (as was the case in China, Russia, Cuba, etc) but rather a single unified organized body throwing out an invading foreign body- the french- who were notoriously bad in their treatment of their colonies. The Americans jumped in because they didn't understand that there has never been any good relationship between china and Vietnam, and that was the fear at the time- That the southeast asian nations would fall like dominoes. This explains quite a lot about the state of these nations today, even- Thailand got a big boost from the US and a lot of propaganda for it's king in exchange for a staunch anti-communist support in SE Asia and a place for the troops of Vietnam to have some R&R- in the Thai fishing village of Pattaya. This was the basis of the sex tourism industry that exploded in southeast asia after that. Last but not least, China and Vietnam have been at war for thousands of years, and this tiny little country has won enough of the time to stay this tiny little country.
