Recently I watched a video about, proxy wars. While he did relatively good job to explain that many long wars were so long because major powers were involved on each side, there were many other issues with the video. However, there were many flaws.
Most importantly the whole attitude that war is bad, peace is good. He overlooks atrocities committed by many regimes of the world. 1 million died in war is bad but several millions exterminated on dictator's orders is fine. According to presenters it is almost as if people are better off to just line up in ques to meet firing squads instead of starting a war by resisting.
They praise China for its peacefulness but overlook what they do to not just Uyghurs but to many millions who simply somewhat different from what Xi Jingling considers desirable behavior. How fair it is do die in concentration camp simply because you are too introverted to socialize, Xi and CCP things it's only natural. World must not accept this butchery as normal.
Nations do not fight simply because they feel like it. Nations have vested interests in countries they support. Saigon government in South Vietnam was US friendly and traded with the western world. Hanoi government that replaced it views US as evil and cut all ties to the Americans. For those who think so called Swiss model is realistic, nations far too often do not trade freely with one another, they are compelled to trade with their patrons withing their clubs. Saigon could trade with free world but not with communists, in contrary Hanoi could only trade with China and USSR and was and still is a puppet of their big commie "brothers" who have real control over the country. After Cold War Hanoi started trading with the west, but only after its Chinese patron started doing so as well. People should
There is humanitarian aspect to consider too, when Hanoi took over in the south, they executed several millions of southern people, many more than could have been considered guilty of any war crimes. It was a purge of the elites so that northerners can steal their wealth and land. When Pol Pot killed millions in Cambodia, world screamed genocide, but when north Vietnamese did the same in the south, no one bite an eye.
Finally, he completely overlooked the fundamental divide that drove these proxy wars: fundamental differences between liberal and communist values, ethics and economic models. People support regimes that align with their world view, because they find alternative world view repugnant and unacceptable.
USSR sometimes hid it, but it never truly refuted that it wanted to reorganize the world along the communist values. There were only two options for people of the world, either accept communism or fight against it. Vietnam was not just a thing in itself for communists, it was just a step in a way to make world communist. For the US and the free world, it was chance to fight back. After all every of their nations could be next when commies will finish with Vietnam.
This differences in values and principles have not disappeared with the conclusion of Cold War. Communism simply evolved into eastern (Eurasian) autocratic model and for the most part, all the same countries are on either side of the same old divide. China and Russia still want to impose its way of life on the US and EU and extinguish freedom for good. You either surrender to them or fight them. There is no Swiss model where one could just sit it out. For that you need an army that is stronger than either of two sides, and only Swiss are insane enough to have something like that.
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