Throughout our lives, it is essential to reframe our view of mistakes. We must learn to make the most of them and reshape our goals and expectations. Reading “No More Vietnams” is not an effort to learn from mistakes - just a blame game.
In 1991 the Washington Post published an article by E.J. Dione Jr. titled Kicking The Vietnam Syndrome, saying, “Wars transform nations, but the response to wars can transform them even more.”
Richard Nixon’s book, “No More Vietnams,” was not a response to the war but was instead just his finger-pointing blame on everyone who he felt didn’t support him in his book that was “actually Nixon’s diatribe against the antiwar movement, academics, the media, and everyone else he thinks lost Vietnam.” He claimed that “Vietnam was a morally correct war for the United States since we were trying to save a country from communist tyranny.”
Nixon analyzes America’s military involvement in Southeast Asia, including his role as commander-in-chief from 1969 to 1974, and concludes that it was "winnable" had the U.S. pursued the proper military strategy, at least in the period before his presidency. He implies some regret that his administration didn’t see a victory but claims that he didn’t have the support of the public to achieve that and claimed it would have undercut his efforts to open relations with China and the Soviet Union.
The loss of this war resulted in the Vietnam Syndrome, which was the attitude that the United States developed about going to war in distant places where they couldn’t win and didn’t end until the Iraq war.
