raharris1973
Well-known member
What if the US war in Korea is shorter, and more successful, because the Chinese sit it out?
What is the PoD you ask? I’ll give you several potential ones to lead to that end result.
This Korean War is July-December, including mopping up, for American forces, so 5-6 months, instead of the 36 months of OTL's Korean War (not necessarily only 1/6 of the casualties though, since it's a pretty intense phase of the war)
This all goes to set up my follow-up question, which is, “without the US getting “burned” in Korea by a Chinese intervention that reverses its gains and throws its forces back and forces a stalemate, without the US getting ‘Yalu River Syndrome’, how do later war(s) in Vietnam (or Indochina) go?”
Does the US intervene in Vietnam/Indochina early with its own forces in bulk? Perhaps right at the point when the French are determining they can't do it on their own anymore? That would be 1954 or so, all things being equal. And it would be through out all parts of Indochina, not just southern Vietnam at that point in time.
1954 might not exactly be the point of French exhaustion, it might come a year or two earlier, with more generous aid flowing to the Viet Minh from a China that is not fight in Korea.
Or, like in OTL, the politics and optics of directly taking over a mission from a colonial power may not be acceptable, and the US government might reluctantly let the French take a limited loss, partitioning Indochina while hoping to hold most of it with proxy states.
In that case, there may be a lull in the fighting in the mid and late 1950s, and the US may not send in its own troops until the 1960s.
But, the US might escalate more in the early 1960s, perhaps in Laos, or in South Vietnam?
Or perhaps Washington, like OTL, stretches out the period without its own ground troops, trying to handle Vietnam and Indochina through proxy states, massive aid, encadre'd combat "advisors", and regime change/renovation in Saigon (the Diem coup or equivalent), for as long as that appears a possible alternative to sending whole American infantry units or losing Saigon outright.
Even if American combat troop intervention is delayed until the mid-1960s, American military and civilian leaders can approach it from a different mindset without having experienced Chinese intervention in Korea. They would be more willing to escalate in the ground and air hard and fast, and cross geographical boundaries, counter-invading from South Vietnam into North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos without having a visceral negative memory of Chinese opposition.
I don't know if that keeps or puts a non-communist or communist government in charge of half, or even all of Vietnam by the 1990s, but many things in this ATL's 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and probably 1980s will probably be different from OTL.
What is the PoD you ask? I’ll give you several potential ones to lead to that end result.
- Mao chickens out, convinced by Lin and Zhou not to do it
- Mao dies after the revolution is won but before the intervention decision is made and his successors chicken out
- Stalin chickens out and requests Mao sit it out
- Stalin dies between Kim’s launch of the war and before Mao’s commitment to intervention is irrevocable. Stalin’s successor are extra cautious, beg Mao not to escalate and he complies
- Mao never gets around to intervening because he haggles too long with Stalin about the amount of Soviet support he expects
- Communist China’s mopping up operations in southwest China or Hainan island are several months slower, but this does not slow down Kim Il Sung’s timetable. Mao doesn’t feel his base is secure enough yet to intervene outside China for that reason.
- Possibly because of a different Indian leadership and different Indian policy toward Tibet from years earlier, Communist China is wrapped up in a more contentious struggle to occupy Tibet and doesn’t feel it can afford another intervention in Korea.
This Korean War is July-December, including mopping up, for American forces, so 5-6 months, instead of the 36 months of OTL's Korean War (not necessarily only 1/6 of the casualties though, since it's a pretty intense phase of the war)
This all goes to set up my follow-up question, which is, “without the US getting “burned” in Korea by a Chinese intervention that reverses its gains and throws its forces back and forces a stalemate, without the US getting ‘Yalu River Syndrome’, how do later war(s) in Vietnam (or Indochina) go?”
Does the US intervene in Vietnam/Indochina early with its own forces in bulk? Perhaps right at the point when the French are determining they can't do it on their own anymore? That would be 1954 or so, all things being equal. And it would be through out all parts of Indochina, not just southern Vietnam at that point in time.
1954 might not exactly be the point of French exhaustion, it might come a year or two earlier, with more generous aid flowing to the Viet Minh from a China that is not fight in Korea.
Or, like in OTL, the politics and optics of directly taking over a mission from a colonial power may not be acceptable, and the US government might reluctantly let the French take a limited loss, partitioning Indochina while hoping to hold most of it with proxy states.
In that case, there may be a lull in the fighting in the mid and late 1950s, and the US may not send in its own troops until the 1960s.
But, the US might escalate more in the early 1960s, perhaps in Laos, or in South Vietnam?
Or perhaps Washington, like OTL, stretches out the period without its own ground troops, trying to handle Vietnam and Indochina through proxy states, massive aid, encadre'd combat "advisors", and regime change/renovation in Saigon (the Diem coup or equivalent), for as long as that appears a possible alternative to sending whole American infantry units or losing Saigon outright.
Even if American combat troop intervention is delayed until the mid-1960s, American military and civilian leaders can approach it from a different mindset without having experienced Chinese intervention in Korea. They would be more willing to escalate in the ground and air hard and fast, and cross geographical boundaries, counter-invading from South Vietnam into North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos without having a visceral negative memory of Chinese opposition.
I don't know if that keeps or puts a non-communist or communist government in charge of half, or even all of Vietnam by the 1990s, but many things in this ATL's 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and probably 1980s will probably be different from OTL.
