This paper presents a hypothetical "what if" scenario. What would have happened to both South East Asia and the United States had the U.S. won the Vietnam War. What would have happened, from a political, social and economic perspective. Would there even have been a Nixon presidency? If so, what would it have been like? Would Vietnam be more developed, less, or the same? Would Vietnam have recovered faster.
As is the case with any hypothetical scenario, interpretations are highly subjective, although they can be based in fact. After the peace accord between Vietnam and the United States was signed in Paris in April of 1975, Vietnam found itself in the midst of enormous political, social and economic upheaval. Politically, the communist regime was in full control. Socially, the country was in disarray. The infrastructure had been destroyed by the devastating war intensity. And economically, the country was in ruins.
The overall situation was intensified in 1978, when in March of that year, truckloads of soldiers and volunteers wearing red armbands descended on Ho Chi Minh City (formerly, and still affectionately, known as Saigon), searching houses and shops to inventory goods to be confiscated by the government. Two weeks later South Vietnam's currency was abolished, effectively wiping out all the assets of the rich.
The "dark years" had arrived. A million refugees fled their homeland. Some 200,000 were sent off to re-education camps; the state-run economy led to the impoverishment of what was already a dirt-poor country. The invasion of Cambodia in 1978 sealed Vietnam's political isolation in a region where economies were starting to boom.
Not until the near-famine of the mid 1980's did the Vietnamese government accept that it had only two choices left: perish or prosper. To achieve the latter, and in order to catch up with neighboring countries such as Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong, it would have t...