Mark Moyar

American intervention also, I think, plays a role in the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966, which, you know, Mao had thought he had this big

period of expansion in vietnam and indonesia both those get crushed and he now turns inward for enemies and he loses interest in international affairs and so by the time you get to 75 chinese and north vietnamese have turned against each other and the fact they'll fight a war in 1979 so most of the dominoes don't fall but cambodia and laos fall uh so those are significant um

And it's also worth noting this leads then to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who killed some two million people in this genocidal conflict, which, again, I think worth keeping in mind that this is a fanatical ideology.

Vietnamese also kill a lot of their own people.

Most of it goes under the radar.

But, you know, I think.

Ultimately, the U.S., while it ultimately loses South Vietnam, it holds on to a lot of other Asian countries, which today are actually the main U.S.

allies in this ongoing competition with China.

That's correct.

Yes.

And that is...

Yeah, and those are really the central issues of the war.

And unfortunately, it's so politicized in this country that to make that argument is sort of radioactive in American academia.

The show is called Trigonometry for a reason.

Yes.

And I mean, the country very much split along political lines.

You know, Ronald Reagan described this as a noble cause.

But most of the left has taken the view that it was unnecessary, unwinnable.

And, you know, part of a big part, in my view, of why the left push that so hard is that.

What's interesting, look what's going on in college campuses in the middle of 60s.