Sino-Vietnamese War (term paper posted!)

[speldwiday]

Greetings all:

This is a term paper I wrote for my "History of China" course. It explores the reasons for Chinese tactical failure during the Third Indochina War against the Vietnamese and also touches on how this failure ultimately led to China's geopolitical success on the strategic level.

My professor really liked it but I was curious to get the forum's feedback. Any questions, comments, or criticisms are more than welcome. Enjoy!

~bryan

HI337 - Term Paper (online post).doc

[YuehanHao]

I really enjoyed reading this paper, in particular the explanation of tactics and logistics. Very interesting and very clearly shows why the somewhat counterintuitive outcome occurred. The paper also shows why the political dimension of a conflict must be understood to understand the military dimension. Interesting to consider further the great contrast in the frontal-assault strategy of the PLA in Vietnam (and Korea) and the Red Army in the 30's and 40's.

But I felt it would be more convincing if there were more evidence to support the conclusion that PLA's military failure in Vietnam led to eventual geopolitical success in China. While it surely was a catalyst for military modernization, I see the overall geopolitical success of today as largely the result of the economic transitions in the post-1979 era and as having an indirect linkage to military power at best. However, it could be interesting to see the paper's final argument fleshed out a little bit more, though...

Thanks for posting.

约翰好！