Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart

"If tomorrow the Vietnamese are communists, they will be Vietnamese communists! And this is something you never understood, you Americans."
Hubert de Marais, Apocalypse Now Redux (1979)

Defaced Great Seal of the United States, Wikipedia, 2004

This year marked the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, and also the 40th anniversary of the capitulation of South Vietnam. A scant thirty year period in which the United States of America went from being unstoppable in the Western hemisphere to crumbling world power. The Vietnam debacle was one of a string of events (the energy crisis, Watergate, stagflation, etc) in the lead up to the US Bicentennial celebrations that put America on much the same stagnant footing as the Soviet Union under Brezhnev. The only reason history is more interested in the Soviet experience is because that state did eventually fall, and in doing so left the US placed for assuming the role of hyperpower. Explaining the decline of American power in the second half of the 20th Century is critically linked to the tumultuous years in South-East Asia.