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Matt Bai has an artful examination of John McCain’s evolving view of American foreign policy in the forthcoming New York Times Magazine. His basic conclusion:

Undaunted, McCain soldiers on toward November and what could be his final campaign. When he ran in 2000, his philosophy of national greatness — the importance, as he always puts it, of “serving a cause greater than one’s self” — found its expression in ideas like national service and campaign reform, proposals that independents and even many liberals could embrace. For a time then, McCain, adrift within his own party, was almost certainly the most popular politician in America. This time, his theme of selflessness is bound up, irrevocably, with Bush’s unpopular war. Democrats, alarmed over their own disunity, can hardly wait to start pummeling McCain with Iraq. While I was working on this article, the Center for American Progress, the left’s leading policy center in Washington, took the liberty of sending over a 10-page litany of McCain’s selected comments on Iraq since 2002, delineated by helpful subheadings like “The War Begins — Rosy Outlook” and “The Critical Time Is Always Right Around the Corner.”

Also of note (and from the Times Magazine, tangentially related to Vietnam): an interesting/troubling examination of the charges of conspiracy the US is bringing against Hmong leader — and former US ally — Vang Pao.

As nominally communist countries who believe firmly in capitalism as a way to economic development, China and Vietnam obviously have a lot in common. From this week’s Economist’s Special Report, an explanation of some of the ways they differ:

A foreign diplomat in Hanoi who used to serve in Beijing says that “everything here is more moderate than in China.” Vietnam is a bit less harsh with dissidents than China, and its capitalism too is less red in tooth and claw. Its health and education services have adapted more successfully to the transition to a market economy. Its press is strictly controlled, as in China, but the growing numbers of internet surfers have free access to most foreign news websites: there is no Vietnamese equivalent of the Great Firewall of China.

Whereas China is led from the top down and one man is clearly the paramount leader—Hu Jintao, who is both the head of the Communist Party and the state president—Vietnam has a consensual leadership. Its triumvirate of president, party boss and prime minister must reach accommodations with an increasingly independent national assembly and a host of other forces, and avoid upsetting the many surviving heroes of Vietnam’s independence wars.

At Slate, Alexandra Harney makes the reasonable claim that the combination of higher commodity prices, a modest appreciation of China’s currency, and a lower willingness among Chinese to be exploited will likely mean that the cheap junk Americans are used to will be getting at least a little dearer.

The problem for American retailers and consumers hooked on $3 T-shirts and $30 DVD players is that there is no other China waiting in the wings to make cheap goods reliably for American shoppers. American importers are now arriving by the planeload in Vietnam, hoping to take advantage of the country’s lower wages. But Vietnam, hard as it tries, has only 85 million people—the size of one Chinese province. And only a fraction of its population is suitable for factory work. Moreover, prices are rising faster in Vietnam than anywhere else in Asia. Add in the rising incidence of strikes and labor disputes, and Vietnam looks increasingly like a short-term alternative.

Ross Douthat tackles how and why modern Hollywood pictures look relatively similar to those of the Vietnam era.

This doesn’t mean that the current paranoid, doom-ridden mood in cinema and television was manufactured in Hollywood and foisted on an unwilling public. Up to a point, at least, Hollywood is meeting Americans where they are. Mistrust of government and disquiet about the country’s future have risen to Vietnam-era levels, and reviving ’70s-style paranoia and pessimism is a natural way for the culture industry to connect with a public coping, once again, with a military quagmire, rising oil prices, prophecies of ecological doom, and corruption in high places.

Maybe it’s just me, but this statistic seems surprising:

Since the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, more than 16,000 troops — mostly Army — have deserted. Antiwar groups contend the number is much higher, with many of the runaways quietly discharged.

For context, it’s from a rather interesting story about Iraq-era deserters in Canada and the support they’re getting from Vietnam-era deserters.

(via Passport)

March 16th is the the fourtieth anniversary of one of most notorious massacres in America’s history. Ed Ruggerio wants to make sure that we’ve learned the right lessons from it.

This March 16 we should remember that we can still “lose” wars by forgetting that we aren’t always the good guys. We lose them when we can’t muster the courage to confront our own worst selves. We lose them when we stick our veterans into simple categories: well-adjusted or crazy. We lose wars when we sanitize them; when we create myths that lack the obscenity and evil of the real thing.

And when we “lose” a war this way, it makes it easier to start the next one.

The Ho Chi Minh trail, one of the most prominent features of what the Vietnamese know as “the American war,” is being turned into a highway. David Lamb’s trip down the road delves into history and modern Vietnam, but I found this anecdote both odd and charming:

“It may sound strange, but although it was a terrible time, my four years on Truong Son was a very beautiful period in my life,” said Le Minh Khue, who defied her parents and at age 15 joined a youth volunteer brigade on the trail, filling bomb craters, digging bunkers, burying corpses and ending each day covered head to toe with so much mud and dirt that the girls called each other “black demons.”

Khue, a writer whose short stories about the war have been translated into four languages, went on: “There was great love between us. It was a fast, passionate love, carefree and selfless, but without that kind of love, people could not survive. They [the soldiers] all looked so handsome and brave. We lived together in fire and smoke, slept in bunkers and caves. Yet we shared so much and believed so deeply in our cause that in my heart I felt completely happy.

(via brijit)