why was the war in afghanistan called russia's "vietnam"?
443964
I never heard it called that anywhere. The Americans who continue to fight & die in Afghanistan will continue unless a all out civil war breaks out. Becomes their fight then. \nAmericans are sending the Mountain Training Units helping them with the terrain. My son will leave for Afghanistan to lead his unit as soon as he finishes Ranger School. Hooah!
42076
Basically, it was a failure (like today's war in Iraq) and many American soldiers' lives were lost.\n\nThe Vietnam War or Second Indochina War 1 was a conflict between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN, or North Vietnam), allied with the National Liberation Front (NLF, or "Viet Cong") against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), and its allies — notably the United States military in support of the South, with US combat troops involved from shortly after the Korean War until the official withdrawal in 1975.\n\nAfter France's attempted recolonization of Indochina was defeated in 1954 by the Viet Minh at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ, an agreement to temporarily partition the country in two with a de-militarized zone (DMZ) was reached at the Geneva Conference (1954). The "Vietnam War" ostensibly began as a civil war between feuding governments. Being Western-oriented and far less popular than Hồ Chí Minh's northern rebellion, the South Vietnam government fought largely to maintain its governing status within the partitioned entity, rather than to "unify the country" as was the goal of the North. Fighting began in 1957 and with U.S. and Soviet-Chinese involvement would steadily escalate and spill over into the neighboring Indochinese countries of Cambodia and Laos.\n\nThe Geneva partition was not a natural division of Vietnam and was not intended to create two separate countries. But the South government, with the support of the United States, blocked the Geneva scheduled elections for reunification. In the context of the Cold War, and with the recent Korean War as a precedent, the U.S. had feared that a reunified Vietnam would elect a Communist government under the popular Hồ Chí Minh. South Vietnam and its Western allies portrayed the conflict as based in a principled opposition to communism —to deter the expansion of Soviet-based control throughout Southeast Asia, and to set the tone for any likely future superpower conflicts. The North Vietnamese government and its Southern dissident allies (NLF) viewed the war as a struggle to reunite the country and to repel a foreign aggressor —a virtual continuation of the earlier war for independence against the French.\n\nAfter fifteen years of protracted fighting and massive civilian and military casualties, major direct U.S. involvement ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. Fighting between Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces against the dominant combined People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and NLF forces would soon bring an end to the RVN and the war. With the Northern victory, the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) with a communist-controlled government based in the new capital Hanoi.\n\nThis is just a brief summary. For more information on the Vietnam War, go to:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
881628
Russia always wanted to have access to warm oceans since its coastlines are frozen most of the year. This would increase its economic and military power. also by getting in Afghanistan it thought it could infulence pakistan and iran better. this invasion would also give better control over world's energy source areas.\ncold war did not start with that. i think it started with the building berlin wall? it eventually ended with the collapse of the same wall symbolically.\n\nif you are asking about war on afghanistan, russia withdrew its forces accepting defeat.\n\nI recommend Zbigniew Brzezinsky's "The Grand Chessboard" book for reading.
160380
The socialist economy was a complete failure in Vietnam. \n\nAlmost the whole population of the country was living in poverty shortly after the war ended. The state run companies were completely impractical to be able to maintain the country's economy let alone expand to accomodate the new generation that started to enter the workforce in the late 80's. \n\nThree economic reforms has turned the country from a socialist into a capitalist economy.  In turn, the country is now booming with more jobs and opportunities than Vietnam has ever seen in it's long and incredible history. \n\nLong story short.. Sovietn style socialism does not work. It didn't work in Russia, and was never going to work in Vietnam.
241201
The U.S.A. went to Vietnam for almost the same reasons that it went into Iraq and Afghanistan, it is fighting an "evil ideology". Millions of Vietnamese died fighting for uniting their country under communism. In Iraq and Afghanistan, millions are not fighting the U.S.A. because U.S.A. is bringing democracy to those countries, to let the people decide. However, in Vietnam the U.S.A. did not allow their to be elections in South Vietnam, out of fear that communism might be voted into power. But I think the lesson is learned, that instead of denying democracy, they can allow it, and this will allow the people to give up fighting and decide their future. But we have to see if the U.S.A. will fully allow and accept the elections and democratization to flourish, or if the U.S.A. would simply set-up another puppet-regime through rigged elections.
416495
A government in Afghanistan friendly to the Soviet Union was threatened by a coup thought to be engineered by the USA so the Soviet high command sent in the 20th Army. The coup was an attempt to thwart the social modernizations the communist government had instituted such as allowing women into schools.\n\nIt is ironic, most of the time we go into a country to undo the problems caused by communism, this time we went in to try to bring Afghanistan back to the level of prosperity they had enjoyed under the communists.
659439
America was there to aid the French in the beginning, and then were military advisers. Ho Chi Min started a cue that led to troops coming in from China, and Russia aided with weaponry. Lindon Johnson decided to send in more troops, and America started bombing Viet Nam for ten years. The rest is history. It all started a draft, and full scale war against Communism. We lost.
41017
Afghanistan \n\nRepublic in south-central Asia, bordered by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to the north, China to the northeast, Pakistan to the east and south, and Iran to the west. Kabul is its capital and largest city. \n\n\nThe Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 but met stiff resistance from Muslim rebels, called mujahideen, who received support from the United States. The Soviets agreed to withdraw in 1986 and completed their withdrawal in 1989.\nIn 1992, various rebel groups entered Kabul and took over the government; however, they soon fell to warring. Between 1994 and 1995, Islamic students, called the Taliban, seized Kabul and imposed both order and strict and repressive Islamic law. By 1998, the Taliban controlled ninety percent of the country. The most serious resistance to the Taliban came from the Northern Alliance, a body dominated by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks. In October 2001, the United States launched attacks on the Taliban in response to the Taliban's refusal to expel Osama bin Laden and his terrorist Al Qaeda network.\nAfghanistan is a poor nation with a history of warfare among its rival ethnic groups and of fierce resistance to outsiders.
472740
Hard to say.  Before it was Viet Nam it was French Indo China and the Viet Namese (CONG) were called the Viet Minh after Ho Chi Minh.  Casualty estimates posted above do not include those killed in the Pre-USA invlovement may not include Americans that were there as "advisors", civilians, Cambodians, Laotians, Chinese, and Russians.  The numbers are apalling
461464
A Cold War would probably be more properly described as a long term conflict. A war would be defined as a situation where two states engage in direct military combat. There is no doubt that the Soviet Union and the United States engaged in a great political, ideological, economic and even military struggle against one another, but there was almost no instance of direct military conlfict between the two states. Thus, it was a "cold" war rather than a "hot" one, where direct military engagement occurred.\n\nHowever, having said that, it is undeniable that both sides were engaging each other but through the use of proxy states. Thus there was conflict in East and South East Asia must notably in Korea and Vietnam. They also came to the brink of war on more than one occasion, most famously in the Cuban Missile Crisis.\n\nIn sum, the distiction of it being a "Cold" War is an important one, though it actually fact it is more properly defined as an extended bipolar conflict.
535810
There was no official start to Viet Nam war. It started back in about 1954 for the United States, that is about the time that the French pulled out. They had come to the conclusion that it was to costly and a lost cause. We sent advisers in at first. Kennedy continued with the advisers and Johnson Sent in the most troupes to actually fight the war that was about 1964 or 1965 Nixon got us out of there finally about 1973 or 1974, those are as close as I can come to dates from memory.
979711
We've been fighting a world war since 2003. Think about it. With the start of Operation Iraq Freedom, this conflict has affect all of Europe, the United States, All of the middle east, and of course now Asia is getting affected because of North Korea's scandal of Nuclear war weapon testings. South Korea is on its toes waiting for an attack, and China is backing up North Korea. Vietnam is on the verge of another civil war because communism is eating up the economy. And with the fall of that trading agreement with the US, Vietnam will be going through a depression (not like it hasn't since the fall of the French) \n\nSo if you think about theoretically we've been in a world war. Everyone is in some ways connected to Iraq.
727126
Vietnam war was a resource war. We wanted to control the tin, rubber, manganese , the still undeveloped off-shore oil and the largest rice growing region (Mekong Delta) in the world. We poisoned the Delta before we left with Agent Orange and today there are so many deformed births that they are just quietly put down. Vietnam war was a whore just like Iraq.
887016
The chief cause of the war was the failure of Vietnamese nationalists, in the form of the Viet Minh, to gain control of southern Vietnam both during and after their struggle for independence from France in the First Indochina War of 1946-1954.\n\nAllies of the Vietnamese communists included the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. South Vietnam's main anti-communist allies were the United States, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, and New Zealand. The U.S. in particular, deployed large numbers of military personnel to South Vietnam. U.S. military advisors first became involved in Vietnam as early as 1950, when they began to assist French colonial forces. In 1956, these advisors assumed full responsibility for training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam or ARVN. Large numbers of American combat troops began to arrive in 1965 and the last left the country in 1973.
433051
I agree with most of the results. I'm a bit iffy on the UK and Russia battle.\n\nUK has better weapons (non-nuclear), meanwhile Russia has a higher population. I think in the long run, Russia might take that battle.\n\n\n.... and I disagree with above response. It's proven that US can't defeat Vietnam. Open a history book.
767080
There's a big insurgency in Uruguay and in Sri Lanka. There's a civil war in Somalia, Nepal, and Cote d'Ivoire There's genocide in the Sudan. As part of the war on terror, the U.S. is helping the Philipinnes fight terrorists in their country. Also part of the war on terror, the U.S. set up bases in the Horn of Africa to prevent the re-emergence of terrorist cells and activities. Russia is fighting the Chechens in the Second Chechen War. There are several other small squirmishes and conflicts in Africa, Colombia, India, and Pakistan, but they all fall way short of being called a war.
1173607
U.S. Cold Warriors were convinced that if Vietnam fell to the communists, that the rest of Southeast Asia would "fall like dominoes."  So they sent American troops to prop up the weak South Vietnamese government and army.\n\nThe Vietcong's main goal was the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government, and unification with North Vietnam.