Nixon versus Kennedy: Redux

[BigTex]

Tex:

"Opening" China was a HUGE step in the Cold War. It completed the political "de-coupling" of the two great communist powers and, over time, undercut much of the Soviet influence in Vietnam. China had an interest in bringing all of SE Asia into its sphere of influence and the Soviets were able to do little to prevent it. We ended up with "Detente," with the Helsinkin accords etc. -- all of which played a role in the eventual demise of the USSR.

Panzer:

To be fair to Kennedy, though he did involve the USA in Vietnam, there is little evidence that he intended to ramp up the conflict in Vietnam the way it was ramped up under Johnson & MacNamara. At the time of his death, Kennedy was using CIA, the Berets and locals and attempting a repeat of what had occurred, successfully, in Greece. Kennedy did screw up what little chance the Bay of Pigs effort might have had and did, by coming off as a 'lightweight" in Kruschev's eyes, set the stage for the Soviet deployment of missiles to Cuba -- though Kennedy had a good learning curve ability and handled that crisis much better once it had arrived.

In fact, he was just hitting his stride as a leader when Oswald whacked him. Hard to say where he'd have finished up. I don't think Kennedy would have attempted Johnson's "Great Society" and I don't think Vietnam would have been the grand conflict it became. We'll never know.

Those are all the short term results of him opening china. Yes it hastened the fall of the soviet union and made vietnam a little nicer. But Nixon woke the giant and showed it the world. The full repricussions of those actions have yet to be seen. The judges are still out on this, in a few decades though where going to find them out though.

I like cheap things.

Yeah gas, energy and basically everything is cheap right now. God bless china and the massive surge in the demand for world resources.