Bill,

Of course it was phase three of the insurgency that consolidated Vietnam. North and South "states" were a Western fiction created in the midst of an ongoing movement to liberate the whole of Vietnam from Western control.

I think it is you who are too infatuated with the official US perspective on our history, and that my model that exposes deep flaws in the thinking behind that perspective makes you uncomfortable. We need to get uncomfortable if we hope to get better. Thinking is like PT - if it doesn't make you uncomfortable, you are probably wasting your time.

The armies we have created to protect the governments we have created have all, without exception, folded like lawn chairs when pressed by a more legitimate force. Period. We can't even admit those challengers were more legitimate, yet alone that our political and security strategy failed.