While the estimates of total casualties vary quite a bit, an enormous number of people were killed in Vietnam. It was basically a genocide. Even if you believe in the domino theory (personally think that was nonsense) there's no real scenario where the war could have been a net positive.

The US put that corrupt local government in power by the way.

Are you suggesting that the US government was right to indiscriminantly bomb a small nation halfway around the world for self-determining into a style of governance disliked by the US?

Or are you suggesting the North Vietnamese were a tool of the Chinese or Russians? In which case - like Robert McNamara - you would be told by the former foreign minister of Vietnam that you should read a history book[0], because you have no knowledge of the region's history.

The Vietnam war was a disgrace waged for no valid reasons, accomplishing nothing except ending the lives of millions of Vietnamese people. To defend it in this day, with all the benefit of hindsight, is utterly beyond the pale and should rightfully be compared to supporting other historical atrocities such as the genocide of Native Americans.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHdMeHxDg90&t=2m8s

Using your argument, how exactly do you know better than the Vietnamese in the South (minus the Viet Cong) who wanted the US's help to combat the North's aggression? They literally fought alongside the US.

It was a civil war, they weren't going to turn down military assistance.

Why do you assume that the aforementioned “small nation halfway around the world indiscriminately bombed by the US government” is Vietnam and not Cambodia?

Do you think the US was right to carpet-bomb Cambodia?

I suggest you talk to members of the first generation of the Vietnamese diaspora living in the US and see what they think about the war.

No war however done is good to have. Some wars are necessary and come with great loss. It’s unavoidable. There were many mistakes in Vietnam-the whole war, but it wasn’t pointless. The middle eastern wars we went into are pointless. Those are local conflicts and we should let them settle their own scores.

The Vietnam war was more than about Vietnam. Kennedy knew that.

Thankfully I live in Seattle, so there are quite a few Vietnamese people. Generally once you get to know them they'll open up about how the war was (to repeat) a disgrace waged for no valid reasons, accomplishing nothing except ending the lives of millions of Vietnamese people.

Of course, if some random American comes up to them demanding their thoughts on the Vietnam war they might have a different answer.

You should consider re-examining your belief in domino theory.

The largest Vietnamese communities in America (i.e. in Southern and Northen California) still universally fly the South Vietnam flag. You can often see this flag flown with the American flag.

You simply don’t know. The whole country and its neighboring countries got destroyed by the Vietnam war. I am not sure if a communist takeover would have been worse for the regular citizen. When you look at Eastern Europe I think people were better off under communist government compared to the devastation a war may have brought.

The problem with this as a general policy is that it is bad game theory. It means bad actors get to win by threatening to cause more damage fighting than if they win without a fight. You're always hostage to threats from bad actors.

I know. It’s a very complex situation. But I think we should also not blindly accept a lot of wars as “ necessary “ and better than the alternative.

It’s also often not clear who is the good or bad guy. As far as i know in Vietnam for example the main goal was to get rid of the colonialists. If the west had accepted that maybe north Vietnam wouldn’t have aligned with the Soviets. In addition the west also aligned with highly corrupt leaders in the south. We see the same dynamic in the Middle East. Out of short term interests we ally with highly corrupt dictatorial governments there and then we are surprised that things blow up in our face.

All animals in the universe are “hostage to threats from bad actors.” Most fights in the animal kingdom are avoided by a simple size comparison between two animals, after which the smaller animal submits.

Size is an implicit threat, one that can never be eliminated. How exactly do you propose to eliminate the implicit threat of one animal/group of animals simply being larger than another?

Because in reality both animals implicitly know that the conflict policies are somewhat hardwired as: 'If you push me too far, I will fight you on the beaches.'

Knowing that that is the policy that is implemented, and that fights are always risky, whether a fight occurs will be determined by the reward size and the predictability of the outcome.

Yes, and both creatures deduce the predictability of the outcome primarily from the results of... a simple size comparison.

I would think most fights in the animal kingdom are predation, where the prey faces death and the predator, starvation. Perhaps you had just dominance fights within the same species in mind?

Predation is an example of a fight that is NOT avoided. I have all species in mind. I am almost directly quoting Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene.” A raccoon does not attack a grizzly bear because of a simple size comparison. Thus, the lives of both animals are spared and a fight is avoided.