Dark Earth Timeline

Under a broader United States Forces Vietnam joint command very much similar to the @ Korean analogue.

That will depend on how tensions and developments pan out. A drop from 4 to 2 divisions after a few years is likely.

February 21: Signing of an Armistice by South Vietnam, North Vietnam, the United States, the Soviet Union, France and Britain. formally bringing hostilities on land, sea and air in the Vietnam War to an end until a final peaceful settlement can be achieved. It provides for the establishment of a 15 mile wide Demilitarised Zone from the coast to the Thai border, the temporary partitioning of Laos into a communist North Laos and democratic South Laos, a full exchange of prisoners of war and the clearing of mines from the coast of North Vietnam and a lifting of the blockade. Previous Soviet and North Vietnamese insistence upon the withdrawal of Allied forces from South Vietnam was dropped in exchange for acquiescence on the terms of the Laotian partition.

Whilst both sides can claim victory by virtue of survival as state entities, the effective destruction of the Viet Cong provides for the best possible evidence of a strategic victory for South Vietnam, the United States and their Free World allies. Whilst Saigon still has significant progress to make until it it is militarily self sufficient, it is greatly advanced from its position of a decade ago. The cost in lives, treasure and damage to the natural environment has been great for all involved. South Vietnam has suffered an estimated 360,000 military and 500,000 civilian dead and missing and over 1 million wounded; the United States 79,248 killed or missing and 398,532 wounded; France 12,823 KIA/MIA and 65,612 WIA; Britain 10,376 KIA/MIA and 56,934 wounded; Korea 8741 KIA/MIA and 25,938 WIA; the Commonwealth 8692 KIA/MIA and 35,624 WIA; India 6983 KIA/MIA and 27,445 WIA; and other Free World Military Forces 12,579 KIA/MIA and 70,628 WIA. North Vietnam and the Viet Cong lost an estimated 2 million military dead or missing and upwards of 300,000 civilian deaths due to bombing and other military action.

The economic cost of the Vietnam War to the United States in the 1960s is difficult to measure, but from 1964 to 1970, $307 billion was spent on direct war costs alone; aid to South Vietnam and subsidies and support to numerous member states of the Free World Military Forces was in addition to this expenditure. US forces peaked in 1969 with a total of 2,139,526 men deployed in 27 Army and Marine divisions and a total of 2954 fixed wing planes and 3877 helicopters were lost due to combat or accidents, but only 426 tanks were lost. Like the Korean War, naval losses were comparatively small, with only a handful of ships sunk, but numerous battleships and carriers sustained casualties from enemy fire and accidents and sea during the six and a half years of major combat operations. Enemy air to air combat losses are claimed as 784 shot down in aerial combat in exchange for 178 US, 65 British, 40 South Vietnamese and 23 French planes.

The increasing use of chemical and radiological weapons in the final years of the war has rendered some certain parts of North Vietnam and Laos uninhabitable for the next ten millennia, whilst the use of chemical defoliant and assorted biological agents has inflicted considerable damage. Significant parts of Hanoi, Haiphong and other strategic North Vietnamese cities have been destroyed by the heavy bombing campaign of Operation Rolling Thunder and over 24 million tons of explosive ordnance was dropped by the USAF, USN and Allied forces, ranging from 3” rockets to a former battleship. It saw the last combat employment of the F-51 Mustang and the de Havilland Mosquito and the first use of nuclear weapons in a war since the British in 1956.

Laos is partitioned, reflecting the facts on the ground. Cambodia remains a pro Western Allied state.

It absolutely is an extension of North Vietnam and a Soviet puppet state. There was just no way to preserve it once the overall strategy for winning in South Vietnam was decided upon. SVN can be effectively cut off from North Vietnam with a line extended through Laos; the latter country, on the other hand, is largely intertwined with NV.

It is a piece of Cold War realpolitik.

They don’t really need it as a major naval base, as they have Subic Bay. The Soviets don’t have a formal naval base in NV at this stage; Haiphong is still mined in and bombed out.