The Vietnam Legacies

My latest at the Diplomat reviews some of the recent lit on Hanoi’s public diplomacy efforts during the Vietnam War:

The impact of Vietnam on the radical imagination of the late 1960s is hard to overstate. Antiwar, feminist, anti-colonial, and other groups took inspiration from the struggle of the Vietnamese people in their war against the United States. These included those focused mainly on domestic political issues, including Western European groups that ran the gamut between pacifist philosophical organizations to terrorist gangs, but also groups concentrating on comparable struggles, such as Palestinian fighters.

A recent lecture by Lien Hang Nguyen discusses Hanoi’s efforts to build a revolutionary international coalition opposed to U.S. intervention in the war. This included targeted outreach at feminist groups, black militant organizations, Palestinian groups, artist collectives, and others. These efforts did not always work; sometimes, the particular appeals made by DRV officials fell flat in front of Western audiences. Nevertheless, Hanoi’s efforts at public diplomacy helped to undercut European and broader international support for American efforts in Vietnam.