Long gone . . .


Hard to write about Vietnam today - which of course is the setting for the Red Dragon books - without these scenes somewhere in the background:




But that's a long time ago. In the books, Vietnam and the U.S. are (very uneasy) allies. The Battle of Cao Bang - which took place in 1979 during the war between China and Vietnam - is more directly relevant  . . . though it too is ancient history now:



The Chinese propaganda doesn't tell the real story (duh). The Vietnamese fought the theoretically superior Chinese army to a standstill. China did not gain any of its major strategic objectives in the war, and cemented Western analysis that its army was primarily suited to defense (a prejudice that remains today). Whether the Vietnamese would have been even more aggressive in Cambodia and elsewhere in Indochina if the war hadn't occurred is an open question.

Would the outcome be the same today?