The Real Reason America Lost the War in Vietnam Was Japan

choi

Michael Peck, The Real Reason America Lost the War in Vietnam: Japan. National Interest, Mar 25, 2017.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog ... vietnam-japan-19899

Note:
(a) "Just days after the French surrender, Indochina's colonial government received a demand from Japan: shut down the rail line running from the port of Haiphong to southern China, over which American supplies flowed to the Chinese armies battling Japanese invaders. * * * the French [in Indochina] refused to comply. Japan responded with a quick but violent amphibious invasion"
(i) World War II started when Germany invaded Poland on Sept 1, 1939. (Two days later, both UK and France declared war on Germany.)
(ii) French Third Republic (1870-1940)
(A) On June 22, 1940 France signed an armistice with Germany. In other words, France surrendered.
(B) "The Third Republic officially ended on July 10, 1940, when the French parliament gave full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain, who proclaimed in the following days the État Français (the 'French State'), commonly known as the 'Vichy Regime' or 'Vichy France' [in the unoccupied part of France] following its re-location to the town of Vichy in central France."  en.wikipedia.org
(ii) Japanese invasion of French Indochina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ja ... of_French_Indochina

Quote:

"In early 1940, troops of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) 大日本帝國陸軍 moved to seize Longzhou 广西壮族自治区崇左市 龙州县 [under this name since 1913] in south Guangxi, where the eastern branch of the railroad from Hanoi reaches the border, and also tried to move west to cut the rail line to Kunming.

"Japan pressured the Vichy government to close the railway, but the French did not agree. * * * [On Sept 22, 1940 Japanese army crossed the China/ Vietnam border to invade Lang Son 諒山 (a city across Vietnamese border from Longzhou) followed by amphibious invasion on Sept 26. That day, French resistance stopped. Japan occupied north Vietname, in presence of Frenc colonial government and troops.]

"Vichy government had agreed that some 40,000 troops [of Japan] could be stationed there [in the south of Vietnam]. However, Japanese planners did not immediately move troops there, worried that such a move would be inflammatory to relations between Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Furthermore, within the Japanese high command there was a division about what to do about the Soviet threat to the north of their Manchurian territories. The tipping point came just after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in late June [June 22] 1941. With the Soviets tied down, the high command concluded that a 'strike south [南進論; vs 北進論]' would solve Japan's problems with the United States, most notably increasing American concerns about Japan's moves in China and the possibility of a crippling oil embargo on Japan. To prepare for an invasion of the Dutch East Indies, some 140,000 Japanese troops invaded southern Indochina on July 28, 1941. Japanese forces remained in Indochina until the end of World War II.

(c) Michael Peck's essay: "In July 1941, Japan occupied the rest of Indochina, a fatal mistake that precipitated the US oil embargo, which led to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. What ensued was an ironic case of imperialists [Japan] ruling imperialists [French], as the Japanese effectively controlled Indochina while allowing the French authorities [as a puppet, more or less like Germany over Vichy Regime] to control the Vietnamese.

(d) "Indochina remained a backwater to the Pacific War until March 1945, when Japan put an end to the French puppet regime. * * * as one French diplomat later put it, Japan 'wrecked a colonial enterprise that had been in existence for eighty years.' "
(i) Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_coup_d%27état_in_French_Indochina
(known as Meigo Sakusen 明号 作戦 (Operation Bright Moon); Mar 9 - May 15, 1945)
(A) During War World II, Japanese army's code name often ended with a suffix "号作戦": 捷号作戦, 礼号作戦-- or the suffix was a letter in hiragana or katakana.
(B) The "saku" is Chinese pronunciation for kanji 作.
(ii) French Indochina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Indochina
("Cochinchina [was] formally declared a French territory in 1864 * * * France obtained control over northern Vietnam following its victory over China in the Sino-French War (1884–85). French Indochina was formed on 17 October 1887 from Annam [安南], Tonkin [東京], Cochinchina [交趾支那, per zh.wikipedia.org; 首府: 西贡] ([the three of] which together form modern Vietnam) and the Kingdom of Cambodia; Laos was added after the Franco-Siamese War in 1893")

* French Cochinchina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Cochinchina
(map)
(iii) There is a section (under a page "Laos") called "French Laos (1893–1953)" -- as French protectorate, not territory: "Laos never had any importance for France other than as a buffer state between British-influenced Thailand and the more economically important Annam and Tonkin."
(iv) "Cambodia continued as a protectorate of France from 1867 to 1953, administered as part of the colony of French Indochina"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodia

(e) "France waged a long and bloody campaign against the Viet Minh that ended in May 1954 with the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu. * * * United States did manage to stay out of the First Indochina War between France and the Viet Minh."
(i) Battle of Dien Bien Phu (Mar 13 – May 7, 1954)
(ii)
(A) First Indochina War (Dec 19, 1946 - Aug 1, 1954)

I am clueless about why Aug 1, 1054 was chosen as the end date, despite extensive research.
(B) Vietnam War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
(also known as the Second Indochina War; from Nov 1 1955 [see Annotation 1, which is not Note 1]  to the fall of Saigon on Apr 30, 1975)