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> Overthrowing governments is awful foreign policy. This was never going to work, just like it didn't in Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, the Congo, Guatemala, Syria and elsewhere.

IIRC, the US didn't overthrow any government Vietnam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Vietnam#Founding_of_Sout....

There's probably some parallels that can be drawn between US support of South Vietnam and US support of South Korea.

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The US didn't directly overthrow the government of South Vietnam, but the US did tell the South Vietnamese army that they would lose funding and support if they didn't overthrow Diem in 1963. Given that the army of South Vietnam was basically an appendage of the American military at that point it was a threat the South Vietnamese generals couldn't afford to ignore.

No, the US basically said “we won’t try and stop you” when a coup against Diem was proposed by the Generals.

That’s pretty naive. It seems incredulous that the US didn’t muck around with the ARVN military junta or various coups.

It was a CIA puppet state.

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