>>190631, >>190633, >>190634

Losing Vietnam on Purpose
For most Americans, defeat in Vietnam was a bitter and senseless tragedy. Kissinger, however, seemed to view it in a positive light, as a necessary course correction for America. When Kissinger spoke of America’s “rude awakening” in his 1982 speech at Chatham House, he could hardly conceal a tone of grim satisfaction. Kissinger said: “It was therefore a rude awakening when in the 1960s and 70s the United States became conscious of the limits of even its resources. Now with a little over a fifth of the world’s GNP, America was powerful but no longer dominant. Vietnam was the trauma and the catharsis but the recognition was bound to come in any event. Starting in the 70s, for the first time, the United States has had to conduct a foreign policy in the sense with which Europeans have always been familiar: as one country among many, unable either to dominate the world or escape from it, with the necessity of accommodation, maneuver, a sensitivity to marginal shifts in the balance of power, an awareness of continuity and of the interconnections between events.”
Of course, defeat in Vietnam had not come out of the blue. It was a man-made catastrophe, not a natural phenomenon like the weather. Kissinger himself had been largely responsible for the disaster. Moreover, while Kissinger was negotiating “peace” with the North Vietnamese, he was, by his own admission, keeping the British Foreign Office “better informed and more closely engaged” than his own State Department. Kissinger’s statement raises questions about the role of Great Britain in the Vietnam debacle. As Kissinger tells it—and as his audience at Chatham House would have fully understood—the Vietnam War achieved one of the core objectives of Milner’s Round Table. It humbled America, teaching her to accept her place as one nation among many in the global “commonwealth.” In his zeal to attain this goal, Kissinger may have leaned on the scales a bit, deliberately “allowing the war in Vietnam to drag on ... ” according to Stone.
It was, in fact, the prolonged nature of the war that finally turned public opinion against it. US forces were engaged in Vietnam for 20 years, from 1955-1975, with massive ground forces deployed from 1965-1973, leaving more than 58,000 Americans dead. Something had to break eventually.

Not Humble Enough Yet?
While applauding the chastening effects of the Vietnam War in his 1982 speech, Kissinger made clear that the US had a long way to go before completing its lesson in humility. “[I]t will be a slow, painful, perhaps bitter process,” said Kissinger. His words proved prophetic. The humbling process continues to this day. It may or may not be coincidental that the man currently in charge of administering this bitter pill to America happens to be yet another Round Table disciple, Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.