It’s as if you can’t trust a President / Commander in Chief. 😦
Though he never directly used the term “domino theory“, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower put the theory into words during an April 7, 1954 news conference, when referring to communism in Indochina:
Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the “falling domino” principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.
Introducing the domino theory, that if Vietnam fell to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would soon follow. Press conference, April 7, 1954.
Today Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Canada? are NOT Communist.
Eisenhower was wrong.
… Hanoi will be the fastest growing city in the world in term of GDP growth from 2008 to 2025 …
On February 2013 Dubai-based property developer Global Sphere announced a mega-project to build about 70 residential towers in Hanoi in an area dubbed the Hanoi Wall Street. The first phase, valued at $10 billion, is expected to be finished by 2020. …
The USA could not win in Vietnam. Nor can they win in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, …
George Santayana – The Life of Reason
When you hear a leader call for armed intervention, follow the money. Who’s going to profit in the proposed military action?
Rick McCharles 
While the US did not “win” in Vietnam it is impossible to know whether or how the influence of that war changed the nature of southeast Asia. Nor did Eisenhower suggest that military intervention in southeast Asia was the only way to stem what was seen as the threat to communism. Here is what Eisenhower said in his farewell speech as president:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
If Eisenhower was wrong about southeast Asia it has more to do with the rise of the military/industrial complex and the apathy of the public, which he warned about, and that you allude to in terms of the profit margin of war.
By the way, I believe that Vietnam is currently a one party state (the only party allowed is the Communist Party). Thailand and Indonesia have multi-party democracies although Indonesian reform to their system came in the late 1990’s after many, many years under the questionable (corrupt?) leadership of Suharto. Thailand, although officially a democracy has had a number of political coups over the years including a military coup in March 2014.
Thanks for those points.
Still, it’s difficult to defend the American war in Vietnam. The cost in lives.
Most would agree it was a mistake.