Vietnam feels likes hill tribe areas in China. Reasonably pleasant but nothing intellectual about it.

I’m not saying that Vietnam will necessarily become a powerhouse, but I don’t see why it can’t become at least moderately successful. Low IQ and tropical work ethic hasn’t been my impression of the Vietnamese at all. They seem more Chinese in culture, intellect, and disposition than other Southeast Asians.

I’ll put in a long bet on Vietnam- they can at least beat the GDP of Mexico (which would be fourfold growth over where they are now), and probably go a bit further.

Also, like Kgaard- I was reminded of Los Angeles when I was in Saigon, which probably had the most “American” vibe of any Asian city I’ve ever been to (though I’ve never been to Taipei or Manila, which might be more Americanized). Young population, and a hungry one at that. Whatever problems they’re having getting peasants into the factories, the college-educated Vietnamese seem to have a lot more entrepreneurial drive than their Chinese Generation Y counterparts and my colleagues in business down there have been impressed with their work ethic.

In my experience the Vietnamese have come across as bright and seem more Chinese in disposition and culture than Southeast Asian, despite Vietnam’s climate and geography.

But so what? Once you win the war of attrition, then improving the lot of your people and building a competitive economy beyond lethargic rice-paddy plantations takes a lot of bourgeois virtues and talents and the right economic incentive structure.

You don’t need your Soldiers to have high IQ’s to win at long-duration jungle warfare. You just need weapons, numbers, ruthlessness, fanatical levels of determination, patience, and loyalty. It also helps if you can infiltrate the enemy’s lines, blend in like a local, run a fifth column network, have nearby sanctuaries and supply lines through your neighbors, and get loads of superpower fighting support from other countries.

Again – reference the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. When you lose your air dominance because your Mi-24 Hind is getting shot down by a Fim-92 stinger, are you getting shot down by some Saudi jihadist adventurer or local Pashtun goat herder, or General Dynamics and Raytheon? Both, obviously. But after the helicopters go away, so do the missiles, and you’re back to herding goats.

These folks have what it takes to keep killing foreigners (which is adaptive attribute #1 to have to survive as an independent community), but not to do much else when the fighting’s done. And probably, their fighting cultures actively work against the establishment of the structures of civil society that enable forms of commerce that rely on trust and the rule of law.

Ah, I don’t know why the link didn’t work. I’ll try again.

Thoughts from two years ago here.