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smell during the Cold War the US and the Soviet Union both had spheres of

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influence basically there were parts of the world that took money and advice [world map with USA and USSR]

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from one superpower or the other and no you don't mean the green lanten or the

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flash that's a different story there sometimes however money and advice [green lantern as a therapist]

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weren't enough sometimes the Americans and the Soviets would take a country and

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slip it on like a glove the glove might look like South Korea but there was [Uncle Sam with South Korea boxing gloves]

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actually an American hand under there yeah and this folks is how you get proxy

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wars well no not by putting countries on your

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hand that's actually impossible once you have a giant here anyway in other words

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the US and Soviet Union weren't allowed to go to war with each other we all know [ref stops US and Soviets from fighting]

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what that war would look like yeah boom right be the end of dr. Strangelove

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so the Americans and Soviets would get other countries to fight on their behalf

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it was bad for everyone well the Korean War was the first of the big proxy wars

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yes there were little ones too North Korea was backed by the Soviets and the

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Communist Chinese and South Korea was backed by the United Nations and the [world map with Chine and North Korean figures]

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United States the fighting went on for three years and nobody won and in fact

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the Korean War is still on today technically because nobody signed a

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peace treaty when the bullets stop flying which is why North Korea still

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takes cássia napot shots at its neighbors with the south [Kim Jong-un on military base]

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well the Korean War demonstrated a couple of things first that whole China

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will never be a threat to us things that the Americans thought in the late 1940s [map of china]

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that didn't work out did it it was pretty wrong yeah second the American

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commitment to Korea showed that the u.s. was very very serious about containing [US boxing against communism]

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communism like super serious though they haven't taken to wearing capes and

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tights so maybe not as super serious is it could be and yeah in case you've been [superman flying through sky]

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sleeping under rock under Mars in the interim China's become the dominant

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economic world power and yeah go China how's your Mandarin all right well

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another major proxy war was the conflict in Vietnam

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this was the tragedy that took the bloom off the American rose and we don't talk [rose not blooming]

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about it enough the last time we checked in the UN had just brokered a

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nonsensical peace that made every party furious okay no point mean on every

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party see a man named no Dinh Diem came to power in South Vietnam his family

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lived high on the hog while simultaneously canceling elections [world map with Vietnam figures]

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torturing civilians and persecuting non Catholics no word on whether or not the

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Hogg approved at this behavior a communist rebel movement called the

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Vietcong sprung up in response to the diem regime and did a really great job [old Vietnam photos]

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of making life art in South Vietnam and of course the Viet Cong had support from

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the North Vietnamese and pretty much every person in South Vietnam who wasn't

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tied to diem well the Americans knew again was unpopular and yet when we

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looked at the map we imagined the worst if Vietnam unified and went communist [world map]

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would other Southeast Asian countries go communist too would all of Asia go

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communist Oh was too horrible to contemplate law was evil commies what

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would they do to us well so the u.s. broke out the napalm that stuff and went [US planes fly through sky]

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off to fight a war we couldn't possibly win but who really can resist the smell

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of napalm in the morning

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