Whether it is Russia, the United States, or China, the requirement for the existence of a hegemonic power is always confrontation and war. It's just like tuna will die from lack of oxygen if they don't continue migrating. As Russia's invasion of Ukraine deepens into chaos, and 50 years have passed since the Paris Agreement that ended the Vietnam War, there are many lessons to be learned from previous wars.
Ken Kaiko arrived in Vietnam in the fall of 1964. This was the time when the U.S. Congress adopted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, claiming that a U.S. warship providing military support to South Vietnam had been "hit" by a North Vietnamese attack, and the Johnson administration began full-scale intervention. Afterwards, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, in which the "Pentagon Papers" revealed a false flag operation by the US government, led to intensified "bombing of the north" and the United States became mired in the quagmire of the Vietnam War.
Born in 1930, Kaiko had been forced into a militaristic education as an impressionable teenager and had experienced war through air raids and famine. Although he became a darling of the trend of frivolous postwar society that continued to experience high economic growth, why did he risk his life to report on the battlefield in Vietnam? Although there are various views, one of the author's representative works "Vietnam War Chronicles", which records the battlefield, hints at doubts about Japan's post-war shift from militarism to turn rapidly.
The author himself hated militarism and war. In the first half of this book, he expressed his confusion as a war correspondent and his honest surprised when he learned the true inside of international politics. Eventually, he met a former Japanese soldier who remained in Vietnam after the end of the Pacific War, joining the Viet Cong and continuing to fight against the Americans. Kaiko realized that the reason why the soldier did not surrender was that fighting consistently was the only confirmation of his existence. However, what transformed Kaiko into a real "journalist" was witnessing the execution of a Viet Cong boy in a square in Saigon, former South Vietnam.
Around this time, the United States was promoting the "Domino Theory," which strongly warned of Vietnam becoming a communist country. This is very similar to Russia, which is currently invading Ukraine to prevent it from "NATO enlargement." When it comes to plans to divide and rule strategically important countries, the United States and Russia stand on the same principles. In the book, which recorded Kaiko's monologue, Kaiko said, "I want to know the reality of the battlefield," and headed to "Bencat(Venkat)," a fierce battle site on the front lines. He exposed his life on a battlefield where there was "no enemy or friend, no good or bad, no communist or capitalist ideology," only a naked murderous intent. (to be continued)
*This text was taken from the author's Waseda University Extension College's online course "Understanding the World from the Battlefield - What Non-Fiction Covered" released in February 2023.