Funnily enough, there was a conversation at the the end of the Vietnam War between the American officer in charge of the withdrawal and a North Vietnamese officer. The American officer snapped, “The truth is you never beat us on the battlefield!” To which the Vietnamese officer replied, “Well, that IS true, but it’s also irrelevant.” And that sums up the whole war perfectly, I think.
That is a really good summation of the war. In my opinion, the Vietnam war was like a kid playing an online shooter, but his parents keep barging in and interrupting him, causing him to die and respawn, effectively holding the kid back and screwing up the team dynamic, and after the kid starts making progress again, it all ends with the parents asking the kid to just flat out stop playing.
@@couragew6260 very good analogy. But don't forget to add that the kid was also those cocky ones you find sometimes. But you had to admit, he was good at times and coulda gotten better if he kept playing.
It was the North Vietnamese who sued for peace operation. Linebacker 2 brought them to their knees because the Air Force was finally allowed to do what was necessary to end the war. The United States agreed to leave Vietnam under the conditions that the north North Vietnamese take appropriate actions in Cambodia and Laos to stop the atrocities being committed by Communists in those regions and the agreement that the north would not invade the South again. The North vietnamist signed these conditions and invaded Laos and Cambodia. That's how Pol pot was deposed... Then 2 years after the Americans left the north went ahead and invaded the South breaking the peace treaty but also overrunning the South so quickly that the Americans couldn't come back to help... America won the Vietnam war
It’s worth looking more into that story about the submarine thinking war had already started. The 3rd officer who refused to give authorisation to launch the nuclear tipped torpedo was lower in rank to other 2 so was probably under a lot of pressure to give authorisation. The reason they thought war had already broke out was because they had lost contact with Russia and a US destroyer was launching depth charges signalling it to come up, the 2 officers thought they were under attack but the 3rd who was an intelligence officer realised that they weren’t under direct attack so refused to give authorisation. The temperatures on bored the sub was over 100 degrees and the sailors were reported to be fainting while on duty as well as the subs electrical power reserves were dropping fast so the amount of pressure that 3rd officer was under is unimaginable.
Arkhipov was the commander of the entire flotilla of 5 submarines...in relation to command of that sub, he was outranked by the Captain the Political Officer, but because he was flotilla commander, he had the authority to reject the use of nukes without surfacing for orders. However, I believe you are correct about pretty much everything else.
arkhipov was higher rank which is why he could decide, on the submarines only two officers had votes, the captain and political officers had votes but because arkhipov was the brigades chief of staff and was on that ship he got a vote, so if those two officers were on any other sub it would have launched
Yeah, world war II was just a case of domestic violence. The Father land beat up the motherland And then the motherland put the fatherland to sleep permanently
Our local tailors a husband/wife pair are Vietnamese war refugees who fled during the "war" and have lived and worked here in Eastern WA ever since. They are super friendly and love to chat, but that era is something they won't talk about.
Czechoslovakia- peaceful revolution for their independence Romania- violent revolution for their independence Estonia- literally just sings for their independence.
Russia had a long standing rivalry with the British Empire before the rivalry with the US. It's been said that a major motivating factor for them selling Alaska to the US was because they thought the US was better situated to keep it away from British hands. During the American Civil War, Russia temporarily stationed a naval fleet in US waters. This was either to deter European intervention in the American Civil War or to deter British intervention in the Polish Insurrection. So the US and Russia used to be "friends" (if not allies).
There was another cool guy in Russia, who prevent start of the nuclear war in 1983. His name was Stanislav Petrov. Just 3 weeks after korean Boeing was shoot down, he was at night watch when nuclear early-warning system reported about multiple rocket launches from USA. By his orders, he should immediately report to command and they probably give order to retaliatory nuclear attack, but instead he disobeyed and decided to check data from system and found that alert probably was false due some errors.
@@toxict3mpz757 I don't know for sure. According to English wiki, sunlight refractions from clouds caused alert. But Russian wiki says that system mistook clouds as rockets.
It’s crazy how every action has a reactions, right? Would their be hippies if it wasn’t for the threat of nuclear war? Hippies were about peace and love but was that bored because of the threat of ending humanity ?
4:19 a US ship was dropping deep charges on the submarine and they had not had contact with the USSR for 14 hours i think so they had no idea if there was a war
12:55- Luke, right now if you substitute America for the UK and Russia with France (and expanded to continental Europe as a whole during the Napoleonic era,) that's pretty much the situation. Btw when Oversimplified the Napoleonic Wars is about due to be done...😄
I've lived in the States my whole life. I clearly remember being 4 or 5 years old. My mother used to listen to the music on the radio for most of the day. Dad was at work as usual. The man on the radio said something and my mother didn't believe it. She said if it were true the TV would tell us as well. My mother turned on the television because she wanted to watch it. This was odd; especially for in the middle of the day. Like she said maybe; regular programs weren't on. It was only a man reading news. My mother listened intently to what she'd already heard on the radio but still could not believe. The man on the television said things that were absolutely incomprehensible to me. My father came home slightly earlier than usual, but still close enough to the regular time to call it. He asked my mother if she'd heard. She'd said that the radio told her. Turns out that was the day the Soviet Union collapsed in epic fashion and the threat of being instantly vaporizer without warning by nuclear weapons had been reduced by about 90%. Then my parents got drunk.
You should react to Grazed By The Apocalypse by Lemmino. He goes over nuclear war a ton and all the occasions that it could have ended the war. It also goes over some other things that are very interesting.
19:18 actually Boris Yeltsin was president of Russian Federation from 1991 to 2000 and under his leadership it was something like democracy and in new year of 2000 Yeltsin said his famous phrase "im leaving, i did my best" and then Putin became Russian president
The Russian officer who refused to authorize the launch of his sub's nuclear torpedo quite literally single-handedly averted nuclear war and likely prevented nuclear war. Which wouldn't have been the end of the world, but certainly would have been the end of North America, most of Europe, Russia, and a lot of Asia.
I know a lot about the moment of the Berlin Wall finally falling from my aero science teacher Mr. Griffith; he was actually there when it happened, and there’s a famous photo taken of him on the wall right in the center. The photo shows a bunch of people holding hands while on top of the wall, and a man in a red sweater right in the center in front of them. He even has a piece of the Berlin Wall in his class that he took.
20:17 As a citizen of Latvia (a former Soviet republic) I can say that our governments, as well as most other post-USSR republics, are very much democratic. We vote for our government and we are members of EU and NATO
Like Rixas said, Russia is an authoritarian state. And Kazakhstan. And Belarus. And Tajikistan. And Azerbaijan. And Turkmenistan. And Uzbekistan. Of the 15 former Soviet Union states, only 3 are considered flawed democracies (like the US), half are authoritarian regimes and 5 are hybrid regimes.
You’re right about entertainment in learning. I learned a lot more from Magic School Bus, Schoolhouse Rock, and Beakman’s World than I ever did from classrooms.
As a German, plus former Soldier with NATO- Action, i cant prevent my Tears from rolling when the Part about the falling of the Berlin Wall comes up. I was a Kid when it happend, but its still BIG.
Gorbachev cites Chernobyl as the beginning of the end. It was long after the Space Race etc had ended. And yes, it was an immensely costly disaster, but that wasn't the real reason he says that - it was because it showed the outside world that the Soviet Union was in fact, not the flawless paradise they had tried to make out, and in turn, it exposed those cracks to the different countries that made up the Soviet Union, and especially the countries of the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union, by the way, is what you should refer to it as. Russia was certainly the dominant Soviet Socialist Republic that made up the USSR but it was only one of many. To call it Russia is to ignore the tens of millions of other peoples that made up that "evil empire".
The fact that Oversimplified does not even mention Chernobyl is a major omission...I think it is the biggest error that I have spotted in any of Oversimplified's videos.
Yes, America did support an invasion of Cuba only because of Communism. There was also an incident in the USSR where a man saw readings of a single American ICBM coming his way and was about to launch the ICBM's where he was in retaliation but figured out it was a false reading because only ONE American ICBM was on the radar. The main reason the USSR lost the space race is they were only doing it for propaganda purposes. And when the man in charge of the Russian space program died it basically went full downhill.
Jimmy Caters lost mostly because of his policies at home that was destroying the Economy. Not just because Americans wanted someone who could deal with the Soviets.
That picture/graffiti of Brezhnev kissing Erich Honecker is on the Berlin Wall. It's an imitation of the original photograph (which I think was in black and white) from 1973.
Definitely not a “stalemate” in Afghanistan, the Taliban out right refused to engage US troops anymore out of fear. That’s why since 2015 no more then 20 we’re killed in fighting against the Taliban a year. It was premature and I would consider it a “objective loss” considering not all the military objectives were met but the original ones were. We technically did what we went there for and stayed way to long. The truth is Afghanistan is still very tribal and they don’t exactly care or even see Afghanistan as a untied country (many hate each other and have many tribal feuds). As soon as US air support was scaled back and withdrawn they just gave up and handed over all the US equipment that was sold/landed to them. The entire thing is incredibly sad but the notion that the Taliban defeated the US just isn’t true. Literally a total of 3 known Taliban members lived through out the entire war, it’s easy to combat and kill them all, but when you can convince any educated goat herder and his sons to join it’s never going to end. The Taliban were known to abduct villagers and murder them just too turn around blame the US, along with falsely reporting citizen deaths by US air strikes. It’s easy to recruit when you convince Mohammad from down the block that the botched RPG attack by a rival tribe that killed his brother was actually a US air stoke.
Check out “The Pig War” ! Britain (Canada in the 1950’s) almost went to war with the United States ( again). It’s not well known and this OverSimplified video is hilarious !
The bombs weren’t “lost” in the sense you’re thinking. Technically a “broken arrow” could mean a nuke was loaded on the wrong plane and found within hours. None of the nukes are just out there in the open. All of them were recovered pretty quickly.
Ford always maintained he pardoned Nixon to get the issue "off his desk" as it was taking up so much of his time, not because he necessarily thought Nixon deserved to be pardoned (shrug).
I’m not gonna lie, I’m a new follower to the channel but I love it and appreciate the content. I looked for your most recent upload because in uploads I watched from 3-4 months ago you’ve spoke about converting the school bus and touring the US - with that said I just wanted to say that if you’re passing anywhere near or through Daytona Beach, Florida, or eastern Ohio, you have a place to stay and/or park your bus at my house for a night or however many and a hot meal(s) provided if you’d like (I travel between both homes sporadically so a date(s) would have to be approximated at least slightly in advance to ensure I’m there). Much respect and it’s the least I could do for a veteran of (almost) any nation. And space for parking would not be an issue. I know this will probably go unnoticed or be written off but in the slight off chance it isn’t, the offer stands. Thank you for your service and god bless.
Even more scary is that the guy on the submarine who refused to fire the missile, wasn't even supposed to be there. It was just by chance that he was on the sub.
14:32 It wasn't just money. It was quite a scandal in the USSR because this essentially endangered people's lives and the USSR had a very delayed reaction to it, thus causing many deaths.
If you want horror, I would literally pay to watch a stream of you playing alien isolation... with your microphone on. Gotta be pitch black in the room though lmao no cheating
You should watch the Cuban Missile Crisis by Extra Credits (Extra History)! It delves deeper on the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the style in terms of art and delivery is just as fun and digestible as Oversimplified’s! The narration is cool too. They also have a lot of other history videos that you might be interested in, and the way they’re made are on-par with Oversimplified’s (not saying they’re better or worse, Extra History is its own thing, but they’re just as good).
Gorbachev is one of the few history exceptional people in who actually cared and wanted to do good for the people. I think maybe if he had the opportunity to be elected by the people, Russia would've been in better position, although after that it wouldn't have stopped other leaders to take advantage, but maybe he was going to be able to push Russia into a better direction. Which also makes me think what if instead of Stalin, USSR got leader with Gorbachev's mindset after Lenin and gave example what communism should be, maybe the whole regime was going to look completely different. I think one of the biggest problem of the communist regime is that in every case it was forcefully applied and ruled by fear. And before someone label me as a communist or something, no I'm not, but I like to think philosophically
I was 11 when the Cuban Missle Crisis happened and was sure if Washington got hit , it was coming across the Pacific Ocean. Living next to McCord AFB & Ft. Lewis we would be first. I started to dig a hole for shelter but hit the septic tank and gave up. The Era of Bomb Shelters.
The reason why so many nukes were lost is that US long range strategic bombers were to fly missions for many hours a day and constantly stay airborne in case of nuclear war so they can deploy nuclear weapons on the Soviets, as long range nuclear capable ballistic missiles weren’t numerous or accurate. Quite a few instances of B-52 bombers colliding with aerial refueling tanker aircraft which resulted in accidentally dropped nuclear warheads, some even on US soil where in one case one of the nukes was armed I believe but never went off due to a malfunction. This was called Operation Chrome Dome in the 1960s.
You should totally react to the movie ‘Thirteen Days,’ about the Cuban Missle Crisis, as well as the Armchair Historian video ‘Cuban Missle Crisis from the Cuban perspective.’
You should look up his video on Prohibition. It's not really military-focused but it's such a bizarre time period in American history, and I don't think it's well known outside the US. Also his video is hilarious.
The roots of the Vietnam War go all the way back to World War II. During WW2, the Allies secured the help of Ho Chi Minh against the Japanese in China in exchange for a promise that, after the war, the French wouldn't return to Indochina. However, after the war (and over Truman's protests), the French returned to their prewar colony, and that's when Ho Chi Minh started fighting them.
Not the space race, but the Chernobyl incident is one the key incidents that lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. There is a lot more to is than that and it's very complicated. I also enjoyed Chernobyl, and I think it highlighted many of the issues that still lingered from it's inception.
My grandfather fought in Vietnam a common flashback of his is a recon troop still alive completely naked with cuts all over him strung up in-between two trees covered with bugs with his (AREA) Cut off and shoved in his mouth with his mouth sewed shut with bamboo, he had a pit filled with bamboo sharpened to a point, he had bamboo sticking out of him, my grandfather says the women of Vietnam are ruthless
Chernobyl actually took reserves meant for Afghanistan out of play. Not sure which is worse, though. Dying at the hands of Dushmen or from radiation poisoning.
1:59 That is sort of true. Remember, Truman had a Containment Policy, where they would take certain measures to prevent the spread of communist ideologies which will prevent Russia from obtaining more allies. Same thing for Vietnam, America joined the war to prevent the country from becoming communist. The Berlin airlift and the reconstruction of West Germany. They did all of this to make Capitalism look better than communism, thus shifting peoples thoughts on communism. But I think they also wanted to invade Cuba because they saw them as a threat to the US, which they were correct about as you can see during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The cost of Chernobyl and the Soviet Afghan war were major factors in the collapse of the Soviet Union, however one rarely mentioned cause was the cost of oil. In the 80s the US supported a coup in Venezuela and US companies took control of Venezuelan oil, as well as the improvement in relations between Saudi Arabia and the US. Russia's economy has long been dependent on petroleum exports, and in tne 80s Saudi Arabia also used their influence in OPEC to crash the cost of oil. Beween these to events the Soviet economy was massively damaged and was possibly the greatest single factor leading to the breakup.
No joke-Gorbachev actually was in a Pizza Hut commercial while he was in charge. He’s an interesting figure- on the one hand he caused his country to lose a whole lot of territory and influence, but on the other this was done with widespread cheers from the majority of the people who actually lived there. So overall I’d say he did what a leader is supposed to to-represent the will of the people.
The large number of "broken arrow" incidents make more sense when you think about how they operated at the time. For many years, all nuclear weapons were bombs, meaning they had to be flown in by an aircraft capable of dropping them and getting away quickly. Out of fear of a Soviet first strike, these aircraft were kept in the air so they couldn't be destroyed on the ground. In later years as planes were no longer the primary means of deployment, incidents were either destruction on the ground of weapons or weapons components, or incidents involving nuclear submarines. There have been 32 US "broken arrow" incidents and several Soviet incidents. 6 were never recovered. That said, it's not quite as scary as it sounds. "Broken arrow" means a "nuclear weapon" (which seems to include nuclear reactors powering submarines) was lost or destroyed, and it doesn't actually require the nuclear weapon to have nuclear material. Of those 6 that were never recovered, 4 did not have nuclear material (July 28, 1957, two weapons were jettisoned over the ocean but neither had nuclear components installed. February 5, 1958 in Georgia another bomb was jettisoned after a collision but did not have the nuclear capsule installed. September 25, 1959 in Washington, a plane ditched that had a nuclear antisubmarine weapon that didn't have its nuclear components installed.). Of the 2 that did involve nuclear material, one was buried in the ground and the military now owns that land to protect it, and the other was 500 miles from the nearest land. (January 24, 1961 over North Carolina was one of the few that contained nuclear material. It was not recovered due to burying itself more than 50 feet deep in waterlogged farmland. December 5, 1965, an aircraft was lost at sea when a plane rolled off the deck of an aircraft carrier with a nuclear weapon loaded and was never found.) If you're curious, Atomic Archive has a full list of the incidents that have been declassified with details about each.
Found it interesting it skipped over the Bay of Pigs invasion, which became the reasoning Cuba said in defense of their country. The Cuban situation was complicated would put it mildly... any who....
For interesting stories look up Dr. Creepen and his series called the tales from the iron triangle. That deals with a sector of veitnam during the war where strange and unusual things happen. As the stories can keep you on the edge of your seat.
The wall between East Germany and West Germany really left scars. My father was from East Germany and even though it wasn't a real democracy they lived well. But many from West Germany didn't take the East Germans seriously like a small subgroup. There was a lot of hatred that continues to this day. They felled the wall and that was good too and they wanted to do that, but relatively quickly it was noticed that the GDR had been taken over by the FRG, so the unified Germany was just the FRG. Of course, as I said, the GDR was not a real democracy, but it was still home. Especially for my father who was born there. And many East Germans were still smiled at and not taken seriously. So the hate grew on one side and then on the other. To this day, my father and grandfather don't think it's good when so many West Germans can be seen here in East Germany, although that no longer exists for me and they also know that they're just people. Many will not forget the hatred and how they were not taken seriously and treated badly. Even worse is that the GDR was later portrayed as a completely evil dictatorship. Which is partly true, partly not. A whole generation of actually uniform Germans was thus destroyed. And it would be naïve to think that this hatred will die when the generation is gone. Because many parents will pass this on to their children. Luckily my father was a bit more relaxed and wanted me to have nothing to do with it. And all those scars to this day because of that wall, because of that separation. I find it very sad Bro i just love your reaction such a British - American brother! Great country and great history. I just love history
You should react to Lemino video called grazed by the apocalypse, it really shows how close nuclear war almost occurred. Also his content is very high quality
Hey there, will you be doing any more Warhammer 40k videos, whether they be games or lore, or just things about it in general? If so, I'm looking forward to it. Stay safe
Mid 1990s to about 2010 there was no longer much tension with Russia. Tensions returned with Bush's funding of a new missile defense program (though technically Russia has its own, albeit a limited form) and Russia supporting separatists in the country of Georgia (they also had not been thrilled with NATO's involvement in the Balkans and the de facto independence of Kosovo because Russia supported Serbia, but they didn't make as big a deal about it till later).
The definition of winning the war is to win a series of battles causing either the destruction or Surrender of an enemy. That's exactly what we did to Afghanistan and it only took us two months to do so. Then we hung out there in their own backyard for 20 years. If that's not winning a war then I don't know what the hell is. Just because politicians made a choice 20 years later to pull out, that doesn't change the outcome of the War.
@@Perseus7567 they spent 20 years hiding either in Pakistan or in mountain/cave systems close to the borders of Pakistan. If somebody comes to your home and kicks your ass so bad that you leave your home behind in hide in caves for twenty years, then you only come out at the end of the 20 years after the person who kicked your ass gave you permission to, then you lost the war simple as that. And they had 20 years to rebuild their forces so of course they had some numbers when they first re-entered Afghanistan. The only reason that they took it back so quick was because the majority of the Afghan armed forces were too afraid to fight back probably because they didn't want their families to become targets. The Afghan forces had more numbers in the Taliban, better weapons and equipment, advantage of fortified defensive positions, and better training. They could have easily fought off the Taliban if they had the resolve to do so. All of the ground that they took back they took back with no resistance or very minimal resistance because either the majority or all troops retreated before the fight even begin. It wasn't until after the Afghan military collapse that the Taliban numbers grew as high as they are now. That's only because a lot of people switched sides and promised to fight for the Taliban in exchange for forgiveness. The outcome of War can't be changed 20 years after the war ends. It's a shame that the Afghan troops did not fight back, but that's ultimately a choice that only they can make. Like I said they had the numbers fight and win, the training necessary to fight and win, the Fortified positions to help them win, and the Weaponry/equipment to fight in win, they just didn't have the heart or resolve to fight and win. Which changed my opinion on the whole subject. I was strongly against leaving, but after seeing that they aren't even willing to fight for themselves, now makes me second-guess whether or not we should be fighting for them that.
@@-NOCAP- War doesn't end until one or both sides back down. No one backed down, they still kept attacking each other even 20 years later - well actually ISAF tended to do more of a training role than combat, but still. Retreating and relying on Guerrilla warfare doesn't mean the war is lost. The Polish Army had to completely retreat out of their country after the Nazi Invasion. Under your logic, the Poles lost the war back in Sep' 1939. Same would apply to the French, Czechs, etc. The tactics by the Taliban are questionable sure, but they are still existent and still combative.
@@Perseus7567 Definition of War: War is an intense armed conflict[a] between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, aggression, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces. Definition on how to win a war: To win a series of armed conflicts with another nation, state, or group. Definition of winning a war from a 2nd source: Victory means deposing the other side’s political system and replacing it with one of the victor’s choosing. I would say that every one of those conditions put forward within the definitions has been met. When you leave your home country behind an hide for 20 years in a separate country using politics to keep you safe, then you lost the war. They had twenty years to come out and engage with us but they were too damn scared. Even if they would have attacked 10 years later and won the second time it wouldn't of changed the outcome of the first war. It would be a completely different War. Perfect example would be the the sino-japanese war between China and Japan. History has Japan on The Winning Side of the sino-japanese war, about 30 years past and the fighting started again, they didn't go back and change history and suddenly saying that Japan did not win that war. They named it the second sino-japanese war and counted it is a completely different War. Go back in history and you will see that same scenario play out again and again and again. What you will never see is the second war Crossing out the results of the first War. So it's funny how everybody was content with the rules of War for thousands of years never once trying to change the definition, until they see an opportunity trying to make America look bad. You show me anywhere in history where the results of the war change 20 years after the war ends. And most of the time a country has won a war followed by the Victor staying behind and occupying, there has been people from the occupied side who aren't happy and sometime started revolutionary group that launches surprise attacks on the occupying soldiers. But even when that happened that has never changed the outcome of the war. Changing definitions to fit your hatred, just isn't how it works.
@@-NOCAP- The goals were met, temporarily. Sure maybe. But you don't win wars by temporary achievements that only last whilst your there, otherwise the Nazi's won the war against France because they, under your very definitions, won temporarily. "They had twenty years to come out and engage with us but they were too damn scared." They did, repeatedly. I mean if they never engaged with US forces then how did 2,354 servicemen die in the last 20 years? By falling down the stairs or something? The Govt should look in to replacing those stairs, jeez. "Even if they would have attacked 10 years later and won the second time it wouldn't of changed the outcome of the first war. It would be a completely different War. " That's not how wars are classified though... if the 2018 Peace agreements never happened, if N Korea attacked S Korea it wouldn't be a separate war as no agreement it ended was ever made. "They named it the second sino-japanese war and counted it is a completely different War." You know why? Because a peace agreement was made: the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed ending hostilities and forcing one side to take blame and pay up. "You show me anywhere in history where the results of the war change 20 years after the war ends." But that's the point, it hasn't ended. It's gone on for 20 years as the same war, it never ended. Changing definitions to fit your false desire to have never lost a war, just isn't how it works.
