China, Russia, and America are at war between authoritarian communists and a free-world democracy backed by allies. If authoritarian communists dropped "authoritarianism" and pursued their socialist model, respecting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then the enemies could coexist.
During my early years in boyhood, all the talk was about the Korean Conflict, Americans combatting communists in North Korea, and trying to hold the line of freedom for South Koreans. The enemy was communist authoritarianism, and the Korean conflict became a proxy war between the U.S. and China in the Korean Peninsula. At one point, I recall my grandfather saying he thought a nuclear war would happen. The Korean War didn't end, and by the time I was a teen in high school, the Vietnam War was underway.
Vietnam was another proxy war between the U.S. and China. Fear was that the Chinese Communist would steamroll the sovereign nations in South Asia.
Studying political science in my first year of college, I understood the domino theory, except several books enlightened and enriched my understanding with lasting effect.
China on the Eve of Communist Takeover, January 1, 1966
by Barnett A. Doak (Author)
I read the Doak book while on Active Training Duty at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where I learned how to be an infantry soldier. The story follows a journalist covering the collapse of the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek. The Nationalists sought to retain control of the cities, while the communists under Mao Zedong strategically sought the power of the farmers, knowing the cities could not survive without food. The communists strangled the towns. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan, and there they are today, still being pursued by the communists.
"In 1945, the leaders of the Nationalist and Communist parties, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, met for a series of talks on forming a post-war government. Both agreed on the importance of democracy, a unified military, and equality for all Chinese political parties."
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/chinese-rev#:~:text=In%201945%2C%20the%20leaders%20of,for%20all%20Chinese%20political%20parties.
The Ugly American
The Ugly American is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer that depicts the failures of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Southeast Asia.
The book caused a sensation in diplomatic circles and had major political implications. The Peace Corps was established during the Kennedy administration partly as a result of the book.
Lederer was a US Naval Academy graduate in 1936. His first appointment was as the junior officer of a river gunboat on the Yangtze River.
His best-selling work, 1958's The Ugly American, was one of several novels co-written with Eugene Burdick. Disillusioned with the style and substance of America's diplomatic efforts in Southeast Asia, Lederer and Burdick openly sought to demonstrate their belief that American officials and civilians could make a substantial difference in Southeast Asian politics if they were willing to learn local languages, follow local customs and employ regional military tactics. However, if American policymakers ignored the logic behind these lessons, Southeast Asia would fall under Soviet or Chinese Communist influence."
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40180100-the-ugly-american
Street Without Joy, Bernard Fall
"Street without Joy is a 1961 book about the First Indochina War (1946–1954); it was revised in 1964. The author Bernard B. Fall was a French-American professor and journalist. He had been on-site as a French soldier and then as an American war correspondent. The book gives a first-hand look at the French engagement, with an insider understanding of Vietnamese events, and provides insights into guerrilla warfare. It drew wide interest among Americans in the mid-1960s, when their own country markedly increased its activity in the Vietnam War."
"And therein lay a problem, Fall concluded, for the support of that local populace was absolutely vital. 'In revolutionary war,' he wrote, 'the allegiance of the civilian population becomes one of the most vital objectives of the whole struggle. This is indeed the key message that Trinquier' (the French military theorist) 'seeks to impress upon his reader: Military tactics and hardware are all well and good, but they are quite useless if one has lost the confidence of the population among whom one is fighting.'"
