Was the Vietnam war necessary?

That is to say, do you think there was there any credence in the domino theory, or at the very least enough that the Vietnam war was necessary as a bulwark against it?

Would the US (and Vietnam) have been better if large scale US intervention had not proceeded?

The domino theory seems to me to have been largely subterfuge. I think that "we", with we being the US and the USSR, wanted to test each others reach and resolve in a place that neither one largely cared about and that was far enough away from home so as to make it almost a testing ground. I don't think that either side was satisfied after Korea about what the other would do, so to me the Vietnam war was just another dance of détente between the only superpowers of the mid 20th century.

Necessary in what way? Necessary to whom?

If you mean, was there a threat to the US? No. Was the Domino Theory valid? No.

I have a slightly different perspective on this, since I'm from Vietnam myself and very much a product of that conflict. My dad was American and my mom is Vietnamese. My mom's brother was a Swift Boat sailor four four years - one of the very few Vietnamese sailors to do so. From 1975-1990, my parents helped dozens of extended family and members of my mom's temple through the refugee camps of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Australia, and into the U.S.

So I look on the conflict as more than simply a question of whether or not the domino theory was valid (it wasn't) because it's personal to me. The Vietnamese people I know well universally support the U.S. military intervention in Vietnam, and wish we had stayed there. They universally hated the communist regime to the point of willingly going through years in refugee camps, often in different camps than the rest of their family, to get away from it. This is due not only to the economic effects of communism - FWIW, none of them were wealthy people even before the war - but because of the anti-religious oppression they felt from the communists.

I just don't know, we tied up the Soviets pretty well but what a farce and horrific waste of life the whole war was. I wish we had made more efforts immediately after WWII in Eastern Europe instead. This would have kept the Soviets far more contained and nervous and I think the people were closer to be ready for some form of Western Democracy. I don't think in the end Vietnam was worth the cost in lives. The fact we were yet again supporting a fairly distasteful non-democracy increases my feelings Vietnam was a waste. South Korea is a shining example where our intervention did work and North Korea is probably the best example of how bad a "communist" nation could be. Vietnam seemed ill-conceived especially as we essentially took over a French created mess.

In the end I think it was a terrible mistake. We chose the wrong battle. It nearly tore us apart instead.

I'm not willing to touch this type of question unless I'm drinking and we're both talking face to face, it's too complicated for me to answer otherwise. All I know is that the North Vietnamese Army was a fine fighting force, great really, and they paid a higher cost than we were willing to pay to win that victory. We can break it down into what happened to America, or the various misconceptions some of you have about how much the Soviets actually helped, but it's all for naught. History rolls on.