The readings and lecture have identified several formative activities that defined the American understanding of world history from 1946 to 1989 (and American activity during that period): Baruch’s labeling of world conflict as the Cold War in 1947, the Truman Doctrine of 1947, and Eisenhower’s figure of speech about falling dominoes.

As World War II began, the Vietminh formed as a guerilla army to resist French influence in the Vietnamese portion of Indochina. French respect for the Vietminh was so low that they called it “the barefoot army” – and yet the Vietminh organized over time to defeat much more sophisticated French forces by 1954 at Dien Bien Phu.

Let’s discuss how the operating assumptions of conflicting parties and other related nations prohibited constructive discussion at the Geneva Accords meetings of 1954 and brought about the continued failure of the diplomatic process to bring settlement in Vietnam.

From diplomatic effort in general and the 1954 Geneva negotiations in particular, what lessons can we learn about necessary conditions and understandings that are essential for conflict negotiations to succeed?