In essence, the Vietnam War was an American military intervention against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the North, and insurgent forces in the South. Yet, the war also involved the participation, civilian and otherwise, of other countries. Neutral Sweden was the only Western country that had an embassy in Hanoi. Diplomatic relations with the North Vietnam enabled the Swedes to assist the families of American prisoners-of-war. Since Hanoi provided no information to the Nixon administration, Lubna Qureshi explains how Stockholm helped to confirm the imprisonment of servicemen whose families did not know whether they were alive or dead. Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme,
an advocate for peace, realized that alleviating the suffering of the POW families could help turn the American public more firmly against the war. While Sweden opposed the American war effort, the Philippines supported it. Filipino
engineers and construction workers contributed to the development of the South Vietnamese infrastructure. According to John Tran, this “privatized recruitment of Filipino personnel” helped make a “globalized Vietnam War” possible.
Assiniboine-Sioux Indians may have been citizens of the United States, but as they saw it, they were living under a foreign occupation. Therefore, the Assiniboine-Sioux could empathize with the North Vietnam’s struggle. The North Vietnamese, impressed with this empathy, extended an invitation to Hanoi to Assiniboine-Sioux activist Hank Adams and the Survival of American Indian Association (SAIA). “Although the trip was ultimately thwarted by the U.S. government through the timely arrest and deportation of Adams,” John Mollet writes, “the planned exchange reveals a sophisticated effort at indigenous transnational solidarity.” In contrast to Sweden and the Philippines, Australia’s engagement was fully military. Prime Minister Harold Holt actually sent several battalions of troops to South Vietnam. Holt’s pronouncement that he was “All the way with LBJ” created controversy in his own country. Ben Quail argues that the prime minister “succeeded in securing American backing and support at an integral moment for Australia – as the United Kingdom began to withdraw military support east of the Suez Canal in the late 1960s.”