u/PappiStalin

So I've been watching a lot of youtube docs in my free time recently on the american-vietnam war, and started noticing something interesting, the South Vietnamese military is generally spoken of very highly by both the documentaries hosts and also the commenters on the videos. Then I started thinking about how another american war recently had a similar dynamic where the United States heavily supported and propped up an indigenous government and military to combat another indigenous threat, this referring to the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and that in that war, the general consensus on the Afghan National Army in most online circles is that they were largely a corrupt, incompetent fighting force that all but collapsed once the Americans completed their pull-out.

So it got me thinking, what exactly created this massive split in opinions. Was the South Vietnamese military just that much more competent against their enemy when compared to the ANA against the Taliban? Are most people just more cynical than they should be towards the ANA? And also, what were the contemporary opinions of the American soldiers and public of the South Vietnamese military while the war was happening, and do they differ from then to now?

I'm no expert on either of these topics for sure, but I do know a fair bit about both conflicts. And generally from the knowledge I do have, Id probably agree that the South Vietnamese were likely more effective against the NVA and Viet-cong, but I also just do not know a lot about how the ANA actually performed outside of the propaganda and the online opinions.