You said Hồ Chí Minh "chose war." Let me reconstruct the timeline so we're working from actual events rather than impressions. 1858: France begins military conquest of Vietnam. 1887: France formally establishes French Indochina. 1945: Hồ Chí Minh declares Vietnamese independence after Japanese occupation ends. 1945: France announces its intention to recolonize Vietnam. 1946: Hồ Chí Minh negotiates in Paris. Signs preliminary agreements. 1946: France shells Haiphong. Kills six thousand civilians. Occupies Hanoi. 1954: Vietnam defeats France at Điện Biên Phủ. Geneva Accords mandate national elections. 1956: United States prevents the elections because Hồ Chí Minh would win 80 percent. 1965: United States begins massive military escalation. 1975: Vietnam wins. At which moment in that sequence did Hồ Chí Minh "choose war" in the sense that implies a peaceful alternative was available and he rejected it? The French chose war in 1946 when they shelled Haiphong. The Americans chose war in 1956 when they cancelled the election. The Americans chose war again in 1964 with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The attack that justified it was fabricated. They knew. They escalated anyway. Hồ Chí Minh responded to wars that were brought to his country. For over a century, from 1858 to the end of the American war in 1975, Vietnam was a country being fought over by foreign powers. The question is not why Hồ Chí Minh chose war. The question is why you describe as a choice something that was, for the Vietnamese people, simply the condition of existence under colonialism.