Discussion Main / WonTheWarLostThePeace

This is much too complex and contentious area to box up as this trope. It just looks like shoehorning some history that vaguely matches the template.

• The American Civil War's ultimate cause is debated to this day, but one positive outcome of the war is the freeing of the slaves. Unfortunately, after a decade or so of remarkable steps forward in civil rights for the freed slaves, there was a giant leap back, with imposition of Jim Crow laws, segregation, disenfranchisement, and terrorism against blacks. The South made a huge political comeback, and with the rest of the country acquiescing, progress in civil rights stagnated. African-Americans became second class citizens for a century after being ostensibly freed in the war.
  
  The federal government was dominated by the Republican Party for a generation after the war, which paved the way for the graft and corruption that characterized the post-war years. Not that the Republicans were especially corrupt; they just had an easier time of it without a strong opposition party.

As there's a restriction on Real Life examples explained on No Recent Examples, Please!, but it isn't currently on the trope page itself, there's a proposal to add it under discussion on the Trope Description Improvement Drive thread. Please comment there if you have a view.

Vietnam is not remotely this. The US gave up, France gave up, and South Vietnam and the US and China-backed Khmer Rouge were defeated. North Vietnam is the undisputed winner outside of revanchist stab in the back fantasies of american nationalists.

Please provide details — see How To Write An Example.