American Foreign Policy Caused the Vietnam War

1000 Words2 Pages

War in Vietnam is the longest military conflict U.S. were involved in during 20th century. However, 20 years before the official war declaration, in 1944, no one would have ever guessed that the area of South East Asia is going to experience such development. Having approached the Vietnam situation with wrong policy, underestimating the motivation and determination due to historical memory, in the hostile conditions caused US were unable to suppress the communist insurgency in South Vietnam, which later turned into a David vs. Goliath type of conflict.
Origins of Conflict
In the colonial era, the world was divided into the colonies of European empires. France, among others, used military force and presence to rule in Vietnam and bordering countries, at that time called French Indochina. The French ruled with its army between 1854 and 1884 in the country, and about this time the aversion and disgust of Vietnamese people initiated against the French and other supremacy powers. One of the many effects of World War II was that European states, lost its imperialist and superpower status, as the World slowly shifted into the bipolar era - United States contra Soviet Union.
As a consequence, September 2nd, 1945, Vietnam declared independence from French imperialist and the Japanese military, which invaded Indochina (Vietnam) during the World War II. Kevin Reilly in his Readings in the World Civilizations recorded Ho Chi Minh’s speech while declaring the independence of Vietnam in 1945, where Ho Chi Min captured the frustration Vietnamese felt over the 80 years of French dominance. Ironically, Ho Chi Min, out of respect started his speech with the citation of American declaration of independence. He talked about unequal laws, role in ...

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...d perhaps applied more reunification talks, consensual & diplomatic politics combined with economic aid and cooperation and tried to persuade Vietnamese just like they did in Western Europe (even though Europe was probably the easier case), instead of supporting undemocratic means of French puppet regime, there might as well would never been a communist insurgence to suppress and Vietnam war to fight.

Bibliography
Akins, John. Nam Au Go Go, 2005 (1-10).

Grantham, Dewey W. Recent America: The United States since 1945, 1998.

Herring, George C. “The Nightmare of Vietnam,” in Oates, Stephen B., Portrait of
America, 1987: 410 – 425.

Ho Chi Minh, “The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence,” in Kevin Reilly, Readings in World Civilizations Vol 2., 1992: 278 – 281.

Verrone, Richard Burks, Voices from Vietnam: Eye-witness Accounts of the War, 1954-
1975, 2005.

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