Monroe Doctrine Vietnam War

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Every U.S. president has their own foreign policy, the majority are in the form of a doctrine. An example of this was the Monroe Doctrine created by President James Monroe which is very iconic and agreed upon by many other presidents. One of the presidents who agreed with the Monroe Doctrine was President Richard Nixon in 1969 when he created the Nixon Doctrine in response to the Vietnam War (ABC-CLIO Solutions). The Vietnam War was a part of the Cold War in an attempt to fight against global communism. This war was expensive, deadly, and opposed by most citizens which is why Nixon created his doctrine. The Nixon Doctrine would withdraw all troops in Asia and argue how each nation needs to do its own part to fight communism. It shouldn’t just …show more content…

This is a statement of policy, which as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, I am making in meeting my responsibility for the protection of American fighting men wherever they may be” (ABC-CLIO Solutions). This is a quote from Nixon’s Vietnam War Speech when he talks about his foreign policy with Vietnam. Nixon is not trying to make the war worse he is simply trying to protect his citizens. Protecting the people is something brought up in the Monroe Doctrine as well, “the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted” (Explora). Monroe wanted to keep America peaceful because there had recently been the Revolutionary War and many citizens were killed so he wants to keep his people safe. Nixon wants to do the same thing since so many lives were lost during the Vietnam War thus, he decided to do what he could to protect the rest of the citizens through his Nixon Doctrine. Both Nixon and Monroe used their foreign policy to protect the people of the United …show more content…

Saying the Nixon Doctrine is like the Monroe Doctrine is sometimes disagreed with because people think the Nixon Doctrine was what started the war with Vietnam. This is not true because the Vietnam War did not start during Nixon’s presidency rather it started during his predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson’s term. “avoid allowing Johnson's war to become Nixon's war” (ABC-CLIO Solutions). Nixon did not want to get involved with other countries and didn’t want the Vietnam War to be remembered as his fault, so he got out of the Vietnam War to become uninvolved. Nixon agreed with Monroe in saying the United States should not get involved with other countries to reduce the number of casualties. He wanted to protect the United States by withdrawing all the troops and did what he could afterward to remain

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