The Domino Theory

1838 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: President Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War

Morgan Bova
Ms. Davis
Junior College Prep English
18 April 2018
Title
“At the end of WWII, Vietnam was split in two, North and South Vietnam. South Vietnam was a republic, where people voted and practiced all religions, while North Vietnam was a communist country” (Dollard). We sided with the South and agreed to help defend their republic with food aid, education and our military might. We wanted them to win because we wanted to prevent them from become a communist state. “John Foster Dulles, US Secretary of State, had formulated the Domino Theory. This stated that if one country fell to communism, then its neighbour would and then the neighbour to this country. Such an expansion of communist influence in Southeast Asia was unacceptable …show more content…

“Before troops came, there were a lot of advisers over there, teaching the South Vietnamese. They were all volunteer American troops, teaching them how to fight a war against communism and teaching them combat. I went over as a MP and an adviser teaching certain things in the military police field”, Jim said. Military Police enforce the rules, regulations and laws regarding behavior and conduct on the base in which they are stationed. “When Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, there were more than 16,000 U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam” (cite 2). Although Jim was a military police by night, he was more of an advisor during the day. Advisors taught the South Vietnamese the strategic way to win a war against communism, both mentally and …show more content…

But, the military has to listen to the Commander in Chief (president). If he says stop, we have to stop” (Dollard). The United States would of had North Vietnam on their hands and knees, begging the United States to stop bombing them, but they pulled out and let the North take over. Right after the war ended the relationship between Vietnam and the United States was non-existent, although things have positively progressed over time. “Four decades after the end of the Vietnam War, the relationship between the United States and Vietnam has changed remarkably. The two countries have forged strong trade linkages and defense cooperation” (Cite 7). Even though our relationship with them now is in a reasonable state, what we did to the Vietnamese was wrong and

Show More
Related

  • Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy and the Vietnam War

    857 Words  | 2 Pages

    The leadership styles, experience, personality, and temperament of Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy played a role in deepening the U.S. involvement and commitment to Vietnam. Both presidents vowed to stop the spread of communism, which was viewed as a direct assault to democracy, human rights, and capitalism. (Tucker, 1999) Both presidents also subscribed to the domino theory, or the belief that if one key country should fall to communism, then it would have a cascading effect on other countries turning to communism. (Divine, 1981) This theory was used by many presidents as the reason for ongoing support to the effort in Indochina.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of President Eisenhower's Foreign Policy

    1713 Words  | 4 Pages

    (Press conference, April 7, 1954) President Eisenhower would start laying out his first major defense of the domino theory. President Eisenhower was referring to the battle between French forces and the Vietminh (the communist led forces of North Vietnam), and which he began explaining how economically and geographically important Vietnam was to the United States and Asia. This first step is the first step towards preventing what he called the “falling domino” principle. President Eisenhower went on to explain that if South Vietnam falls to communism, then Laos would be next; and after Laos then Thailand and straight to Burma and that would lead communists to India, at the time very strong and important ally of the United States. Even Japan, President Eisenhower warned, could be in danger of toppling, another domino in that row of

    Read More

  • JFK and the Vietnam War

    1800 Words  | 4 Pages

    North Vietnam came under the control of the Vietnamese Communists who had opposed France and aimed for a unified Vietnam under Communist rule. Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French controlled the South. For this reason the United States became involved in Vietnam because it believed that if all of the country fell under a Communist government, Communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia and further. This belief is known as the domino theory. The decision to enter Vietnam reflected Americas idea of its global role - the U.S. could not recoil from world leadership.

    Read More

  • Comparing the Iraq War and the Vietnam War

    2081 Words  | 5 Pages

    The United States has again stumbled into an overseas quagmire from which there is no easy exit. History seems to be repeating itself when again, we are led by a group of men who launch wars without exit strategies and fail to understand the nature of their enemy. In Vietnam the United States became involved because they felt the need to stop the spread of communism throughout the rest of Asia and attempt to prevent the "domino effect." The belief is that if Vietnam fell, so then would Cambodia, Laos, etc. Vietnam was the longest U.S. war with its never ending deaths, escalating destruction of Vietnam and Cambodia, and growing danger of splitting the American people (Carter 28). In Vietnam the Americans were told that U.S. was there because the South Vietnamese asked us to save them from the communist threat. But what the soldiers experienced did not add up to what the American people were being told (Thura 9). Americans have been told that the United States is going to war against Iraq in order to remove Saddam Hussein, eliminate him from power, abolish Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and prevent Baghdad from aiding terrorist groups. (Anderson 5). In Iraq the soldiers are anxious with no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and Saddam Hussein no longer in power the reason why U.S. is still fighting in Iraq when the war was declared over a year ago is questionable (Moore 19).

    Read More

  • The USA Should NOT Have Entered the Vietnam War

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Vietnam War took place in between 1947- 1975. It consisted of North Vietnam trying to make South Vietnam a communism government. The United States later joined this conflict because of the stress North Vietnam was putting to South Vietnam to become a government that America did not want. The main reason why America joined was because of a theory called the Domino Effect. America and Russia were going through what has been dubbed the Cold War. The Domino Effect is the theory that communism will spread form one country to another. United states does not want this because our government is a democracy and communism opposes everything we stand for. America fearing communism was growing, stepped into Vietnam with America’s interest in mind, instead of Vietnam’s. There are several reason why American should have not gotten involved with this war. The most important reason was that America government officials made to much of a big deal about communism. This might sound cynical, but America to a certain degree did over react. Let it be said that it is much easier to say this after the fact. By looking back at McCarthyism, we can see the silliness of this fear. There is a serious side though. Thousands of people dies for a government that has no impact of their daily life. What regime Vietnam was going to change over to had no effect on the every day cycle of the United States. So truly, one can say, this can not one thing to do with America, its government and people.

    Read More

  • When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip

    1578 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Hayslip’s book When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, she talks about her life as a peasant’s daughter and her and her family’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War has not only affected Vietnam itself, but also the United States, where in the beginning they did not want to get involved. However, with the spread of communism, which had already affected China, the president at the time Lyndon Johnson, thought it was time to stop the spread of the Vietnam War. With America’s involvement in the war, it caused great problems for both sides. In Vietnam, it causes the local people from the south and north side to split up and either becomes a supporter of communism or of the US’s capitalist views. In addition, it caused displacement for those local people, thus losing their family. In America, the Vietnam War has brought about PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, and deaths of many soldiers, more than World War II. With the thought of containment for communism, the US had gave back Vietnam their war and “gave up” on the war, leaving Southeast Asia in the sphere of communist views. With the thought of the domino theory that a country will fall in similar events like the neighboring countries, like China as Vietnam’s neighbor the United States tried to remove communism from Vietnam. US’s involvement in the war caused problems for both sides of the war.

    Read More

  • Vietnam War - Social Movements

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Vietnam War (1965-1975)was fought between the North and South Vietnam. The North was called Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the South was the Republic of Vietnam which was supported by the United States. On August 2nd, 1964 the USS Maddox was on a secret intelligent mission on the North Vietnamese coast where in the Gulf on Tonkin they were attacked by torpedo boats. The USS Turner Joy was attacked in the same area two days later. Due to the second attack Congress declared the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which led to air strikes.In 1959 there were 5,000 guerilla fighters and in 1964 the numbers jumped to 100,000. At Pleiku on March, 1965 U.S Marine barracks were attacked causing the three stage escalation bombing of North Vietnam to begin. The 3 year lasting bombing was used to force North Vietnam to stop supporting the "National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam" by destroying their industrial infrastructure and Vietnam's air defenses. Unfortunately this did not stop the North's support for the NLF. The U.S. Air Force bases were constantly being attacked so the U.S. on March 8, 1965 the 3,500 U.S. Marines was deployed to South Vietnam. At this point in time, the U.S. public supported the dispatch because the Vietnam War had been portrayed to the American people as a war against the spread of Communism. Johnson was president at the time and he kept adding more and more troops as the war went on. As the draft quotas increased, the American public protests started. When Nixon came into presidency his policy towards the Vietnam War was "peace with honor" in other words he wanted to widen the war. After more bombing and fighting, on January 27, 1973 the Paris Peace Accords was signed, restoring peace in Vietnam and U.S. forces pulled out. Nixon stopped all American attacks on Vietnam. The condensed summary of the Vietnam War is to see what presidents were involved in this war (Johnson, and Nixon) and what foreign policies were taken towards Vietnam mostly before the protests began.

    Read More

  • The Disillusionment of the Vietnam War

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the year 1955 when the United States vowed to help support the South Vietnamese fight off the Northern communist, a total of about 60,000 soldiers dead and 300,000 wounded. The soldiers who offered their lives were on average the age of 23 meaning many gave up education and a family to fight for the lives in the bloody massacre we call the Vietnam War. At the beginning the United States only gave minor assistance to South Vietnam, but as the years continued and the Northern Communist began crippling the South, the United States offered more military aid. In 1961 after President John F. Kennedy sent a group of officials to assess the progress of preventing the spread of communism. It became evident that more military support was needed. “Working under the "domino theory," which held that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many would follow, Kennedy increased U.S. aid, though he stopped short of committing to a large-scale military intervention”(History 1). After a group of generals over threw Ngo Dinh Diem the president of the government of the public of Vietnam the South Vietnam government become very unstable. Three weeks later President John F. Kennedy was assassinated befo...

    Read More

  • Summary of Vietnam War

    543 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this selection of reading President Johnson is defending his Vietnam policy. This address by Johnson lays out many arguments for why the war in Vietnam is necessary; they are as follows: (a) the self-determination of nations; (b) aggressive forces; (c) communism as a menace to the world; (d) idea that everything operates like dominoes; (e) avoiding another Munich; (f) responsibility of the American people; (g) a “new deal” for third-world countries; (h) a better tomorrow for the world

    Read More

  • Dereliction of Duty, by McMaster

    942 Words  | 2 Pages

    He was also a Gulf War veteran who commanded an armored cavalry. His desire in writing this book was to examine, through the recently declassified documents, manuscript collections, and the Joint Chief of Staff official histories, where the responsibility for the Vietnam foreign policy disaster lay, but also examine the decisions made that involved the United States in a war they could not win. This book details the discussion of government policy in the stages of the Vietnam crisis from 1961-July 1965. It examines the main characters of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara, in addition to the military, which included the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It began in the Kennedy era amidst the Bay of Pigs incident and how that led to mistrust of the military planning by advisors and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    Read More

  • American Public Opinion of the Vietnam War

    1562 Words  | 4 Pages

    Americans were afraid of one. country in South Asia turned to communism, it would extend to other. countries, which is known as the "Domino Theory". The United States thought if they stopped communism in Vietnam, it would stop the spread. of the communism of the world.

    Read More

  • Statesmen versus Warlords

    1613 Words  | 4 Pages

    Perhaps no event in recent history has so profoundly affected the political, sociological, and philosophical outlook of the American people as the Vietnam War. George Bell, Undersecretary of State from 1961 through 1966, called Vietnam the “greatest single error that America has made in its national history” (Legacies). As the first war the United States had ever lost, Vietnam shattered American confidence in its military supremacy and engendered a new wave of isolationist sentiment in the country. Mistrusting their government and retreating into a state of general disillusionment, the public demanded to know what went wrong. The people needed a scapegoat. Some groups blamed the military commanders for failing to adapt to Vietnam’s unique circumstances; some condemned politicians for not fully supporting the military effort; while still others upheld that victory was never possible in the first place.

    Read More

  • The U.S. Contained Communism In Vietnam

    1513 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 1949, Mao Zedong led the Peoples Revolution, which established a Communist State in China. Communism has now been introduced to Asia. In this period, after World War II, Communism was a popular ideology being introduced throughout the world. Vietnam was one of the many countries under the threat of Communism. At this time, Vietnam was a French Colony. As time went on tension started to come between the French and the Vietnamese people. As tension increased so did the fighting between the French and The Vietnamese. Finally in 1954, The French decided that they could no longer withstand the revolts of the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese were now free of French rule. However, many problems still remained in Vietnam. After the war there was a conference to discuss the troubles in Vietnam and all of the other troubles in Asia. That conference was called the Geneva Conference. Vietnam sent two delegations to the conference. One of the delegations represented Viet Minh (which was Communist in their leanings) and the other represented Bao Dia's government, which was backed by the United States. Both claimed to represent all of Vietnam. At the conference there was a discussion about dividing Vietnam at the 17th parallel to solve the troubles between the two delegations. Now there were two Vietnams. One, in the north, was under Communist rule and the other, in the south, was not. While the Geneva Conference was being held, the United States was already concerned about Communism being spread. The United States then decided that the only way to solve the problems would be to contain Communism including in Vietnam.

    Read More

  • The War Of The Vietnam War

    1809 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 1961 John F. Kennedy secretly sent in 400 Special Operations Force trained soldiers – known as Green Berets -- taught South Vietnamese how to fight against the communist Guerillas in South Vietnam. On September 2, 1963, in an interview Kennedy said, “We need to send our men as advisors, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam against the Communist, we’re prepared to continue to assist them.” After Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johns...

    Read More

  • Short Summary of Vietnam

    470 Words  | 1 Pages

    Vietnam was a struggle which, in all honesty, the United States should never have been involved in. North Vietnam was battling for ownership of South Vietnam, so that they would be a unified communist nation. To prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism, the U.S. held on to the Truman Doctrine and stood behind the South Vietnamese leader, Diem.

    Read More

More about The Domino Theory

Open Document