Vietnam War And Politics Essay

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War is a huge event in any country’s history. The United States has been experiencing this since the first major war with the American Revolutionary. The United States has been known to help out our allies when they are fighting, and intervened when countries have been at war to try and end it. The Vietnam War started in December of 1954 and ended on April 30th of 1975. The Vietnam War was a long and costly battle over communism between North and South Vietnam. The Vietnam War was a failed attempt for the United States to bring peace to South and North Vietnam because it affected our country’s history, the way politics can influence a war, an economy downfall, and how affected protest and media can be used. The United States never officially …show more content…

The Vietnam War was becoming a hot topic in Washington. The war in Vietnam was planned, financed, equipped, and fought under the direction of the Washington government (Nearing, 2013). Politics today have changed a lot in the fifty years since the Vietnam War began. An article on JFK’s vision of peace written by his nephew said, Vietnam as a continuum beginning under Eisenhower and steadily escalating through the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations (Kennedy Jr, 2013). But I wonder how the republican and democratic parties felt about the Vietnam War and the actions of their presidents. Eisenhower and Nixon were republicans, and Kennedy and Johnson were democratic. Vietnam did not become a major issue for the Republicans during the Kennedy administration because they preferred to focus on the president’s perceived failures in Cuba, Berlin, and Laos. Nor did all Republicans criticize Johnson’s handling of the war (Young, 2012). Johnson become the president after Kennedy’s assassination. President Johnson was hoping to not have the U.S. to win the war, but for the U.S troops to strengthen the South Vietnam’s forcers. According to Histoy.com, Johnson’s legacy was equally defined by his failure to lead the nation out of the quagmire of the Vietnam War (2009). With Johnson’s being unsuccessful and unpopular after his involvement with the war he decided to not run for president again. The …show more content…

The Vietnam War caused a few issues for the U.S. economy. According to History.com, the nation spent more than $120 billion on the conflict in Vietnam from 1965-73 (2009). Factories were producing goods that were going to the military to cater for their needs, and not the public. This caused problems because the government was sending funds overseas which caused an imbalance in the economy. The dollar value weakened, interest rates rose, and inflation became a problem. Citizens were angry for the way the government was handing the economic policies during the Vietnam War. According to Historycentral.com, despite the success of many Kennedy and Johnson economic policies, the Vietnam War was an important factor in bringing down the American economy from the growth and affluence of the early 1960s to the economic crises of the 1970s (2014). The Vietnam War had a lot of negative effects on the American economy, and is probably why we have issues with the national debt to this

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