The Purpose of the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was the longest and most expensive war in American History. The toll we paid wasn't just financial, it cost the people involved greatly, physically and mentally. This war caused great distress and sadness, as well as national confusion. Everyone had that one burning question being why? Why were we even there? The other question being why did America withdrawal from Vietnam. The purpose of this paper is to answer these two burning questions, and perhaps add some clarity to the confusion American was experiencing.
The Truman doctrine was to stop the spread of communism and it was used to stop the south part of Vietnam becoming communists like the north So America sent in money and all the help they could to stop Vietnam becoming a communist country. Vietnam was part of the French empire. However, during World War 2 the Japanese took over .The Vietnamese communist movement Vietminh was formed to resist the Japanese. France tried to repossess Vietnam at the end of the war but the Vietminh fought back. With the United States lending its financial support to France, when the Japanese defeated France, the United States sent money and military consultants to the non-communist government of South Vietnam. ~ Other advisors however doubted that such an action could reverse the disastrous course of the war and warned the president that it could lead inevitably to deeper involvement in an Asian land war the United States couldn't win. (The Debate over Vietnam Page, 30)
By 1960 the American troops were sent in to fight a war that cost; Fifty-eight thousand Americans lost their lives. The losses to the Vietnamese people were appalling. The financial cost to the United States comes to something over $150 billion dollars. Direct American involvement began in 1955 with the arrival of the first advisors. The first combat troops arrived in 1965 and we fought the war until the cease-fire of January 1973.
The United States was not capable of winning the War because they realized too late that the real war in Vietnam was not a military one but a political one. Beginning with Eisenhower, They were fully aware that the only way South Vietnam would win is with the support of the United States troops. Kennedy restricted the U.
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History is a strong book that portrays a vivid picture of both sides of the war. By getting access to new information and using valid sources, Lawrence’s study deserves credibility. After reading this book, a new light and understanding of the Vietnam war exists.
JOHN F. KENNEDY IN VIETNAM There are many critical questions surrounding United States involvement in Vietnam. American entry to Vietnam was a series of many choices made by five successive presidents during these years of 1945-1975. The policies of John F. Kennedy during the years of 1961-1963 were ones of military action, diplomacy, and liberalism. Each of his decision was on its merits at the time the decision was made. The belief that Vietnam was a test of the Americas ability to defeat communists in Vietnam lay at the center of Kennedy¡¦s policy. Kennedy promised in his inaugural address, Let every nation know...that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty. From the 1880s until World War II, France governed Vietnam as part of French Indochina, which also included Cambodia and Laos. The country was under the formal control of an emperor, Bao Dai. From 1946 until 1954, the Vietnamese struggled for their independence from France during the first Indochina War. At the end of this war, the country was temporarily divided into North and South Vietnam. 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 was known as the domino theory. The decision to enter Vietnam reflected America¡¦s idea of its global role-U.S. could not recoil from world leadership. The U.S. government supported the South Vietnamese government. The U.S. government wanted to establish the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which extended protection to South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in case of Communist subversion. SEATO, which came into force in 1955, became the way which Washington justified its support for South Vietnam; this support eventually became direct involvement of U.S. troops. In 1955, the United States picked Ngo Dinh Diem to replace Bao Dai as head of the anti-Communist regime in South Vietnam. Eisenhower chose to support Ngo Dinh Diem. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Mass., on May 29, 1917. Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the Navy the next year.
Only in the Vietnam War was the United States’ participation criticized. This is such a gigantic change from prior wars that it bears study as to why it happened, and better yet, should have it happened. This paper will discuss the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, by asking the simple question, Should have the United States’ gotten involved in the first place? This paper will prove that, in fact, America should not have gotten involved in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War took place between 1947- 1975.
The Americans entered the war in 1964 because they believed in the domino theory, that if one nation fell into communism then other nations would follow. Soon America found it almost impossible to fight against people who were so determined to win, so America pulled its troops out of Vietnam in 1973. Withdrawing the American troops resulted in the South Vietnamese forces being defeated by the communists who then took over the country.
Vietnam War (1954-1975) is considered as one of those big wars of the modern world that has been acknowledged and studied by countries in the world. Especially, in regard to the United States, starting and ending war in Vietnam was an unforgettable experience that has left a priceless lesson in its foreign policy, and of course a lot of loss, physically, mentally, and property. “The Legacy of Vietnam” article of George Herring basically summarizes how the Vietnam War led to an end in failure of America and what consequences it left behind.
It is understandable that some Americans strongly opposed the United States getting involved in the Vietnam War. It had not been a long time since the end of World War II and simply put, most Americans were tired of fighting. Mark Atwood Lawrence is one of the people who opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War. In his essay, “Vietnam: A Mistake of Western Alliance”, Lawrence argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and that it went against our democratic policies, but that there were a lot of things that influenced our involvement.
The Vietnam War began in 1956 after the French Indochina war, which was an anti-colonial war against the French. The French attempted to regain control of Vietnam after World War II, but despite their efforts, Vietnam and the other Indochinese countries gained their independence in 1954 (The Americans, 731). Vietnam’s independence brought a division between the anti-communist south and the communist north. This caused the United States to support of the South’s government because of their democratic ideology. Escalation continued as the Viet Cong led attacks on the South and President Lyndon Johnson sent air strikes and ground forces to the north in hopes of trying to stop the communist spread. By 1968, more than 500,000 American soldiers were
Have you ever wondered what events, conditions, and leadership decisions caused America to be unsuccessful in the Vietnam War? The way that the war was fought favored the Northern Vietnamese and was a big factor in giving the Viet Cong an edge over the Americans. The tactics that the Northern Vietnamese used, the number of soldiers that the United States sent over plus the conditions they were put into, and the changing of US Presidents part way through the war all play vital roles in making Vietnam unachievable.
In 1975 many tired troops finally came home from Vietnam, defeated. Their efforts did not end communism and left countless numbers of Americans and Vietnamese people dead. The United States weak strategies, the public’s anti-war attitude, and the Vietnamese’s opposition to the government the United States had set up all contributed to the United State’s defeat in Vietnam. The most tragic part about the Vietnam War was that it took about sixteen years to lose a war that from the beginning we were not going to win.
The Vietnam War was a brutal war for everyone involved. There were many American and Vietnam deaths alike. The U.S went into Vietnam with the goal of preventing the spread of communism. The authors of the secondary sources in Thinking Through the Past, George Herring and Loren Baritz argue why the U.S failed in Vietnam. According to those two articles, there were many causes for why the U.S failed in the Vietnam War, including our lack of plan, our over confidence in our capabilities, and fighting a war with little support from our people. After analysis of both of the articles, class lectures, and reading The American Promise, it is clear that the main cause that led our failure was not understanding the Vietnamese and being too confident in ourselves, which led to the underestimation of the capabilities of the North Vietnamese and the ultimate failure of the war.
The Vietnam War, also known as The Second Indochina War, officially began November 1, 1955 and officially ended April 30, 1975. It was the second official war that between North Vietnam and the South Vietnam Government. The war took place in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The North Vietnamese war efforts were supported by the Soviet Union, China and other supporters of Communism at the time. The South Vietnamese were supported by the United States, Australia,
Fulbright criticizes the acts of U.S. on foreign policy by saying that “the attitude above all others which [he] feels sure is no longer valid is the arrogance of power, the tendency of great nations to equate power with the virtue and major responsibilities with a universal mission” (Fulbright). Because majority of countries in Southeast Asia had lower capacity for resisting communist force and invasion due to low troop levels and unstable economy, U.S. was more eager to assist since it was considered as big nation and felt as its duty to make peace around the world. Rather, U.S. was primarily engaged not because of its sincere concern towards Vietnam but the outer sources, China and Soviet Union due to Cold War in order to dominate power. Moreover, communist ideology already spread from China to North Korea during Korean War and American national security managers and analysts believed that communism would continue its expansion towards more south, such as Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The reason why U.S. had involvement in Vietnam was to defend country from communism since there was no resources or any economic importance in that country that U.S. would benefit from. However, it was also a way to show off its democratic power as big nation, and felt obligated to do so like Fulbright claimed as the “arrogance of power”. Like Fulbright mentioned, China was often regarded as major threat to the United States but the reason why U.S. was hesitant in contacting with North Vietnam was that it was getting economic support from China. When U.S. actually tried to negotiate peace with North Vietnam, they viewed negotiation as the “fraudulent plots, having been betrayed after previous negotiations by the French in 1946 and by Diem in 1955, the Hanoi government felt that American offers to
The manifestation led to an intense competition to spread political philosophies and the influence around the world after the end of World War Two. Because of this, the U.S. government began to worry about the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. It is believed that if a communist government came to power in Vietnam, then Communist forces would soon take control of other nearby nations as well. This might have threatened the national security of the United States by increasing the strength of the Soviet Union. The US justified its military intervention in Vietnam by the domino theory, which stated that if one country fell under the influence of Communism, the surrounding countries would inevitably follow. The aim was to prevent Communist domination of South-East Asia. In fact, the American failure to prevent a communist victory in Vietnam had much less of an impact than had been assumed by proponents of the domino theory. With the exception of Laos and Cambodia, communism failed to spread throughout Southeast
The Vietnam War began in 1954 after North Vietnam’s victory over the French colonial administration of Vietnam. North Vietnam’s goal was to unify the entire country by establishing a central Communist administration with support from the Soviet Union, China, and other Communist allies. By 1957, the Communist Vietnamese, known as the Viet Cong, utilized guerrilla war tactics against all those who were opposed them in the region. The United States government sought to guard against a Communist bloc in SE Asia and seized the opportunity to prevent the unification of the inevitable Communist rule of Vietnam by conducting strategic bombing methods in North Vietnam and surrounding areas suspected of housing the Viet Cong. President John F. Kennedy was a supporter of Dwight Eisenhower’s Domino Theory, which states that a communist victory in one country would cause a chain reaction of Communist rule in neighboring states.
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.