The United States Involvement In The War In Vietnam

The United States Involvement In The War In Vietnam

There were many reasons why the US became increasingly involved in the

Vietnam War, and when all linked together they explain why. In this

essay I will explain all aspects of why the US got involved and then I

will summarise all the points at the end.

Since the 1880’s, France had controlled an area of eastern Asia called

Indo-China, which consisted of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. In

1940, France was at war with Germany and was losing disastrously. This

meant that Vietnam was left vulnerable as France was given funding by

America to protect Vietnam. Japan, who were Germany’s allies, then

took over. They established control over Vietnam with a resistance to

make North Vietnam independent, lead by Ho Chi Minh (a communist). He

formed a resistance organisation called the Vietminh. In 1946, the

Vietminh started a Guerrilla War against the French, who were trying

to regain control of Vietnam.

The US first got concerned when its national interest was strongly

threatened by the countries around Vietnam, a country albeit 9000

miles away from them, and so they felt they had to be involved in a

war there. The reason why was the Government’s fear of the spread of

communism at the time. China becoming communist in 1949; after the US

had spent $2 billion supporting anti-communists, the Korean War and

the communist victory over the French in Vietnam all lead Americans to

believe that communism was taking over the world and feared that they

would indeed be next. The US Government thought that by funding the

South Vietnamese Government resist the attacks of the communist North

Vietnamese,...

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... not have been

elected at that time, but he might still have been elected later on in

the future. There’s no way of telling what might have happened,

because you can’t tell what might have. You can say maybe troops

wouldn’t have been sent over, maybe “Operation Rolling Thunder” and

the “Tet Offensive” wouldn’t have happened, but it still might have.

Kennedy may have, if he hadn’t been killed, reconsidered his views on

what to do. He might have sent over troops and everything would happen

like it did anyway.

Therefore, considering all this, I don’t believe that there was any

one most important reason for America becoming more increasingly

involved in the war, as they are all linked to one another. When one

event happened, so did another few events that were related to it.

This in itself is like a Domino reaction.