The Vietnam War Analysis

All nations past or present have been engaged in some form of domestic or foreign violent conflict before. Many times these violent conflicts can be categorized as war, which is described in the dictionary as “a situation in which people or groups compete with or fight against each other” (Webster). There are many numerous reasons for these fights occurring including, breakdown between governments in diplomatic relations, growing ideological differences between groups, or even nations seeking to simply acquire and rule over a foreign land. Regardless of the specific reasons for nations engaging in wars, the one constant factor all wars maintain is that they are very violent and costly economically. The United States has been entrenched in

numerous wars during its history, with some being considerably more successful than others are. World War 1 and World War 2 are often considered by even the staunchest critics as complete successes regardless of the high casualties experienced in both conflicts. Both war's success is marked by the ability of the united states to draw their opposing sides to the treaty table and arrange a favorable peace agreement with the opposition which achieved the current U.S national objective of the time. This definition of success is noticeably missing when onlookers give the Vietnam War a full analysis. The Vietnam War to most people appears like an unnecessary war in which America became drug down into a quagmire with no foreseeable exit. The Vietnam war effort resulted in more than 58,000 U.S deaths and cost roughly 170 billion dollars in all accumulated expenditures (Vietnma). One question the politicians and civilians alike have been trying to answer for over half a century is why America felt the need to undertake such a costly conflict in a foreign land most Americans had never heard of. The answer lies somewhere juxtaposed between the idea of misguided cold war doctrine, which guided the American policies of the time, and the vying of power between two globally unmatched competing superpowers of the U.S and the Soviet Union. Neither reason can fully explain every innate detail surmising the origins of the Vietnam conflict, but they do present the best explanations for a complex issue.
Towards the end of 1944, it appeared evident that the allied powers would obtain victory in World War 2. With a victory came the redistribution of foreign lands and a balancing of power between the victorious nations. The two strongest nations arising out of the conflict were the United States and the Soviet Union, as both countries possessed the most powerful militaries on the globe. A new bipolar international system began to develop in which the U.S and Soviet Union vied for power through numerous factors, including military innovation and superiority, global diplomatic influence and economic dominance. This race for global superiority between the two nations would be termed the “Cold War” due to lack of large-scale direct military conflicts between the U.S and Soviet Union. The cold war lacked any major confrontations between the competing nations, but it did contain significant regional wars fought by nations who aligned themselves with both competing countries governments. These unofficial confrontations between the two world powers are known as proxy wars. The United States and Soviet Union engaged in an arduous proxy war in Korea when communist sympathizers attempted to overthrow the Korean government and install a new regime. The Korean war would be a costly undertaking on the behest of the American government, but it would pale in comparison with the economic, military and social undertaking which would be associated with the Vietnam war.
In order to understand the prevailing policies of the cold war U.S government it is essential to determine in what manner these policies were created. According to Andre Bacevich “many of the defense specialist of the time created a vast amount of their policies in think tanks” (Bacevich). It is important to note that some of the cons of think tanks include the inability of the individuals involved to understand the complexity of what they are proposing and their susceptibility to succumbing to groupthink. Think tanks could undoubtedly be one of the integral reasons for the creation of much of the negatively viewed policies surrounding the Cold War and specifically the Vietnam fiasco.
Following the end of World War 2 President Truman administration adopted the policy of containment, which entailed that the U.S must use any means necessary to prevent the expansion of the Soviet Union. This policy increased the level of pressure put forth on the American military as it became increasingly evident that the U.S armed forces would become involved in some form of cold war related engagement. The Truman administration also created the Truman Doctrine, which consisted of the idea that the U.S would pledge support to any country who was threatened by a communist overthrow. These policies marked an increasingly aggressive stance the U.s had begun to take on communism when conducting foreign diplomacy. Dwight Eisenhower succeeded the Truman administration, but he developed similarly aggressive policies in reaction to supposed Soviet aggression. President Eisenhower cold war diplomatic achievement was the creation of the domino theory, which surmised that if one nation was to fall communism than all surrounding nations in the neighboring area would follow in a domino effect. These three doctrines and policies developed during the early onset of the cold war definitely had the largest impacts on the U.S involvement and escalation of the Vietnam War. Following the exit of France from Vietnam, America was faced with the problem of a growing communist sentiment rising in the newly independent country. Ho Chi Minh one of the leaders in the Vietnam independence movement was an ardent supporter of communism and had begun to instill a communist regime over the country. Vietnam would eventually be partitioned along the 17th parallel with the Soviets backing the North and the U.S backing the South. In what was, once considered nothing more than foreign issue had begun developing into a global dilemma as an American doctrine such as the Truman doctrine dictated that U.S needed to protect the democratic Southern portion of Vietnam. The domino theory also escalated an already volatile situation by causing American officials to become increasingly paranoid about the possibility of a communist North Vietnam country, in fear that all the surrounding areas in Southeast Asia would be at risk of following the pattern. President Kennedy, particularly in the later part of his presidency and President Johnson were both met with an extremely challenging situation, which was exacerbated by the overly aggressive policies of the time. Andre Bacevich author of “Behind Every Bad War of the Past Century Stands a Bad ‘Policy” noted that Vietnam marked the first time that the United States went to war, at least in considerable part, in response to a bunch of really dumb ideas floated by ostensibly smart people occupying positions of influence. The policy maker who helped advise and comprise the Presidents cabinets following the end of World War 2 had developed policies which nudged the American public towards war without presenting any true diplomatic resolutions involving peaceful measures. The major policies of the era all include meeting the Soviet Union and any other Communist state with military aggression preemptive force rather than formulating ways in which the foreign issues could be solved without force.
When noting the Americas involvement in the Vietnam War onlooker must be careful of simply by acknowledging policies as the sole reason for engaging in this conflict. The secondary leading factor in the commission of this proxy war was the natural fighting for power between two superior nations in the bipolar global system. The Soviet Union had been openly trying to expand its sphere of influence throughout Eastern Europe and many parts of Asia. To do this the Soviets had begun setting up satellite states in which the Soviet Union provided protection and resources to the nations in exchange for them maintain a communist regime and pledging their political support to the soviet Union. The expansionist ambitions of the Soviet Union not only terrified a fearful American public , but it also enraged top American aids who believed that America should maintain the sole major political influence throughout the world. As stated by David Anderson, author of “One Vietnam War Should Be Enough and Other Reflections on Diplomatic History and the Making of Foreign Policy” American officials “begin to reach a so-called Cold War consensus that the United States alone among the major nations had the power and moral standing to create a secure international order” (Anderson,3). Both the U.S and the Soviet Union begin to create a superiority complex in relation to the rest of the world and in these efforts; both countries were fighting for influence amongst the globe. This fight for global influence started spreading to disputed nations where a new democratic or communist regime was threatened to be established.
In Vietnam a newly independent country, the conditions had become ideal for a conflict to arise between the Cold War superpowers. After the partitioning of Vietnam, following the French exile Ho Chi Minh and his followers established a communist regime in the Northern half of the country. The U.S and British in response to the newly founded Communist state supported a democratic regime being installed in South Vietnam. The threat of a communist nation coming to power in South East Asia threatened America’s potential areas of influence within the region and caused many U.S politicians to feel the need for aggressively protecting American assets in the region. This resulted in American politicians becoming streamlined into using aggressive military force in trying to resolve the Vietnam conflict. In the end, as written by David Anderson “The goal was to use America’s power to transform world politics” (Anderson, 19).
The Cold war was in essence was a prolonged power struggle between two powerful leading nations that resulted in violent confrontations across the globe. Thomas Hobbes a prominent political thinker of the 1600s described in his most famous work the “Leviathan” described how humans had “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power” (Shivley, ppt 1). The war in Vietnam stemmed from a similar predicament in which both the U.S and Soviet wanted to impose their dominance over foreign lands and display their wealth of power. Thomas Hobbes studies provide great insight into the mindset most government across the world possess when addressing diplomatic issues particularly maintaining the act of going to war. Thomas Hobbes is not the only political intellectual to address the theories behind why countries get involved in wars from a human nature perspective, but he is one of the most prominent theorists. Dr. Henry Morgenthau a 20th century political thinker also described the major role human nature played in the military political agendas of government. According to Morgenthau power is “man’s control over the minds and actions of other men” (Shivley, ppt 1). This sentiment echoed by Dr. Morgenthau resembles the assertions of Thomas Hobbes as they both agree that human have a natural desire for power, which propagates a need for war. This natural jostling of power between nations can spread far beyond the countries boundaries, as in the case of the Vietnam War in which both America and the Soviet Union wanted to gain as larger share of influence over the Asian region and saw the power vacuum in Vietnam as the ideal time to act. Both competing nations in a resound effort to expand their level of domination across the globalized war saw war as a viable resolution to their growing diplomatic discord. Dr. Morgenthau once said while addressing the power dilemma which ultimately causes nations to enter wars “if the desire for power cannot be abolished everywhere in the world, those who might be cured would simply fall victims to the powers of others” (Shivley, ppt 1). This realist viewpoint articulated the problems, which faced any nation who disregarded the need for power and opted for a more peaceful approach. In the end, nations such as the U.S and USSR would be guided into war not on their own volition but for a need of power and to protect their own interest like their diplomatic relationship with Vietnam. Vietnam in many aspects was a war that occurred because of the natural human tendency to amass power and exert the will of the powerful over others.
When assessing America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, it would be a blatant miscalculation to simply believe that there were only one or two factors that led to the war.

Yet it is worth noting that the lackluster foreign policies of the time and the global race between the two superpowers of the time undoubtedly played the largest roles in the commencement of the Vietnam War. The Cold War policies prior to the start of the Vietnam War could be characterized as notably aggressive in their approach towards dealing with the threat of communism. The policies seemed to encourage the act of war as opposed to other more diplomatic means of resolution between both competing countries. The bipolar global system of the time also encouraged both nations to engage in battles of supremacy between each other, which led to some violent engagements in the forms of proxy wars occurring. A number of blunders, including misguided American policies hampered the Vietnam conflict, but it also appears too many that the war may have been possibly unavoidable. The unquenchable lust for power, which has appeared to drive all nations since the beginning of recorded history, also led to numerous misjudgments on the part of both countries. From the studies of past Social scientist and an attentive assessment of the cold war by oneself, it becomes clear that human nature played a significant role in the U.S involvement of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War has had an immense effect on American policy in the last 50 years due to its lack of clear results and its somewhat ambiguous motive. The lasting conclusion of the Vietnam War by most accounts is that it was both a military and political fiasco, which should have been, avoided at all costs. In order to avoid repeating the same mistakes Americans must learn from the errors the Vietnam War and find ways to address political issues in terms that are more

diplomatic.