Vietnam and the Indochina Wars

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The South East Asian country Vietnam became a Cold War battleground for the Second Indochina war which involved both the US and Russia’s interests. Once again it was the Capitalist struggle against Communism. The Vietnam War was a direct result of the USSR’s and China’s communist presence and pressure. America feared a chain reaction was occurring among the other Asian countries that made them change to communism one by one. America wanted to prevent this from occurring and that is why they were so quick to help the South combat the Communist North. In the end however, their attempts were fruitless for they were unable to overthrow or prevent the spread of communism through all of Vietnam.
The roots of the Vietnam War started after the First Indochina War and the Geneva Accords. After the first Indochina War, the French who had colonized Vietnam withdrew from the country leaving its former colony with two different and fighting parties, the communist party, Vietminh, and the capitalist party in the South. These two sides split Vietnam into two different countries the North and South with two different rulers, Ho Chi Minh and Ngo Dinh Diem. Ho Chi Minh consolidated his power up North after the Vietminh, the revolutionary group defeated the French in the first Indochina War. Diem was the South nationalist leader and had been elected by the french with much US support for he was a strong anti-communist and his belief in catholicism was appealing to US government members. Diem formed the Republic of Vietnam following the Geneva Accords. The South however continued to suffer from guerrilla attacks from the Vietcong, rebels that were part of the North but were located within the jungle in the South. The Vietcong were disruptive to th...

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...ould not win for all the chemicals used and bombings left Vietnam in ruins all because of their determination to just stop the spread of communism. Vietnam was left in a terrible financial state and its people suffered greatly as a result of the Cold War. The Soviets and China on the other hand benefitted greatly from this proxy war for not only had their communist way of governing continued to spread but their opponent the US had been dealt a major blow to its morale and to its country as a whole due to financial losses.

Works Cited

Griffith, Robert, ed. Major Problems in American History Since 1945. Lexington, MA: DC Heath and Company, 1992.

“Guerilla Wars.” People Century. PBS, 1998. VHS.

Staff, History.com. "Domino Theory." History. A&E Television Networks, 2009.
Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
domino-theory>.

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