U.S. Involvement In Vietnam Essay

The Vietnam War was the longest and most expensive war in U. S. history. Since the Second World War throughout the Cold War. United States policymakers tried to use the lessons they had learned in Europe to the foreign policy jobs of Asia. As a consequence. United States foreign policy in Asia was frequently incoherent and American intercession in Asiatic personal businesss frequently ended in calamity. In this paper we would seek to sketch the beginnings and effects of U. S. engagement in Southeast Asia. Let us look at the history of United States engagement in Vietnam.

First of all. in order to understand the Vietnam War. we need to acknowledge that the Gallic conquered Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia in the 1870s. From the 1870s to the fortiess. the Gallic ruled and exploited the wealth. resources. and labour of Vietnam and Indochina. In 1940. France fell the Nazi Germany. and France itself became a settlement. After France fell. Japan conquered Gallic Indochina and tried to replace Gallic colonial regulation with Nipponese colonial regulation. The Vietnamese shortly took up weaponries against the Japanese.

In fact. between 1941 and 1945. the United States worked closely with the Vietnamese opposition forces led by Ho Chi Minh. After World War II. Ho Chi Minh. who had been our close ally. asked the United States to coerce France to give up its imperial control of Vietnam and Indochina. President Truman decided to side with the Gallic. He accused the Vietnamese independency leaders of being Communists. There was no fixed beginning for the U. S. war in Vietnam. The United States entered that war incrementally. in a series of stairss between 1950 and 1965.

From 1945 to 1954. the United States bankrolled the Gallic attempts to recapture Vietnam and Indochina as Gallic settlements. disbursement over 2 billion dollars ( Lewis ) . After World War II. France was make destroyed and insolvents that it could non back up a drawn-out war with the Vietnamese. In 1950. President Harry S. Truman authorized a modest plan of economic and military assistance to the Gallic. who were contending to retain control of their Indochina settlement. including Laos and Cambodia every bit good as Vietnam.

When the Vietnamese Nationalist and Communist-led Vietminh ground forces defeated Gallic forces at Dienbienphu in 1954. the Gallic were compelled to submit to the creative activity of a Communist Vietnam North of the 17th analogues while go forthing a non-Communist entity South of that line. The United States refused to accept the agreement. In the southern half of Vietnam. the U. S. had been using its influence. A Christian Vietnamese named Ngo Dien Diem had been in the United States between 1950 and 1954. There he had met Senator John F. Kennedy. and he had become the hope of some as an option to communism in Vietnam.

The Eisenhower disposal began giving Diem fiscal support. and in 1954 Bao Dai. male monarch in Saigon was ousted from power and replaced by Diem. In 1956 The United States prevents free elections from taking topographic point in Vietnam. American leaders understand that free elections could merely take to Vietnam’s reunion under Ho Chi Minh. a wildly popular Vietnamese political leader who had fought for national independency since before World War II. The assorted get downing day of the months for the war complicate attempts to depict the causes of U. S. entry.

The United States became involved in the war for a figure of grounds. and these evolved and shifted over clip. Chiefly. every American president regarded the enemy in Vietnam – the Vietminh ; its 1960s replacement. the National Liberation Front ( NLF ) ; and the authorities of North Vietnam. led by Ho Chi Minh – as agents of planetary communism. US engagement in Vietnam can merely be understood as a war within the larger Cold War. Based on the policies like Containment and the Domino Theory. formulated as a response to the USSR. the US would go more and more involved in look intoing communism’s spread in Vietnam.

The “Domino Theory” described the spread of Communism in footings of a row of dominos waiting to fall. The premiss was that if Vietnam fell to communism. Laos and Cambodia would be following. Under President Harry Truman. the United States had established a foreign policy philosophy called “Containment” . Originated by diplomats and policy advisers. the policy of Containment aimed non to contend with the Communist Soviet Union. but instead to restrict communism and the Soviet Union to their existing boundaries. This philosophy led straight to the Vietnam War.

“Containment” was based on several premises. First. that the Soviet Union was ever expansionist – the Soviet Union. “animated by a new overzealous religion. ” was determined “to enforce its absolute authorization on the remainder of the universe. ” Second. that any new communist authoritiess would necessarily be portion of Soviet “empire” – in the philosophy of “Containment” there could be no such thing as a “nonaligned state. ” No state could be impersonal. It must be either portion of the Soviet imperium or what we would likely so hold to name the “American imperium.

” Third. that communism. and the Soviet Union. must be contained. The philosophy of Containment argued that full-scale war should be avoided. but the US should plight itself to halting any new communist authoritiess. or forestalling any bing communist authoritiess from spread outing. The general premiss of “Containment” was that there could be no communist authorities. which was non a tool of Moscow – all communist authoritiess were portion of the Soviet sphere ( O’Malley 2003 ) . U. S. policymakers. and most Americans. regarded communism as the antithesis of all they held beloved.

Communists scorned democracy. violated human rights. pursued military aggression. and created closed province economic systems that hardly traded with capitalist states. Americans compared communism to a contagious disease. If it took clasp in one state. U. S. policymakers expected immediate states to fall to communism. excessively. as if states were dominoes lined up on terminal. In 1949. when the Communist Party came to power in China. Washington feared that Vietnam would go the following Asiatic Domino. That was one ground for Truman’s 1950 determination to give assistance to the Gallic who were contending the Vietminh.

Truman besides hoped that helping the Gallic in Vietnam would assist to shore up the developed. non-Communist states. whose destinies were in surprising ways tied to the saving of Vietnam and. given the Domino theory. all of Southeast Asia. Free universe rule over the part would supply markets for Japan. reconstructing with American aid after the Pacific War. U. S. engagement in Vietnam reassured the British. who linked their postwar recovery to the resurgence of the gum elastic and Sn industries in their settlement of Malaya. one of Vietnam’s neighbours. And with U.

S. assistance. the Gallic could concentrate on economic recovery at place. and could trust finally to remember their Indochina officer corps to supervise the rearmament of West Germany. a Cold War step deemed indispensable by the Americans. These aspirations formed a 2nd set of grounds why the United States became involved in Vietnam ( Rotter 1999 ) . Along with the larger structural and ideological causes of the war in Vietnam. the experience. personality. and disposition of each president played a function in intensifying the U. S. committedness. Dwight Eisenhower restrained U.

S. engagement because. holding commanded military personnels in conflict. he doubted the United States could contend a land war in Southeast Asia. The vernal John Kennedy. on the other manus. felt he had to turn out his resoluteness to the American people and his Communist antagonists. particularly in the result of several foreign policy bloopers early in his disposal. President Kennedy. acknowledging the instability of the Diem government in 1961. increased the supply of arms. and sent 15. 000 American soldiers into Vietnam. But by 1963. the US was inching off from Diem.

Kennedy recognized the volatility of the state of affairs and drafted programs for backdown from Vietnam. These programs were ne’er adopted. When Johnson becomes president after Kennedy’s blackwash. he stresses the importance of go oning Kennedy’s foreign policies. On August 4. 1964 North Vietnamese ships allegedly fire on American destroyers policing the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 5. 1964 President Johnson requested a declaration showing the finding of the United Sates in back uping freedom and in protecting peace in southeast Asia He calls these unconfirmed onslaughts “as oblique as Pearl Harbor” ( Johnson 1964 ) .

On August 7. 1964. in response to the presidential petition. Congress empowers Johnson to “take all necessary steps to drive any onslaught against the forces of the U. S. and forestall farther aggression. ” In world. the American ships had violated North Vietnamese Waterss to back up South Vietnamese ranger ( United States 1964 ) . The selective bombardment of North Vietnam began instantly in response to this declaration. In March of the undermentioned twelvemonth U. S. troops began to get. When Johnson began bombing North Vietnam and sent the Marines to South Vietnam in early 1965. he had every purpose of contending a limited war.

He and his advisors worried that excessively munificent a usage of U. S. firepower might motivate the Chinese to come in the struggle. It was non expected that the North Vietnamese and the NLF would keep out long against the American military. And yet U. S. policymakers ne’er managed to suit military scheme to U. S. ends in Vietnam. Massive bombardment had small consequence against a decentralised economic system like North Vietnam’s By 1965. President Johnson’s Plutos were stating him that without monolithic American military engagement Vietnam would fall because the South Vietnamese ground forces would non contend to protect the American-controlled military dictator.

In fact. in 1965. the dictator of South Vietnam. President Thieu. told the United States that the Communists could still win any election held in South Vietnam. Faced with American licking. President Johnson order 500. 000 American military personnels into Vietnam and gave his address. “Why We Are in Vietnam” . But despite monolithic American military engagement. monolithic American bombardment. and monolithic American-supported violent death of Viet Cong protagonists. the United States and its South Vietnamese ally were losing the war.

The more the United States used barbarous military power to coerce its domination and control over South Vietnam. the more the Vietnamese people challenged American regulation and were willing to contend against the United States and the dictator of South Vietnam. By 1966 the war in Vietnam was bit by bit intensifying. President Johnson approved some but non all Joint Chiefs of Staff petitions for increased bombardment. and yet. the war continued to spread out. When the Rolling Thunder bombing run did non hold its coveted consequence. the president increased the mark list and figure of work stoppages against North Vietnam.

( Herring 1986 ) In 1968 the North Vietnamese launch the “Tet Offensive” . a monolithic military work stoppage against American bases in 39 Southern Vietnamese metropoliss. The Offensive came as a complete surprise. taking in metropoliss. towns and military installings in South Vietnam ; while the “Tet Offensive” finally ended in military licking for the Communists. the really fact of it scored them a propaganda triumph. US military contrivers began to oppugn whether a decisive triumph could of all time be achieved ; and the violative stimulated the US public’s turning resistance to the war.

Although the “Tet Offensive” demonstrates that North Vietnam is better equipped. better trained. and more determined to win the war than the American populace had believed. the United States steps up engagement in Vietnam. Faced with increasing American resistance to the war. President Johnson in March 1968 announced that he was get downing peace negotiations to stop the war and that he would non run for President in 1968. In fact. as a consequence of turning American resistance to the war. Richard Nixon ran for President in 1968 promising to stop the war in Vietnam.

He said he had a secret program to stop the war. but he didn’t truly stipulate what it was ( Lewis 2002 ) President Richard Nixon took office with a program he stated that would stop the war. His policy was “Vietnamization” of the war. in other words turning it over to the Vietnamese to contend and bit by bit retreating U. S. forces. He bombed North Vietnam. and in 1972 U. S. air power encouraged Hanoi to set up an understanding with the United States. Hanoi agreed to go forth the Viet Cong Communist forces in the South of Vietnam to contend entirely. The U. S.

portion of the understanding was that it would draw its military personnels out of Vietnam and level its bases. However. by 1970. Americans were get downing to doubt the earnestness of Nixon’s “Vietnamization” plan. 435. 000 Americans still remained in Vietnam. By 1972. Nixon had reduced the figure of US military personnels in Vietnam to 150. 000. On August 23. 1972. the last American combat military personnels left south. but bombardments of north continued ( Moritz 2004 ) . Nixon withdrew all staying American forces. but promised to step in once more if North Vietnam moved against South Vietnam.

By April 30. 1975. North Vietnam military personnels were in Saigon and the Vietnam War was over. It appeared clearly that the US had lost the Vietnam War. But while much of Indochina did go Communist. formalizing the Domino theory to an extent. the war left largely psychological cicatrixs in the US. The war did non impact the United States’ position as a world power. While North Vietnam “won” the war. recognizing Ho Chi Minh’s womb-to-tomb dream. Vietnam’s postwar period was filled with more combat. poorness. and enduring for its people.

Today. as transnational capitalist ventures make inroads in Vietnam. one would barely surmise that communism had won the war in 1975. With the backdown of U. S. forces. the economic system collapsed in the South. and support for the Viet Cong increased. The Saigon government remained good armed by the United States. and the Saigon government had work forces ferociously determined to get the better of the Communists – but non plenty. The Saigon regime’s ground forces had been plagued by abandonments. and it was unable to rally adequate people-power to counter the Vietnamese willing to contend against them.

The attempt by the United States to shore up up an anti-communist government in Saigon had cost the lives of 50. 000 U. S. military work forces. and it had accomplished nil. Losses among the Vietnamese were greater. Among those contending in Saigon’s military. about 220. 000 were killed. Those who were killed contending on the side of the Communists is estimated to be between 650. 000 and 1. 000. 000. Civilian deceases are estimated at around 4. 000. 000 ( Vietnam War Statistics 2004 ) . Conclusively. the war besides fractured American sentiment about the function of the state in universe personal businesss.

Before Vietnam. most Americans believed that the United States was a beacon of freedom the worldwide battle against Communism. The consequences of the Vietnam War. nevertheless. exposed the folly of the statement that the United States could support freedom around the Earth. Vietnam shattered the long-held belief that American money and American engineering could carry through merely about anything. From the American point of view. Vietnam was merely another pawn in the great Cold War cheat game. While US leaders claimed they were supporting democracy in South Vietnam. this was largely false.

South Vietnam “democracy” was mostly a US-created fiction. American policymakers by and large saw themselves as contending the Soviets through the placeholder of the North Vietnam and the Vietcong. The Vietnam War was misguided from the start. It demonstrates really clearly the haughtiness of power. “Containment” was a blemished policy. flawed by its indifference to the history of Southeast Asia. Its leaders’ compulsion with communism led the US deeper and deeper into a calamity. They believed in America’s mission. and in the automatic high quality of everything America did. They were incorrect. and so was the war.

Bibliography:

Rotter. Andrew. 1999. The Causes of the Vietnam War. The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Ed. John Whiteclay Chambers II. New York: Oxford UP. O’Malley. Michael. 2003. The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment. Lecture. Center for history & A ; new media. George Mason University. hypertext transfer protocol: //chnm. gmu. edu/courses/122/vietnam/lecture. hypertext markup language Johnson. Lyndon. Aug. 5. 1964. “The Tonkin Gulf Incident” . Message to Congress. Department of State Bulletin. 24 Aug. 1964. United States. Aug. 7. 1964. Joint Resolution of Congress H. J. RES 1145. Department of State Bulletin.

24 Aug. 1965. Herring. George. 1986. America s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam. 1950-1975. 2nd erectile dysfunction. ( p. 146 ) . New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Vietnam War Statistics. 2004. New Jersey State Council Vietnam Veteran of America. hypertext transfer protocol: //www. njscvva. org/vietnam_war_stats. htm Lewis. Chris. 2002. History of American Involvement in Vietnam: 1945-1975. Sewall Academic Program. University of Colorado. hypertext transfer protocol: //www. Colorado. edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/vietnam. htm Moritz. Garrett. 2004. SparkNote on The Vietnam War ( 1955-1975 ) . hypertext transfer protocol: //www. sparknotes. com/history/american/vietnamwar