Vietnam War

WAR IN VIETNAM

The involvement of the United States in Vietnam stemmed from its Cold War containment policy .After World War II, stopping the spread of communism was the principal goal of U.S. foreign policy.

TheRoad to war. In the early 1900s, France controlled most of resource-rich Southeast Asia. (French Indochina included what are now Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.) But nationalist independence movements had begun to develop. A young Vietnamese Nationalist, Ho Chi Min, turned to the communist for help in his struggle. During the 1930s, Ho´s Indochinese Communist party led revolts and strikes against the French.

The French responded by jailing Vietnamese protesters. They also sentenced Ho to death. He fled into exile, but returned to Vietnam in 1941,a year after the Japanese seized control of his country during World War II. Ho and other nationalists founded the Vietminh (independence) League. The Japanese were forced out of Vietnam after their defeat in 1945.Ho Chi Minh believed that independence would follow, but France intendend to regain its colony.

The Fighting Begins Vietnamese Nationalists and Communists joined to fight the French armies. The French held most major cities, but the Vietminh had widespread support in the countryside. In France the people began to doubt that their colony was worth the lives and money the struggle cost. In 1954, the French suffered a major military defeat at Dien Bien Phu. They surrendered to Ho.

The United States had supported France in Vietnam. With the defeat of the French, The United States saw a rising threat to the rest of Asia. President Eisenhower described this threat in terms of the domino theory. The Southeast Asian nations were like a row of dominos, he said. The fall of one to communism would lead to the fall of its neighbors. This theory became a major justification for U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War era.

Vietnam- A Divided Country After France´s defeat, an international peace conference met in Geneva to discuss the future of Indochina. Based on these talks, Vietnam was divided at 17º north latitude. North of that line, Ho Chi Minh´s Communist forces governed. To the south, the United States and France set up an anti-Communist government under the leadership of Ngo Dinh diem.

Diem ruled the south as a dictator. Opposition to his government grew.

Communist guerrillas, called Vietcong, began to gain strength in the south. Gradually, the Vietcong won control of large areas of the countryside. In 1963, a group of South Vietnamese generals had Diem assassinated. But the new leaders were no more popular than he had been. It appeared that a takeover by the Communist Vietcong, backed by North Vietnam, was inevitable.

The United States Gets Involved

Faced with the possibility of a Communist victory, The United States decided to escalate, or increase, its involvement.

United States Troops Enter the fight In August 1964, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson told Congress that North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. As a result, Congress authorized the president to send U.S .troops to fight in Vietnam.

The United Stated had the best-equipped, most advanced army in the world. Yet it faced two major difficulties. First, U.S. soldiers were fighting a guerrilla war in unfamiliar jungle terrain. Second, the South Vietnamese government that they were defending was becoming more unpopular .At the same time, support for the Vietcong grew, with help and supplies from Ho Chi Minh, the Soviet Union, and China. Unable to win a decisive victory on the ground, the United States turned to air power. U.S. forces bombed farmland and forest.

The United States Withdraws during the late 1960s, the war grew increasingly unpopular in the United States. President Richard Nixon began withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam in 1969.

Nixon had a plan called vietnamization. It allowed for U.S. troops to gradually pull out, while the South Vietnamese increased their combat role. To pursue Vietnamization while preserving the South Vietnamese government, Nixon Authorized a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnamese bases and supply routes.

He also authorized bombings in neighboring Laos and Cambodia to destry Vietcong hiding places.

The last troops left in 1973.Two years later, the North Vietnamese overran South Vietnam. The war ended, but more than 1.5 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans lost their lives.

Adapted from "World History" by C. de Ortúzar.

Link to other older post in this blog of the same subject.