The United States became increasingly involved with the War in Vietnam mostly thanks to their enmity with Russia due to the fact they were Communist, and how the USSR spread claiming countries that could’ve been turned democratic and become trading partners of the US. While Russia, Britain and the USA were all allies in WW1, they disagreed on many things, especially on how Germany should be punished and how should Europe be handled. THE USSR AND THE USA. During 1940-1970, the USSR and the USA were the world’s leading superpowers. After WW2, it was the US money that helped rebuild nearly all of Western Europe, putting nearly half a dozen countries into debt. They opened trade and helped Europe’s ravaged economy to get back onto its feet. They did so by creating the ‘Marshall Plan’ on June the 5th, 1947. The plans aim was to reconstruct Western Europe and at the same time to stop Communism spreading to them – the Americans were avid believers in the Domino Theory, and believed that communism would take over all of Europe if they did not intervene. They also created other policies such as the Truman doctrine on March the 12th, 1947 (which is a set of principles that state that the US as the worlds ‘leading country’ will help out other democratic governments worldwide) and NATO, 4th of April 1949. The Russians, who were also strongly affected by the war, were not deciding to retreat back to their borders without gaining anything - they were not allowed to attend the Treaty of Versailles or take part in agreeing on the terms and reparations that Germany was to pay off, thus getting no reward from participating in the war. Bitter with this prospect, Stalin decided to answer with his own set of policies, such as the ComEcom, ComInfor... ... middle of paper ... ...h Americans used planes and helicopters to deploy sustained heavy bombardment over Vietnam. During this one operation there were more bombs dropped than in the entire WW2 – 864,000 tonnes in total. CONCLUSION. In conclusion, I think that the United States became increasingly involved in the Vietnamese War because of the policies they had made as a promise to fight communism, and because they had sorely underestimated Vietcong’s ability to fight back using Guerrilla warfare. They refused to pull out of the war in fear of losing face before the world, but this pride factor scored them massive losses in the war. In the end, with both side sustaining heavy losses, the US were still seen as mutilators in the war, with advanced showing what their intervention had costed, and Vietnam was still fully taken over by Communism – they had achieved nothing and lost a lot.
As a result, the Geneva agreement was set up to try and keep order in
Reasons for United States' Involvement in Vietnam In this essay I will be writing about why America got involved in the Vietnam War, between the 1950s to the 1960s. This was a steady and slow process with many deaths all because of communism. It was very costly and bloody. This essay will focus on political reasons, military reasons and economy reasons.
... This is because their tactics, such as bombings, and the spraying of deadly chemicals are harmful, and destructing the environment of local citizens of Vietnam, whereas America came all the way, to persuade North Vietnam to be a capitalist instead of communist. By damaging the people’s food, and lives, America had lost the support of Vietnam people, and they changed, to support the Vietcong, communism, which might have affected the way the Vietcong fought again the US. Popular support is the second, and confidence the third, because the tactics affects them, by having poor tactics, you lose hope in your army, and therefore, soldiers become demoralised and less confident. Weapons are the least important, because they have better equipments than Vietnam, but it was the tactics, which made poor uses of them, and wasted the money, and time spent to be sent to Vietnam.
The amount of division in the United States during the vietnam war is astonishing as it symbolizes a country set at odds. Since the vietnam war caused a large amount of division between citizens it also stirred up controversy. So many americans began to think that we were meddling in a civil war that had nothing to do with us. However south vietnam was an ally of ours and we felt obliged to assist our weaker ally. The U.S.feared the domino theory which states “ if one land in a region came under the influence of communism
The Vietnam war was taken place mostly in Vietnam, eastern part of Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The Vietnam war was a long conflict that the communist hated and the southern allies, viet cong, and the its ally the United States. The war was worth millions of lives which most of them were Vietnamese civilians. We can because of need president Harry Truman sent around $160 million for aid to the Trench warfare. He also sent the Military Assistance Advisory Group or MAAG to help assist them there. Many of these conflicts were affecting the Domino theory espicslly the war in general. The Domino theory is if a country became communist if would soon start spreading it like a Domino when fallen. Because of this threat of communism in the air the United
As one of the major theatres of the Second World War, Western Europe was left thoroughly ravaged. Conditions were bleak financially and this area was considered to be the most susceptible to communism. Not only was it geographically closest to a Soviet threat, but it was also the most socially vulnerable. This investigation will attempt to answer the following question: To what extent did the Marshall Plan aid Western Europe amidst the devastation of post-WWII? Two main sources including Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley’s Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938, and The USA and the Cold War, 1945-63 by Oliver Edwards will be assessed on their origin, purpose, value, and limitation. This essay will focus on how through the economic aid of the Marshall Plan, America was able to prevent further westward Soviet expansion in Europe, and restore power to the Great Powers of Western Europe. This essay will not, however, assess the initial congressional and public resistance of the plan and the change in public opinion or the Soviet rejection of the Marshall Plan, and the origins of European division and the Cold War. By stimulating the post-WWII recovery of Western Europe through American economic aid, the US was able to protect the capitalist nature of Western European governments from further Soviet expansion and political seizure.
Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s Vietnam was in the midst of a Civil war. The North and South were divided amongst themselves. The North wanted a communist based county while the South wanted an anti- communist based country. This caused the two to go to war with each other. Eventually the United States got involved in the war and supported South Vietnam simply because they were anti- communist and they wanted to prevent the Domino Theory. The Vietnam War cost a lot of money, and put America into even more debt. In addition, a lot of soldiers lost their lives serving. This caused for many riots, and protests back in America. Eventually a credibility gap grew between the citizens and the government which led to distrust. Lastly, the fact that it was a Civil War between a divided country across the world, made matters worse. For these reasons, America’s involvement was unjust.
America, from the onset of the war did not have any precise strategies to achieve their goals. Vietnamese leader, Diem noticed this stating, “It was as if the United States could never quiet decide what policy to pursue.” The official reason for US entry was to defeat the Communist threat. President Kennedy stated, “The enemy is the Communist system itself-implacable, insatiable, unceasing in its drive for world domination…” There were two significant faults with this objective. Firstly the Americans assumed that, without evidence, the Vietnamese people would be swung by the power of democracy. Secondly, disputes occurred between the major Communist nations during the Vietnam war: the Sino-Soviet split destroyed the idea of a unified world-wide takeover by Communist nations. Vietnamese scholar Luu Doan Huynh attacked the US many years later, “…you were not only wrong, but you had, so to speak, lost your minds. Vietnam a part of the Chinese expansionist game in Asia? For anyone who knows the history of Indochina, this is incomprehensible.” America was trapped, the original premise of invading Vietnam became void as the war progressed.
The Vietnam War started because Northern Vietnam was threatened by communism. America vowed to protect any country that has been threatened by communism, if they request assistance. This promise was called the Truman Doctrine. When North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam, both sides brought their own allies. North Vietnam, along with Russia, China, Cuba North Korea, and others, threatened to bring the evil of communism to South Vietnam. When this happened, the United States, the Philippines, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, Spain,
The Vietnam War was the first major war American’s had suffered defeat. The Vietnam war was a war of confusion, competition and biasness. The outcome of the war was far greater than an upset American nation, but a severe breakdown of the Vietnamese culture, economy, environment and government. It also had a tremendous impact on American society even up to present day. It was unclear from the beginning of the war if the American’s should even be involved. It was a war between Northern and Southern Vietnam but the U.S saw it as an indirect way to challenge the USSR’s sphere of influence in Southern Asia and to prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism. The Vietnam War completely changed the way the United States approached military action and helped establish the role of the United States within the new world order.
.The Vietnam War was fought because the Viet Cong want to reunite and reunify Vietnam. Since the American people and government were in a very vicious and intense nuclear arms race with the communist Soviet Union, the American people to make its mark on the world and make sure that any push of communism would be repealed with first political action, and if that didn't work out, military action.The Northern Vietnam government want to unify Vietnam into a communist nation. But Americans had no appreciation for the duty and aggressive happenings that went down in Vietnam. From the claustrophobic forest roads and trails, to the gruesome traps,there was no safe zone in Vietnam. Luckily for the soldiers though, they only had to serve a year, that
Vietnam was a struggle which, in all honesty, the United States should never have been involved in. North Vietnam was battling for ownership of South Vietnam, so that they would be a unified communist nation. To prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism, the U.S. held on to the Truman Doctrine and stood behind the South Vietnamese leader, Diem.
Operation Rolling Thunder was an aerial bombing campaign, during the Vietnam War, conducted by the United States Air Force, United States Navy, and the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, from March 2, 1965 to November 2, 1968.
The American’s involvement in the Vietnam War took a huge death toll as well as a huge financial toll. Many believed that our involvement was unnecessary and waste of the money and lives lost (Romo, Zastro, Miller). But, with the harsh French ruling the Vietnam had, and soon shared control over Vietnam with Japan, some Vietnamese got tired of that and wanted to declare it a free country. Of course, that thought wouldn’t come easy to all, and a fight starts to break. With the U.S. nervous about the possible spread of communism to other countries surrounding and eventually making way to the Americas, the United States were soon involved in the Vietnam war that ended up lasting 16 years long.