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Cold war arms race essay
Cold war arms race essay
Vietnam war history
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The Vietnam War has roots from ancient Vietnam's rule by colonial and imperial powers. In 1407 China ruled ancient Vietnam, then in late 1800s France took control and established Indochina. In the late 1800s, Nationalist movements began. They wanted more self governance and less French rule. The main movements were held by the communist leader Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the militant nationalist organization the Viet Minh.
During WWII when France was occupied by Nazi Germany, it lost its hold in Vietnam, and Japan took control of Vietnam. The Viet Minh resisted the Japanese and extended its power throughout Vietnam. When the Japanese surrendered at the end of WWII, Ho Chi Minh took the capital of Hanoi and declared Vietnam an independent country. France refused the declaration and returned to Vietnam, driving Ho’s forces into North Vietnam. In 1954 a cease fire was declared and Vietnam was officially divided in two, with the North ruled by Ho and communist forces, and the South under a French backed Emperor. The dividing line was the Seventeenth Parallel.
Because of the domino theory, the theory that if Vietnam fell to communism it would spread to the rest of Southeast Asia, the USA began to support the anti-communist politician, Ngo Dinh Diem. With assistance from the USA, Diem took control of the South Vietnamese Government in 1955 and declared the republic of Vietnam.
Diem’s regime was extremely corrupt and unpopular. He was unwilling to be a “puppet leader.” He constantly refused to take advice from the USA and he made decisions that upset the South Vietnamese people. Resistance against Diem’s regime was organized by the Ho Chi Minh liberation front, which became more commonly known as the Viet Cong.
In 1962 JFK sent...
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...xchange, North Vietnam promised that elections would be held to determine the fate of the whole country.
As the Watergate scandal began to enclose around Nixon, the North Vietnamese Communist leader Le Duan assumed correctly that the United States would not likely interfere in Vietnam, even though Nixon promised to. As a result from that, North Vietnamese troops began to move into South Vietnam in 1974. Nixon resigned in shame in Aug. 1974 and was replaced by the Vice President, Gerald R. Ford.
Any hope to try to salvage the war was shattered when congress refused adequate funding for the South Vietnamese army in 1974. In the beginning of 1975 the Communist forces started a large offensive, forcing the South Vietnamese to retreat. On Apr. 30, 1975, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese, all of Vietnam was unified under Communist rule, and the Vietnam War was over.
... One of the greatest things to come out of the war was the humanitarian aid that we brought and the brief liberation. In early 1975, the communists launched a major offensive in the north of South Vietnam that resulted in the fall of Saigon on 30 April. In the previous month a RAAF detachment of 8 Hercules transports flew humanitarian missions to aid civilian refugees displaced by the fighting, and carried out the evacuation of Vietnamese orphans before finally taking out embassy staff on 25 April (Dudley 179).
The Vietnam War was a war over communism that started in 1950, when Ho Chi Minh, the national leader of Vietnam, introduced a communist government into North Vietnam. In 1954 it was decided to split the country at the 17th parallel, and was ruled under opposing governments, Bao Dai leading the south and Ho Chi Mihn the north. North Vietnam went to war with South Vietnam with the north being supported by Russia and China, as they were also Communist countries, and the south being supported by Britain and the USA.
At this time, Vietnam was a French colony. As time went on, tension started to come between the French and the Vietnamese people. As tension increased, so did the fighting between the French and the Vietnamese. Finally in 1954, the French decided that they could no longer withstand the revolts of the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese are now free of French rule.
From 1954-1963, Diem presided over an increasingly corrupt, devious, and repressive regime. Communist guerrillas backed by North Vietnam launched a new rebellion, but a civil disobedience campaign led by the country's Buddhist monks contributed more directly to his downfall. Brutal persecution of the dissident monks in 1963 damaged the regime's already shaky international reputation. With American support, Vietnamese generals overthrew and assassinated Ngo later that year.
The Vietnam War was the longest war in America's history of involvement. Twenty years of hell, land mines, cross-fire, and death. Vietnam was divided by the Geneva Accord. The north being communist run by Ho Chi Minh. The south being anti-Communist run by Ngo Dinh Diem. Before Vietnam was separated, it was run by France. France had ruled most of Indochina since the late 1800s. The Vietnamese were unhappy with the way the French were controlling, therefore, many of them took refuge in China. When in China, they began to follow the lead of Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to model the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence as that of the U.S. version. In the 1940s, Japan had taken over Vietnam which upset Ho Chi Minh and his revolutionaries when they had returned a year later.
...ere was even an American air strike against “a convoy of North Vietnamese mobile missiles.” Tran Van Huong replaced Thieu as president, but that was short lived. Duong Van Minh, who was president earlier in the South Vietnamese government, became president of the Republic of Vietnam on April 28th, 1975. Minh’s presidency was short lived too, as he ordered cease-fire on April 30th.
The Vietnam war started in December of 1956, and lasted until April of 1975. The war was between the U.S., and Vietnam. This war was a very gruesome, and tragic war. In Vietnam their leader Ho Chi Minh came back after a 30 year trip to explore around the world. When he returned his country was occupied by two major countries, Japan and France. Ho Chi Minh had a plan to run them out of his country, but he needed the U.S. for it to work. U.S. was still in the Cold war with Russia and there was fear of communism there. So the U.S. decided not to help Vietnam and send military aid to help the French and Japanese forces, in order to stop communism. Thus begun The vietnam war!
“In July 1965, Lyndon Johnson chose to Americanize the war in Vietnam.” Although Johnson chose to enter America into the war, there were events previous that caused America to enter and take over the war. The South Vietnamese were losing the war against Communism – giving Johnson all the more reason to enter the war, and allowing strong American forces to help stop communism. There were other contributing factors leading up to the entrance of the war; America helped assist the French in the war, Johnson’s politics, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and the 1954 Geneva Conference. President Johnson stated, “For 10 years three American Presidents-President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your present President--and the American people have been actively concerned with threats to the peace and security of the peoples of southeast Asia from the Communist government of North Viet-Nam.”
The French eventually gained back some control over parts of Vietnam. In early 1946, the French began a series of dual negotiations with the Chinese and Viet Minh over the future of Vietnam. After failed negotiations with the French over the future of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh retreated into remote parts of the countryside to fight a small-scale insurgency against the French. (The History Place, Beginner’s Guide)
There were many events that lead up the Vietnam War, it started in 1945 with the hostilities between the French and Vietminh. “Geopolitical Strategy, economics, domestic US politics, and cultural arrogance shaped the growing American involvement in Vietnam” (Anderson 1). As a matter of fact, the Vietnam War was several wars, but it was not until 1962 that America had their first combat mission, however, Americans were killed during ambushes by the Vietnamese before the first combat mission. There is much controversy over the reasons for the Vietnam War, supported by the several different books and articles written about the war. “The most famous atrocity occurred in a tiny hamlet called My Lai in March 1968” (Detzer 127). History shows that the reaction of many Americans to the attack by US soldiers on the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War was opposition, and the actions of the US soldiers during the My Lai Massacre will be forever remembered as a significant part of the Vietnam War and American History.
The conflict in Vietnam for the United States started when President Dwight D. Eisenhower went along with the domino theory and sent in military advisors in South Vietnam to stop the communist movement from taking place in South Vietnam. The Vietnam conflict was between the communist’s and the United States. North Vietnam was led by Ho Chi Minh, and Ho Chi Minh led the Viet Cong, a guerilla group to help spread communism. The United States were supporters of the South Vietnam because they wanted them to maintain their government rather than falling to the domino theory of communism. After Eisenhower’s term ended John F. Kennedy became president and took control of the situation of Vietnam but on November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated. Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded presidency and the problems of Vietnam were left to himself. In 1963, the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred where, the U.S.S Maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese naval ships on august 2 1964. Two days later an even more controversial attack happened where it was reported another ship was attacked again but has later been proven false. Johnson used these events to gain congressional approval to enter into Vietnam. However the Tonkin Gulf Incident was questioned to have even happened which makes the war undoubtedly questionable Immediately after the incident . Many troops were killed in Vietnam and the United States eventually lost the war and does not achieve their goal to stop communism. Despite the large amount of conflict in Vietnam that needed to be resolved, escalating the war was the wrong idea by Johnson, as the many consequences of the war for the United States outweighed the potential spread of communism.
Kennedy promised in his inaugural address, Let every nation know.that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty. From the 1880s until World War II, France governed Vietnam as part of French Indochina, which also included Cambodia and Laos. The country was under the formal control of an emperor, Bao Dai. From 1946 until 1954, the Vietnamese struggled for their independence from France during the first Indochina War. At the end of this war, the country was temporarily divided into North and South Vietnam.
-North Vietnamese viewed both Johnson's retirement and peace negotiations as their victory. (Timothy P. Maga)
The Vietnam War took action after the First Indochina War, in fact the Vietnam War is also known as the Second Indochina War. This war included the communist North Vietnam and its allies of the Viet Cong, the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies going against South Vietnam and its allies, the Unites States, Philippines and other anti-communist allies. It was a very long and conflicting war that actually started in 1954 and ended in 1975. The war began after the rise to power of Ho Chi Minh and his communist party in North Vietnam. More than three million people were killed during the war, this included approximately 58,000 Americans and more than half of the killed were actually Vietnamese civilians. The Vietnam War ended by the communist forces giving up control of Saigon and the next year the country was then unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Many people, including both men and women were directly and indirectly involved within the war itself. Women worked many different roles in the Vietnam War, and they are most definitely not credited enough for all that they actually did.
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.