Exploring Why American Forces Withdrew from Vietnam in 1973

Exploring Why American Forces Withdrew from Vietnam in 1973

The Americans got involve in Vietnam because they didn’t want

communism to dominate South East Asia as they promised to protect

countries from communism due to the theory of containment. America was

the strongest and richest democratic country at the time. Its military

was also powerful as it had a big army and munitions. On the other

hand, North Vietnam supported communism which was totally different to

America. In the Vietnam War, the Americans used different military

tactics, such as search and destroy and bombing raids. On the other

hand, the Vietnamese uses guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare was led

by a leader in Vietnam called Ho Chi Minh who was experienced.

Although America had lots of supplies and big army, Vietnam was not

weak; it had supplies from the USSR and China, it also had Vietcong

who are non-uniformed soldiers. This shows that the American didn’t

have a complete military advantage. These two countries were both not

weak; as a result both sides struggled for 8 years in the war.

America tried very hard for 8 years to defeat Vietnam, but it didn’t

seem effective. One of the reasons the Americans withdrew from Vietnam

was because the Vietnamese had a very good tactics- guerrilla warfare,

which was very hard to deal with, due to the following points:

Firstly, the Vietcong has no uniform or headquarters, so this

indicates the Americans wouldn’t know how and where their enemy was.

Secondly, the Vietcong’s base camp was located underground; this means

their position was hard to be detected, so they could defend

themselves and attack whenever they think was appropriate. Thirdly,

Vietcong have good team spirit and morale. The fourth thing is the

psychological impact. As the Americans couldn’t defeat the Vietcong,

their morale was bad and they were feared by them because the Vietcong

hid in forest areas and they know the enemy’s position whereas the

Americans didn’t. They were also fear if there are any traps as they

were fighting in the jungle.