United States' Involvement in Vietnam

In this essay, the author

• Explains that the end of world war two was the beginning of america's worries about communism and the truman doctrine.
• Explains that america saw it as their duty to help and protect the other countries, which could be in the threat of communism. the marshall plan accompanied the truman doctrine.
• Explains how the 'domino theory' was used to explain the way countries could be influenced by their neighbouring country/ies.
• Explains why the united states became increasingly involved in the war in vietnam. france ruled vietnam, but during world war two france became occupied by germany.
• Explains that france had a weakness in vietnam and the japanese took advantage of the weak points. the vietnamese had not liked living under foreign rule.
• Explains that the united states sent money and supplies to boost france's economy, but did not help in any other way. the vietminh didn't like having french influences back again and guerrilla warfare was used against the french.
• Explains that the vietminh dressed as peasants to disguise themselves and used their local knowledge to make it difficult to detect attacks in the jungle.
• Explains that the usa backed up a geneva conference, which said that vietnam be divided up into the communist, north vietnam and south vietnam under the rule of the ngo dinh diem.
• Explains that the usa is slowly advancing into vietnam and becoming more involved with what is going on there. in 1956 vietnam was to have an election to decide how the country would be ruled - either communist or capitalist.
• Explains that communists in south vietnam started to revolt, as they wanted the election to take place. they sent spies from the north and were causing trouble.
• Explains that many south vietnamese didn't like him because he favoured his family by giving them all the good jobs. these problems caused the usa to become more involved and they sent in more advisors.
• Analyzes the tension between america and russia, which built up to the cold war, where no actual fighting went on, it was just indirect conflict.
• Explains that the vietnamese couldn't tell the difference between a member of the public and an guerrilla. between 1961 and 1964, the number of guerrillas in south vietnam rose from 20,000 to 100,000.
• Explains the reason for america's involvement is that they notice that the communist part of the country has the upper hand with many more supporters and 100,000 guerrillas.
• Explains that america was sending their advisors into vietnam to stop north vietnam gaining control, turning vietnam into a communist country, and endangering other countries.
• Narrates how a buddhist monk set fire to himself to protest against the treatment of the buddhists.
• Explains that ngo dinh diem tried to win favor by telling the army not to attack the vietcong, which america disapproved of. president kennedy was assassinated and johnson took over.
• Explains that president johnson sent more advisors to vietnam until the 1964 gulf of tongking incident changed things.
• Explains that the usa had a valid reason to go to war, and the ho chi minh trail was bombed.
• Describes how the vietcong attacked the american airbase at pleiku in 1965, resulting in the loss of 10 aircraft, the death of 8 advisors, and injury of 100 us personnel.
• Describes operation rolling thunder, which targeted bridges, roads, army barracks and railway lines. by 1968, the usa had 500,000 men in vietnam, a massive increase compared to just 12 years earlier.
• Describes the two reasons why america became involved in the vietnam war. the short-term reasons were that they were first helping france with their position in vietnam and were trying to stop guerrilla warfare.