Why America Withdrew from Vietnam

Why America Withdrew from Vietnam

There are many reasons why America decided to withdraw from Vietnam in

1973. This essay is to investigate and analyse the possible

factors/events that led to the withdrawal, the long-term events shall

be explored first then the short term. One of the many long-term

factors leading to the withdrawal was the failure of the U.S troops

trying to win the 'hearts and minds' of the Vietnamese. This was a

policy created by President J.F. Kennedy who believed that if the

Vietnamese were shown the advantages of American 'way of life' then

they would easily win the 'hearts and minds' of them, however the

Vietnamese didn't respond to this policy as they wanted an independent

country, the French had just left Vietnam and the Vietnamese people

didn't want another intruding outside country in Vietnams affairs. If

this policy was to ever succeed then the Americans would have had a

great advantage and would've been able to defeat the Vietcong, as it

was the support of the peasants that encouraged and helped the

guerrilla tactics, as well as this the ARVN would have had a bigger

incentive to fight with the support of the South Vietnamese peasants.

The Americans lost a lot of support in the war by standing by the

South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinah Diem, who was a devoted catholic

which caused a major problem with the public in south Vietnam as most

of the population was Buddhist, more importantly though, he broke the

Geneva agreement by fixing the elections in South Vietnam, and then

shortly afterwards suppressed the peasants and made his close friends

and family into power.

Then there was Diems 'strategic ha...

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..., and giving the ARVN

weapons to defend themselves more but they couldn't fight as they had

no incentive to.

To conclude there were many reasons for the withdrawal in Vietnam, the

most important reasons were the Tet offensive and the inefficiency of

the American troops, the causes stated throughout this essay interlink

but a change to other aspects could've changed the outcome of the war

as each cause reflected and influenced another cause, all the causes

add to the next to make the outcome of the war and in each short and

long-term came the result e.g. Tet offensive changed the public

opinion which changed the troops morale leading to the troops

in-effectiveness leading to the withdrawal of the troops. All causes

linked to another cause in the war, which is why the America withdrew

its troops and forces in 1973.