Beginning in the 1950s, maintaining a non-Communist South Vietnam became crucial in American efforts to contain communism. What was the nation's justification for its actions in South Vietnam in the 1950s and its determination to abide by the outcome of free elections there only if those elections yielded a non-Communist leader? For a long time the United States were in fear of the threat of communism stemming from a direct attack and the aspect of the Cold War, played a vital role in the fears. In the beginning the Vietnam War was first thought to be just another Cold War between northern and southern Vietnam. While the United States was nervous of Communism consuming the entire globe.
The Vietnam War is just another event or period of time in American history, or so some think. Wars affect both the people on the battlefield and the society at home. This era of the Vietnam war was no different. The war in Vietnam began in 1957 and ended in 1975. The communist government of the North wished the United States to stop their support of the South Vietnam efforts against communism.
Many people ask the question, “Why did the U.S. even care about the Vietnam conflict, let alone fight a war there?” One Reason for U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict was that the U.S. feared the Domino Theory. The Domino Theory is where if one state falls to communism, then all the other states around it will fall into communism too. Because the U.S. feared this, they responded with containment. Containment means to keep communism from spreading to other countries. Another reason for U.S. involvement is imperialism, which was left over from WWI and WWII.
Aiming to win back support from the American’s, as many people did not support the Vietnam war due to the bad media that was publicised. This was the first War to be so publicised and it shocked many of the people back home. This lead to Anti-War protest, which became one of the US governments aims to stop. However they still stuck to the aim to try and contain Vietnam from the spread of communism and supporting the SV defeat the VC in nearby country Cambodia. On the other side the aims of the NV government and their terrorist organisation the VC did not alter as they still aimed to persuade the SV government to vote for Vietnam to become a communist country.
The Vietnam War Heather Cameron Axia College of the University of Phoenix The Vietnam War Every good American, before the war in Vietnam, held their political leaders and Congressmen in high regard. It was during the 1960's that this viewpoint began to change as the American death toll began to rise. One major viewpoint, eerily similar to today, was that though the intentions of entering into the conflict were good, the fact that it seemed to be a losing battle and the costs seemed to be too high; it was time to pull out of Vietnam. The other side of that coin was that there was a purpose for going into Vietnam and we should not leave until the job was done (Schulzinger, 1999). It had not been since the early 1940's that the
(b) How far was President Kennedy determined to use military forces in South Vietnam in order to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia? There is two sides to each argument in this answer one side will show how determined Kennedy was to using military force and the other side would be to show how he tried to use other options. Firstly I am going to describe how I think that Kennedy was determined or willing to use military force. Firstly he started out by carrying on Eisenhower’s plans for guerrilla warfare by training the South Vietnamese army and giving them supplies and equipment to try and fight the war like that instead of using American troops even though he criticised Eisenhower’s soft defence against communism but still carried on with some of his plans. After the failure of that he introduced things such as the strategic hamlets (Agrovilles) which were villages that were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by troops, to isolate National Liberation Front (NFL) guerrillas from political recruits and other responses.
The conflicts between the North and the South Vietnam increased along with the Viet Cong rebels. The North Vietnam threatened South Vietnam that they will take over and make the communist. Even with the help of the United States, the South Vietnam wasn’t able to win. For both wars, the main reason for U.S. involvement was to follow the policy of United States that they will stop communist from spreading. There are many differences between the two wars.
In a CBS special, Cronkite concluded, "To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past, to say we are mired in a bloody stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion" ( Hallin, 1986, p.170) This did not help increase the support for our troops in Vietnam. The overall support for the war was diminished by Cronkite's report. The negative coverage of the war influenced politicians, the public, and the American soldier. Concerned with losing support, politicians started to really get involved. The TeT offensive was a last ditch effort for the communists.
President James K. Polk and President George W. Bush had both wanted to go to war with countries that they believed had been a threat to the United States. They both had believed that these two countries that they had wanted to go to war with had been terrorizing American citizens. Both presidents had honestly believed that the only way to settle this dispute was to go to war. These two presidents had manipulated the government and Americans into thinking that that the only option they had left was to go to war. They both made citizens feel that their lives were going to be, if not already, in danger.
Introduction I’m written an essay about the Vietnam War and why it became a war between USA and North Vietnam. I also included in this essay how the war propaganda affects the support of war in both USA and in North Vietnam. Aim and scope First in this essay I have chosen a research question which sounds like this: Why did North Vietnam win the war against USA, and how did the war- and antiwar propaganda. I did choose this research question since I first find it very interesting that a such a minor country like North Vietnam could defeat a superpower like USA, secondly I narrowing down the investigation very much since I don’t have to write anything after the war ends but I have to write more on the events occurring before the outbreak