The Clash Of Ideologies During World War II

Hess argues that the threat of the USSR and Communism “left the US no choice but to stand up to the challenge posed by Vietnam”. Direct confrontation was impossible as the USSR was a nuclear power, therefore the only choice available was “a policy of containment”; previous success in Korea gives validity to this view. Hess states Vietnam was the centre of the “Domino Theory”, that a communist Vietnam “would inexorably lead to the collapse of other non-communist states”. All communist states were believed to be puppets of the USSR so an increase in Soviet allies would tip the global power balance against the US.

The Cold War was the name given to the political economic, military and ideological contention that occurred between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and their allies after World War II. The two forces never directly engaged in military activity in light of the fact that both had atomic weapons that if utilized, might have had crushing outcomes for both sides. Instead, proxy wars were battled. A proxy war results when contradicting forces utilize outsiders as substitutes for battling each one other and is ordinarily launched by a power that does not itself partake. The Korean and Vietnam wars are two examples of proxy wars on the grounds that the U.S. and the Soviet Union did not directly engage one another however, Soviet endeavors to spread and bring together both Korea and Vietnam under communist rule provoked mediation either by the United States and/or by their allies. These two occasions were simply a few of the impacts of the Cold War in Asia. This paper will examine each war individually and in more detail and endeavor to persuade that the Korean and Vietnam Wars were the immediate aftereffects of Soviet endeavors to expand communist influence in Asia and the United States and their allies' approach of forestalling and holding such endeavors.

The political instability in Vietnam from 1950 to 1975 between the communist North Vietnam and anti-communist South Vietnam during the Cold War era has led to the United States’ inevitable intervention in Vietnam. The main motivators for the United States’ incremental decision to intervene and commitment in Vietnam can be viewed as an accumulation of socio-political, political and economic catalysts. In recognition that there were many other factors that may have contributed to the U.S’s involvement in the conflict in Vietnam, this essay will largely focus on these three factors. As the cold war resonates, the American’s crusade was propelled by the fears of the domino theory and perception of Communist threat and expansion affected the

The first thing that one must do when discussing Vietnam is remember the historical context in which the conflict took place. The United States and it's Free World allies were attempting to confine the Communist Bloc, which by this time included both the Soviet Union and China, and keep it from expanding into surrounding nations. The U.S. felt that if the Communists were not allowed to expand, they would eventually collapse under the weight of their centralized economy. So in order to accomplish the policy of containment, the U.S. need to ally itself with nations bordering Communist ones. However, one of the most important aspects of political alliances is the trust each must have in the

The Vietnam War was fought between North Vietnam communists led by their leader Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam anti-communists led by their president Ngo Dinh Diem. North Vietnam was trying to taking over South Vietnam to make it a communist country. That is when the U.S. came knocking on South Vietnam’s door and gave them much needed help in 1950. In Eric Foner’s and John A Garraty’s essay, “Vietnam War,” they explain, “from Washington’s perspective, . . . [a]ny communist anywhere, at home or abroad, was, by definition, an enemy of the United States” because of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “domino theory” (Foner). Eisenhower’s “domino theory,” was a theory that if communists took over Vietnam, they would gradually control all of Southeast Asia. The first aid given by the U.S. was to France. Willbanks explains in his essay that the U.S. provided France, a South Vietnamese ally, $2.6

As communism began to spread steadily and gain more and more attention, Americans became immensely concerned in what most saw as a detrimental threat. President Eisenhower only added to the hysteria by outlining the Domino Theory: the theory that a political event, in this case referring to the spread communism, in one country will cause a similar turn of events in neighboring countries, like a falling domino that causes an entire row to fall down. Although the Vietnam War is seen by many as the only option to try to end the spread of communism, the specious outcome of the war was not effective enough to justify the amount of unethical decisions and situations that were allowed to take place. In 1961, under President Kennedy, 100 Special Forces troops were sent to South Vietnam and by 1963, just two years later, U.S military advisors and Special Forces had increased to 21,000 troops. We will soon see that this is just the beginning and in my paper I will outline the full record of events all the way to the end of the war, including the reasons for U.S involvement, unethical decisions that were made, America 's effort to end the war, and the lasting impact the war had on the United States.

The latter half of the twentieth century involved increasing tensions between the United States of America and the Soviet Union due to conflicting political and economic ideals. Specifically, the United States promoted the political philosophy of democracy and the economic policy of capitalism. On the other hand, the Soviet Union practiced communism and vehemently encouraged it upon other nations, oftentimes with force. As a result, the United States began arresting the expansion of communism in accordance with its foreign policy of containment. Despite this, communism soon manifested in Vietnam, but the United States subsequently unleashed the entirety of its resources to prevent this rival philosophy from taking solidified root which resulted in a full-scale war to the dismay of

In this way, the Truman administration attempted to justify its hostility toward all communist states; the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War stems directly from the paranoia of communism that caused Truman to implement this policy. It is clear that the American government under the duress of the slow expansion of communism felt that using force to prevent the spread of an opposing economic and political structure was perfectly justifiable. However, this policy likely led to more disastrous military conflict, such as the Vietnam War, was based primarily on fears of a conflicting ideology, and had little evidence to back up the fears that may otherwise have been rational. The Western policies of containment exacerbated the issue of communism and its spread through Asia, perhaps even enabling it through worsening foreign relations with countries that otherwise posed no threat.

Lawrence gives a visual of the war from all sides, from the earliest days of French colonization to the last helicopter fleeing the American embassy, but mainly focuses on the American involvement from 1965 to 1975. He clearly and precisely goes over and researches to accurately examine the motives of both the Vietnamese communists and

For the United States government, the failure of U.S intervention in Vietnam provided lessons about where and under what circumstances the United States should intervene in foreign conflicts. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, U.S. foreign policy was characterized by the idea of “containment”. Coined by George Kennan in 1946,

The twentieth-century clash between the Soviet Union and the United States would come to split much of the world between those allied with the U.S and those with the U.S.S.R. These two powerful nations vied against each other not through traditional means but rather through a series of proxy wars to gain spheres of influence. America fought these proxy wars under the guise of containment, which was a strategy to stop the spread of communism. This led America into arguably one the most contentious wars abroad, the Vietnam war. Which was an inevitable consequence of the policy of containment. However, the greater global conflict known as the Cold war did not suddenly come to fruition out of nowhere. It was rather the inevitable consequence

Following World War Two, the two legitimate world powers were the United States and the Soviet Union. With the Soviet Union under a communistic government and the United States being a nation founded in Capitalism, tensions between the two nations rose, resulting in the Cold War. Against the wishes of the United States, small countries in East Asia began to turn communist. Fear that one country turning would have a chain reaction turning many more, the United States turned to a policy of ‘containment’. This policy was tested in the Korean War and would be again tested in the Vietnam War. Starting as a War with the communist North Vietnam against South Vietnam and the French,

On the 7th of April 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave one historic press conference [1]. In that conference, he announced his so called “Domino Theory”. It was a substantial aspect of the US involvement in the Vietnam War, involvement in terms of its military support and methods used in Vietnam. Even though it was greatly enhanced by other factors, such as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, it was the trigger, and therefore the source of all US involvement in the Vietnam War. The main rationale of the theory was that if one country fell down to communism, all the surrounding countries would do the same, hence why it was called the ‘Domino’ Theory. Eisenhower thought that Vietnam’s fall to communism would lead to consequential communist uprisings in neighboring countries, such as Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. He also that that it could possibly extend as far as India, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia and New Zealand -[1]. This gave The US enough motivation, and more importantly, justification as to why they greatly increased military presence in Vietnam. Eisenhower said, “The possible consequences of the loss [of Indochina] are just incalculable to the free world.” [2]. Even though the theory was imprecise, and only Laos and Cambodia joined communism after the US lost the war, it was significant as the foundation of the US involvement in the conflict.

The true history of the Vietnam War does not appear to be widely know, and did not begin with the Eisenhower Administration, but in fact actually dates back to 1945 and the end of WWII. The issues first began when the Japanese recognized their lost efforts during WWII and surrendered. This is now as the First Indochina War, which took place between 1946 and continued until 1954. Their surrender left Vietnam vulnerable as they were now any formal national government. An aspiring communist organizer/ leader, Ho Chi Minh, tried to promote independence for Vietnam in the fall of 1945 and took advantage of the lack of leadership in Vietnam at the national level in an attempt to make this a reality. However, this was unsuccessful as what ensued was a highly contested battle for control of the country between the French colonial forces and the Viet Minh. Eventually, both British and Chinese officials arrived in Vietnam to monitor and facilitate the withdrawal of Japanese troops from the region. Politically and ideologically, this was motivated by anti-communist sentiments, as a result, the British and the Chinese both permitted French colonial rule to prevail as they preferred this over allowing communists to control the country. During the war the French described Viet Minh solders as “elusive”, and an unknown French soldier was quoted as saying: “The enemy melted into the jungle.” This would serve to be a foretelling of what

To understand the US involvement in Vietnam, it is necessary to understand the background of traditional independence and opposition to larger powers throughout Vietnamese history. The Vietnamese had a long history and tradition of opposing invading powers. This opposition and culture was to draw the U.S. into the longest war it has been involved in. This was an indirect but vitally important cause of US involvement in the Vietnam War. As early as 500BC, Vietnam was a country that held a strong sense of nationalism, and endeavoured for the goal of autonomy, independence, and self-rule. Up until modern history, there have been several events that have contributed towards intensifying this sense of nationalism and resistance against foreign powers. National resistance against the Chinese empire was one of the earliest examples of resistance against nationalism. Throughout the period of pre-modern history from 210 BC to 1789, resistances against foreign control and rule such as that against the Nan Yue, the Song, the Ming, and the Qing, were frequent. These attempts at national resistance came down to the basis that the nationalist Vietnamese did not want foreign influence determining the political future, culture, or customs of their country. Another main example that increased a sense of nationalism was French Colonialism. The French, who were appealed by Vietnam’s unique location, natural resources, and the extensive economic opportunities