The Impact Of Public Opinion On U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam

The opinion of the public in the United States’ government was affected from the Vietnam War. In the beginning, most of the Americans supported the war but when more conflicts occurred and more troops were shipped the support started to decrease. What began is that some college student movement against the war then it became as a national protest. By the end of 1965, most of the soldiers who had been fighting in the war were drafted into war. Some Americans opposed the draft and believed it is unfair. The Vietnamese war was the first war to be televised instead of writing down news in newspaper

Though many were opposed to military force, it was for many diferent reasons. Some thought that military force was not needed because the threats imposed by President Bush was in fact acknowledged by the Iraquian troops because they no longer were advancing in territory and no other territory was currently in danger of being invaded, and it would only be a matter of time before they withdrew thier troops. David Chandler in a letter to the la times wrote "The official reasons given by the bush adminastration for going to war in the Persian Gulf are not adequate to explain our agressive

The United States involvement in the Iran-Iraq War escalated conflict and destabilized the area by giving arms to both sides. The Iran-Iraq War was fought between 1980 and 1988. It began by Iraq invading Iran for oil and territory because they thought Iran would

U.S. foreign policy changed after the Cold War after the U.S. was unsure of what to do with their increased national defense. Many critics questioned the need for heavy defense spending and the large number of U.S. bases. For most of the twentieth century, the Cold War defined U.S. foreign policy as it centered around the idea of containment. After the Soviet Union fell, Americans shifted their focus from containing communism to solving several ethnic, religious, and cultural conflicts, more specifically toward peacekeeping, globalization, and humanitarian ideology. One such result of this foreign policy was direct action in the Gulf War in 1990; the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Operation Desert Storm deployed during the gulf war was viewed widely as a success and helped to reinforce Bush’s ideals about a new world

America’s decision to invade Iraq in 2004 is now well regarded as one of the more

What effect did the Tet Offensive have on US military strategy? Jeffery Record argues that because public and congressional opinion

The Cold War era proxy war known as the Vietnam War wrecked global havoc during 1955-1975. Although the destruction on the ground occurred in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the bloodshed of the war was just one part of a much larger worldwide communism versus capitalism battle headed by the United States and the Soviet Union. For the U.S., diplomatic and military policies had never before been so tightly intertwined with domestic policies. The war in Vietnam had such an impact on the home front in America that the term, “The Vietnam Syndrome” is still repeated to this day. The war, which is sometimes seen as a part of the larger anti-communist policy of ‘containment’, is largely to blame for the near destruction of three presidencies, as well as causing numerous political and social divides, a detrimental effect on the U.S. economy, and a credibility gap that caused distrust between government and the people. The focus on the war meant that many domestic issues such as the civil rights movement, the war on poverty, and Johnson’s ideology of the ‘Great Society’, were neglected by the government and therefore limited in their progress. The overall domestic impact of the war in Vietnam was largely negative and extremely divisive.

Greene cites Bush’s major foreign policy success as his international leadership for the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait. He engineers a near unanimous vote, including the Soviets, of support in the United Nations. Bush also clearly articulates America’s purpose for the first Gulf War in his National Security Directive 54 (p. 127). His concise directive provided military commanders with finite, attainable missions to accomplish, leaving little ambiguity, contributing greatly to the success of the

Appy claims that public opposition to the war and formation of a peace movement leading to a lack of trust in the government due to lies and cover-ups on events happening in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq are comparable to America’s attitude during the Vietnam War. Supporting this claim to the opposition of the war by the public because of the government’s perversion in the media is seen in the Middle through the example of Pat Tillman. Tillman’s death, which was propagated to make the public believe that he died in battle instead of a result of friendly fire, sets a prime instance for a comparison of the government’s. (Appy, 311-312). The causes of the War in Iraq such as finding and eliminating Weapons of Mass Destruction lead to

“One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you 'd see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans” (George H. W. Bush). President Bush stated that the Persian Gulf War was not fully supported by the soldiers who fought in the war. Gulf War veterans marched like Vietnam veterans because they also viewed the war as unjustified. Persian Gulf War veterans would say, “American soldiers lost their lives’ for oil.” The first Persian Gulf War started from August 2, 1990 and ended on February 28, 1991. This war began by the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. During this invasion some of the oil fields of Kuwait were set on fire and some of the oil spilled to the Persian Gulf. The Persian Gulf was the oil supplier for western countries. So anything happened to the Persian Gulf, the western countries will naturally react. The factors that led to The United States’ involvement in the first Persian Gulf War included Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, his control over a sizable share of the world’s oil reserves and his power over the economies of the world. Many Americans believe that the first Persian Gulf War was not necessary for the United States.

Though a disaster itself, the militaristic ways of our nation in the 1990’s was the final blow that America had to take. The most significant militaristic feat was the Persian Gulf War. Also known as Dessert Storm, the war started as an invasion from Iraq into Kuwait. After this

Majority of the American public criticized the war because they believe that as powerful as the US is, bombing an underdeveloped small country like Vietnam

American Public Opinion of the Vietnam War At the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, in 1965, the American Public favored the idea of war because they feared the threat of communism. Polls conducted in 1965, showed 80 percent of the population agreed with President Johnson and were for the war (Rousseau 11). The U.S. got involved with the war to stop communism from spreading throughout South Asia. Americans were afraid if one country on South Asia turned to communism, it would extend to other countries, which is known as the "Domino Theory".

The Vietnam War certainly left a distaste in the lives of many who have been affected by the war; scholars have become increasingly interested in the interaction between war and public opinion. There have been many scholarly works published on the Vietnam War, but the issue that will be analyzed here is how public opinion changed the course of the war. The first article by Scott Gartner and Gary Segura is titled, “Race, Casualties, and Opinion in the Vietnam War,” it examined how the diverse races within America in combination with the atrocities in the war led to the formation of opinions that were similar in one race but were different in another race. The second article by Paul Burstein and William Freudenburg titled, “The Impact of

In August of 2002, the Bush administration’s position about Iraq had changed significantly. Prior to this point, the United States and other western countries had been arming Iraq with weapons of every type. The fact the United States and other countries had been arming Iraq with weapons, shows how little they considered Iraq to be a threat. This quickly changed. A debate on invading Iraq, held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, created