The Unwinnable Quagmire Analysis

The Vietnam War of 1954 - 1975 was the longest and one of the most unsuccessful wars in U.S history. It took place in countries such as South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The war was a huge blow to the United States’ pride and military, so much that there were lotteries for soldiers. There were five presidents in office during the war, but the main presidents that had a big impact on being involved were Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. Although the objectives of the U.S being involved were good intentioned, there are many reasons to support that it was an Unjustifiable war due to the casualties. While looking at present information about the war, it was not needed for America to step into the territorial

The Vietnam War was one of the most deadliest wars in America, many were killed and even more injured. The war began because of America’s efforts to stop the spread of communism. The Vietcong may of won the war but America showed that we will not let communism spread, the domino theory come into effect, and America’s faults in our war program and way to attack the Vietcong. The war was lost but from a overview of the war America learned from their lose.

The Vietnam war has been referred to by many names, one of the longer ones was 'the cornerstone of the free world southeast Asia'. It was called that by John F. Kennedy. He was talking about Vietnam being and essential country in a non-communist world. He believed that if Vietnam became a communist country, all of the surrounding countries would also become communists. This is the main reason America was involved in the Vietnam war. Another reason was that America wanted to spread their “political ideas around the globe”. They wanted to do this so that their anti-communism stance was clear. The public also wanted to keep communism from spreading. To soldiers, the war was like a crusade, a great journey to purge the communists from Vietnam.

America has gone through high and lows as a country, but overall we overcome and grow and use our history to shape out future. When John F. Kennedy died, Lyndon B. Johnson took over as president and was at first liked and favored that he came back for a real term after the term he took over after JFK died. He then changed, and brought many Americans to fight in Vietnam and sacrifice their lives for a Vietnamese war, and was greatly looked down upon for this. Lyndon B. Johnson politically and socially with his Great Society and changed during his time as President of the United States of America.

The Vietnam War lasted longer, bloodier, and more hostile than any U.S. President or American citizen imagined. Lyndon Johnson faced many other enemies during the war such as the duration, the immense number of deaths, and for the first time in most American’s history, failure. Through deep evaluation of Lyndon B. Johnson’s foreign policies as President during the Vietnam war, failure was a recurring outcome, as he faced military and political difficulties over having complete authority over political decisions made leading to the misuse of his respective power, receiving split support through torn Americans at home, and his accord to deport so many troops into combat in Vietnam.

The war in Vietnam was a very contestable event for America and an overall major impact of the cold war. Fear of the spread of communism was on the rise again as Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam wanted to unite the country under one communist leadership. The United States entered into the war to prevent this spread of communism to further their reputation of containing it as they have done in the past. While there are positives to the war in Vietnam, it seems as if there are more negatives in the situation which include massive casualties on both sides, chemical warfare, and a divided nation back home.

The Vietnam War was the first major war American’s had suffered defeat. The Vietnam war was a war of confusion, competition and biasness. The outcome of the war was far greater than an upset American nation, but a severe breakdown of the Vietnamese culture, economy, environment and government. It also had a tremendous impact on American society even up to present day. It was unclear from the beginning of the war if the American’s should even be involved. It was a war between Northern and Southern Vietnam but the U.S saw it as an indirect way to challenge the USSR’s sphere of influence in Southern Asia and to prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism. The Vietnam War completely changed the way the United States

Social and economic tensions were not the only things strained because of the war, political activities were on the brink as well. The Domino Theory, speculation that if one country takes another to communism, the surrounding countries will fall to it as well, was one of the main reasons for starting the war. If the Domino Theory had occurred, the United States would suffer a horrible loss to foreign affairs, something they were not able to handle at that time. When the affair in the Gulf of Tonkin happened in 1964, the U.S. government jumped on the idea to stop Vietnam. In the Gulf of Tonkin, a ship, the U.S.S. Maddox, was attacked by Vietnam patrol boats. Even though the Maddox was unhurt, the LBJ jumped on the opportunity to squash the Domino Effect before it started. Soon after the attack, Lyndon B Johnson got the ‘stamp of approval’ from Congress to counter attack. He was allowed to “Take all necessary measure to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” (Doc A) Little did they know that their

Because Johnson believed in the domino theory, that if one county turned Communist, namely Vietnam, then neighboring nations would also turn Communist, his approach to the Vietnam War was to escalate the attacks to the point in which the Communists could no longer fight back. Johnson escalated the war through a variety of attacks, including Operation Rolling Thunder, which was the first of many aerial bombings on North Vietnam. Moreover, it was under Johnson’s administration that tens of thousands of American troops were dispatched to Vietnam which was another factoring intensifying the war. On the contrary, Nixon’s approach to the war in Vietnam was to pull out American troops because he valued American lives over containing Communism in Vietnam. Therefore, because the war had reached a stalemate by the time Nixon was in office and he valued American lives over containing communism, he implemented the process of Vietnamization, the organized transaction of American troops in Vietnam that were replaced by South Vietnamese troops. The reason why Johnson chose to escalate the war while Nixon tried to bring American troops home was because of their differing political views. Since Johnson was a Democrat and held some fairly liberal beliefs, like helping the impoverished at any cost, it was only natural for him to show compassion for the South Vietnamese by fighting Communism in order to create a better quality life for them even if it meant sacrificing American lives. However, because Nixon held more conservative views and believed in preserving order in one’s own nation before reaching out to others, Nixon implemented the process of Vietnamization in order to bring

In the first essay Fear, Ambition, and Politics by Robert Dallek, he talks about the way that the United States started to really conflict with Vietnam and how some of Lyndon Johnson’s issues led the U.S. into it. One thing was clear and it was that Lyndon Johnson did not want communism to spread. Johnson’s advisors would continuously report to him that things were starting to become more serious in Saigon. Johnson did not want to send troops though, saying the he would “not permit the independent nations of the East to be swallowed up by Communist conquest, and it would not mean sending American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing themselves.” Clearly his word did not last though. Dallek seems to have a rather negative view of Johnson because he wasn’t taking the precautionary steps to prevent certain events, and he could not keep his word. Johnson seemed to disagree with his own actions about what we should do in Vietnam because it was so unpredictable. He did not want American involvement, but the pressure ended up getting the best of him. He sent one of his advisors, McGeorge Bundy, to Vietnam to talk about what we should do to help alleviate South Vietnam. Bundy thought that U.S. action was a must or “defeat would be inevitable and there is still time to turn it around.” Johnson then decided to start bombing the North on February 8th, but he was not pleased with having to make this decision. This is known as the Rolling

The Vietnam War made sense in some ways, but not in others. If we had not fought in the Vietnam War, and slowed down the spread of communism to Southern Vietnam, then communism would have spread faster throughout countries near by. Although Southern Vietnam eventually was taken over and turned into a communist nation, it took many years to do so. If the United States did not intervene, then communism would spread like wildfire throughout countries, and that would've resulted in many communist nations. Since the war lasted years, it

Vietnam was so significant to the United States partly as it would be the first war they would lose. It also had a tremendous financial impact on the country and the casualties were also more in the public eye than ever before due to the media. They learnt that: "a long war for limited objectives, with its steady stream of body bags, will not be supported by the American people" (Martino, 1996, p37). Some suggest that the US should have avoided any involvement in the war.

The US has been known to diverge from its once-isolationist state, engaging in international affairs like World War I and several other events alike. It’s therefore no surprise that the US intervened in the Vietnam War during the 1960’s. At the time, President Lyndon B. Johnson put forth new ideas, plans and tactics to help and protect the South Vietnamese and surrounding countries from communist influence. However, the United States’ initial goals and plans didn’t always go the way they had expected. Indeed, Johnson’s Vietnam policies failed because of his unreasonable military strategies and his inefficient political actions.

Paranoia and fear of the spread of communism lead to the flood of American dollars and troops into Vietnam. Countless lives were lost of both American and Vietnamese citizens and civilians. The intentions of this war were not just. America intended to prove it was a superpower and its’ ideals and practices would flourish wherever they sent their support. America was wrong.

There was not much serious thought in escalating the Vietnam War until the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred. In the Gulf of Tonkin it was reported “that two American destroyers had been attacked by North Vietnamese PT boats on August 4, 1964,” (Friedman 293). Shortly after these incidents, “Johnson immediately escalated the war by ordering airstrikes on North Vietnam” (Friedman 293). These events made it so Johnson could raise United States involvement in Vietnam without congressional backing on his decisions. Increasing involvement in the war was appealing though because after the Tonkin Gulf incident support of military involvement in North Vietnam raised from thirty one percent approvals to fifty percent approval (Moise 226). Although approval of the amount in favor immediately after the Gulf of Tonkin incident rose, it was a “mistake on Johnson’s part… assuming that the