The Vietnam War was said to be one of the most significant wars in the twentieth century. This war took place from November 1, 1955 to April 30, 1975. It was at the time, the longest war in American history. Much of the conflict was centered in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. During that time, approximately 58,219 US troops were killed in action. The reason America got involved in the Vietnam War was to stop the spread of communism in South East Asia and beyond.
“America’s involvement in Vietnam derived from its international position at the end of World War 2. 1945 the wartime coalition between the Soviet Union and the United States began to weaken once its sole aim the defeat of Nazi Germany seemed secure. Hitler’s collapse soon threw
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In 1954.The French endeavored to draw the Viet Minh into a trap at Dien Bien Phu. General Vo Nguyen Giap had Vietnamese laborers carry dismantled ordnance pieces into encompassing mountains. At that point they were reassembled and used to bomb the French landing strip in this manner crushing the French supply line. The French armed force endured a mortifying annihilation which turned the general feeling of France against the war. To end the conflict , the French government composed the Geneva conference. Negotiators from Vietnam, America, USSR, England, China, Laos, and Cambodia announced a truce, resulted with Vietnam being parted into communist controlled North Vietnam and South Vietnam. After the fall of Dien Bien Phi in 1954, United States President Dwight David Eisenhower made a speech that coined the term “domino effect”. It proclaimed that if a communist country won then the country next to it would follow suit in a chain reaction resulting in communist forces taking over neighboring countries. The domino theory was used to justify the noncommunist support in south Vietnam against communist North Vietnam. Therefore, increasing America 's involvement in the long running conflict in Vietnam.
Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnam 's independence from France on September of 1945. That started a war between Communist
The Vietnam War took place in between 1947- 1975. It consisted of North Vietnam trying to make South Vietnam a communism government. The United States later joined this conflict because of the stress North Vietnam was putting to South Vietnam to become a government that America did not want. The main reason why America joined was because of a theory called the Domino Effect. America and Russia were going through what has been dubbed the Cold War. The Domino Effect is the theory that communism will spread form one country to another. United states does not want this because our
The purpose of the Vietnam War, was to end the awful spread of communism. As Ho Chi Minh (North Vietnam’s communist president) fought to which spread North Vietnam’s political uses to Southern Vietnam. With this, the American Military Advisors sought to believe that a fall of Southern Vietnam to communist hands, would then lead to a total takeover of neighboring nations to fall under communism. The effect of the neighboring nations falling, was known as the “Domino Effect”. It all began when The Northern half of Vietnam, with the Vietcong Army, invaded the Southern half of Vietnam to spread their political rule of communism to the rest of their country; seizing it from France’s established colony. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in which was an American politician and General who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. (Wikipedia), spoke of this theory of the spread of communism know as the “Domino Effect”. He stated in The President 's News Conference of April 7, 1954, that without the United States entering the Vietnam revolution, there would be a risk of communism spreading to the Southern Half of Vietnam. He stated that if this was successful, it proves that the domino theory, “A communist victory in one nation would quickly lead to a chain reaction of communist takeovers in neighboring states” (History.com). Which forcefully put America in a position in which government officials felt the need to involve America in the Vietnam war by sending a
The Vietnam War also known as the Second Indochina war took place in December 1956 through April 30 1975 to the fall of Saigon. It is one of the most debatable armed forces combats that the United States of America participated in. The United States involvement the civil war that took place in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, was characterized by numerous conflicting positions. South Vietnam was supported by United States and other anti-communist countries. The Viet Cong or” NFL” a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist fought a “Guerrilla war” against anti-communist forces in the region. The U.S government viewed American involvement in the war as a way to stop a communist take-over of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam under communist rule. According to the Domino theory, if one state went communist, then then other states in the region would follow. Many American men and women were instructed to leave their country and travel thousands of miles to Vietnam and participate in this warfare. However, the involvement of the United States in this war was questioned by some members of the international community. The American citizens are also divided in their approval of their countrymen’s involvement in the conflict at Vietnam. The questionable cause or motive of the United States’ government is the primary reason as to why some people are questioning the intention of the country’s intervention.
The civil war between the French and Viet Minh was a major cause of the war. It is said that the
post World War 2. Vietnam was a French colony and the people wanted independence. After 9
The Vietnam War originated in the broader conflict of the Indochina wars in the 1940s and 1950s. In the Indochina Wars, nationalist groups inspired by communism in China and the Soviet Union, such as Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh, fought against the colonial rule of Japan
The Vietnam War was notoriously one of the most violent wars in history; it led to a myriad of bloodshed among those fighting and brought a great amount of distress to the nations involved and the rest of the world. The war was a compilation of many sequential conflicts. The dispute “began as a war of resistance, pitting mostly communist insurgents against the Japanese occupiers.” After the defeat against the Japanese, it developed into an issue between Vietnam and France. From 1946-1954, Vietnam fought with France in order to avoid colonization. This led to the division of Vietnam into the Communist North and the South, who was supported by France and later, the United States. A number of Americans detested the involvement of the U.S.
The Vietnam War was one of the most deadly wars in history, taking over three million lives during the 20-year war. It began in the mid 50’s, between Northern and Southern Vietnam. The United States joined the Vietnam War in 1965, and by 1969 there were about 500,000 U.S. soldiers involved with the war. The war began to slow down in ‘73 when President Nixon pulled the American troops, and the long hard war ended in 1975 after the Communists seized control.
The causes of the Vietnam War go back to World War ll and the Cold War. During World War ll, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies, however it was an uneasy relationship. The Americans had always been vigilant of Russian communism and Stalin’s rule. After the war, the USSR set up communist governments in several eastern European Countries after they were freed from Nazi control. In 1949 communism spread to Asia as Communist governments took over in North Korea and China. The Americans were worried that surrounding countries would become communist, this was known as the Domino Effect. This provoked more fear into the Americans; the threat of Soviet world domination and communism started the beginning of the Cold War.
The United States participation in Vietnam grew intensely in 1956 when France, who was in favor of and supported the North Vietnamese, left Vietnam (“Vietnam War Timeline”). France began a war in Vietnam that they were not able to complete so the United States hopped on the saddle. “The Vietnam War was the legacy of France 's failure to suppress nationalist forces in Indochina as it struggled to restore its colonial dominion after World War II” (The U.S. Army in Vietnam). The United States was battling the spread of communism by joining up with the South Vietnamese troops. Supporting the North Vietnamese forces
The Vietnam War was a 21-year conflict that originated in 1954 surrounding Vietnam in several wars. This instigated two specific engagements with two countries: France and China. The altercation between France and Vietnam was called the Indo-China which led to the U.S.’s involvement after France left Vietnam. Meanwhile, China commenced its interest in Vietnam after the defeat of the U.S. and South Vietnamese government. It hoped to demonstrate its influence as the top nation in Southeast Asia. This conflict inspired the U.S. fear of a domino effect of communism spreading throughout Southeast Asia when Vietnam fell; furthermore, the U.S. decided to assist the South Vietnamese to avert this event. North Vietnam had the support of Russia because many Russians hoped communism to expand throughout the world and they saw Vietnam as an opportunity to achieve their goal. Thus, many citizens needed to escape into South Vietnam from these communists. From a documentary,
On November 1st, 1955 the war with Vietnam began. What prompted the escalated violence that is known as the Vietnam War was, ironically, the fear of communism.
Many people still ask why America invaded Vietnam yet why it did not win the war, against the spread of communism. Instead, many U.S. soldiers lost their lives, but they managed to destroy a country’s economy, which was starting to show recovery from the French colonial control. Back in the late 1940s, American involvement in Vietnam was driven by the Cold War, in an effort to contain communism, as expressed by the Domino Theory. America’s military invasion into Vietnam came in the 1960s, in an effort to protect the Southern region from the invasion of the communist North authority. Nevertheless American troops were being overpowered by a peasant Vietnam army who had the support of Communist China and Soviet Union. Modern Vietnam is still fighting
To understand the Vietnam War and its role as a proxy war in the escalation of arms and ideological chasm between the United States and the Soviet Union, it is important to consider its beginnings. While many consider the Vietnam War a single, continuous phase of conflict, my essay will attempt to discuss it as two separate ones (the First Indochina War and the Second Indochina War) in order to better understand how the different administrations took upon military and political decisions, often changing the strategy of U.S. involvement.
The events that led to the United States entering the Vietnam War began when the French conquered Vietnam in the late nineteenth century. After Vietnam was conquer, they formed the League for the Independence of Vietnam in hopes of seeking independence from the French. With great effort on September 2, 1945 Ho Chi Minh proclaimed their independence from France. However, the French opposed Vietnam’s independence for approximately nine years and wanted to reestablish their rule over them. However the French were beaten at the battle of Dien Bien Phu because they were not careful and allowed the Vietnam to cut off their airway to Hanoi. After a fifty-five day siege, the French surrendered.