War Powers In Vietnam Essay

Within sixty calendar days….” The War Powers Act is to limit the president and that he must run all military actions by congress for approval. This makes it so our president cannot just make all the decisions he wants. Within 60 calendar days he must either declare war or enact permission. Congress must approve anything before actions are to take place.

A North Vietnamese civilian said, “The Americans thought that the more bombs they dropped, the quicker we would fall to our knees and surrender. But the bombs heightened rather than dampened our spirit.” This shows that congress was not correct in approving the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution because the results were war, bombing, and deaths.

On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized Johnson to take necessary measures to retaliate and promote the peace and security in Southeast Asia. Congress was definitely wrong in doing so. The results of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution were too chaotic and too violent to overlook.

The War Powers Act limits the power of the President of the United States to wage war without the approval of the Congress. The War Powers Act is also known as The War Powers Resolution. The purpose of the War Powers Resolution is to ensure that Congress and the President share in making decisions that may get the United States involved in hostilities. It prohibits the President from waging war beyond 60 days without the Congressional approval (MILNET: The War Powers Act of 1973). Authorization can be made in many forms such as a temporary waiver of the Act or via a Declaration of War (MILNET: The War Powers Act of 1973).

Congress passed the War Powers Act that acknowledges the presidential right to take limited military action before receiving congressional approval, but requires him to file a formal report with Congress within forty-eight hours of initiating hostilities. The use of military action is limited to sixty days without congressional approval. An additional thirty days can be granted if it is necessary to withdraw the troops.

Decisions that presidents had made previously with little congressional participation. Under Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. Congress is granted responsibility for caring out their powers as well as all other powers in the Constitution. This gives them the constitutional right to establish certain procedural implements for war proceedings. Thus, the central purpose of the War Powers Resolutions to restrain the president from unilaterally deploying U.S. Armed Forces. Constant with this intent, legislation imposed the president to report and consult with congress. More notably, it provides congressional supervision by permitting congress to force troop

As the number of US troops sent to fight in Vietnam increased throughout the 1960s, opposition to the war similarly grew. By the spring of 1969 new President Richard Nixon, who had been elected the previous November, had begun to implement the Nixon Doctrine that is more commonly known as the policy of Vietnamization. This intended to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same

became concerned with the “abuse” of this power, particularly those executed by former Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon (288). This concern emerged during the Vietnam and Korean wars when the United States was in great conflict with the nations without a formal Declaration of War by Congress. In an effort to limit the President’s power, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution which established guidelines for the executive during times of conflict. The Resolution requires the President to alert Congress of his intentions to commit forces. However, the President must withdraw forces within 60 days unless Congress declares war, grants special authorization, extends the 60 day period, or is unable to physically meet as a result of an armed attack against the United States (288). The President is provided the power to extend the 60 day period if he determines that doing so is necessary for the safety and

Congress and the president use their powers to check and balance each other. One power of Congress is the ability to declare war. However, Congress generally gives the president control during war time. Because of this, the president is able to acquire more power over the war while Congress can do little if they have already given their approval. After the Vietnam War, in which Presidents Johnson and Nixon continued to wage despite a divided Congress[i]; they decided that the Constitution did not warrant the president to have the power to declare war, so they passed the War

President Richard M. Nixon’s administration had to face many international and domestic challenges in the United States between 1968 and 1974, some positive and some negative. His achievements in expanding peaceful relationships with both China and the Soviet Union are contrastingly different with his continuation of the Vietnam War. In the end, Nixon’s scandals and abuse of presidential power caught up to him, and his administration did much to corrode America’s faith in the government.

France’s military involvement in Vietnam began when it sent warships in 1847, ostensibly to protect Christians from the ruling emperor Gia Long. Before the 1880s, the French controlled Vietnam. In the early 20th century, Vietnamese nationalism began to rise, clashing with the French colonial rulers. By the time of World War II, a number of groups sought Vietnamese independence but as Vo Nguyen Giap—who would build Vietnam’s post–WWII army—expressed it, the communists were the best organized and most action-oriented of these

This paper will be explaining the similarities, and differences, between the Vietnam War and the War in Afghanistan. There are many topics that bring these two wars together. However, I am only going to be talking about public support, policy objectives, military strategy, weapons, fighting spirit, links to home, and death totals. These topics have a lot of information about them, but there is too much to write about every little detail, so I will cover the broad overview of them. Each paragraph will be about one of the topics. There will also be a discussion about insurgencies and counter insurgency operations. These are two big topics in Vietnam and Afghanistan since almost all of the enemy in both wars were, and are, comprised of insurgents and different types of militia groups.

January 1969, Richard Nixon entered the executive office picking up the pieces Lyndon Johnson who had left while the Vietnam War was still in effect. Many Americans had the expectation that Nixon would be the “peaceful president”, visualizing he would put an end to this war in Southeast Asian and bring back home our troops. A policy Nixon redefined was the American role in the world by suggesting to limit the U.S resources and commitments. Therefore, Nixon’s set his efforts to end the war since the withdrawal from Vietnam was not an immediate option. Also, Nixon had his radar on Moscow and China because according to George C. Herring, they felt that they must release the United States from the war in a way that would uphold United States credibility with their friends and foes alike. During Nixon’s term in office, he tries a number of different strategies in his effort to end the war, but to this day, one can see that Nixon only prolonged the war when it could have ended earlier.

But despite the provisions outlined in the Constitution outlining the separation of power between the executive and legislative branch in the formulation of foreign policy, congressional influence over foreign policy decisions waned after World War II. During the Vietnam War, the Johnson and Nixon administrations became increasingly secretive and monopolized foreign policy decision authority. Ultimately, however, the growing imbalance of influence of the executive branch in foreign policy decisions led to the creation of the War Powers Act. The Act stipulated that the president was required to report to Congress within 48 hours after the

The Vietnam War was one of the worst wars in the United States history. The reason for the United States involvement was due to the start of communism in North Vietnam. The citizens in South Vietnam feared the control of North Vietnam and were worried that the north would take control of the south. The communist North Vietnam had support from the Soviet Union and China, making the South Vietnamese vulnerable to the north. In their time of struggle the South Vietnamese were able to receive aid from the United States. The North Vietnamese had set up a series of radar stations along bays and islands on the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 1, 1964 the U.S.S. Maddox was posted on a surveillance mission to study the North Vietnamese defenses