The Vietnam war is probably one of the most infamous military conflicts that the United States took part in in the second half of the 20th century. The war began as a civil war in South Vietnam. However, soon after the beginning of the war, it spread to North Vietnam, involving two superpowers of that time, the United States of America and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Countries. The US was fulfilling obligations to protect South Vietnam, whereas USSR and China supported the export of communist ideology through North Vietnam.
By the beginning of the civil war in Vietnam, the Domino Theory of expansion of communism governed the US foreign policy (Locke & Wright, 2019). It means that the US feared that if the communist regime were established in Vietnam, then neighboring countries would be doomed to the same path. Intending to withstand the increasing influence of the Soviet Union in Southeast Asia, the United Stated started financing the French military’s presence in the region. However, despite the American support French army lost the war against Viet Minh forces, and Vietnam was divided into two countries, including South Vietnam backed by the US (Locke & Wright, 2019).
Nevertheless, the political situation in South Vietnam was harsh, and eventually, in 1963, after a coup d’état, a military junta gained control of South Vietnam. While the generals share power, the partisans expand the territories under their control, and the United States increases its military presence. In 1964, the number of American military personnel in South Vietnam amounted to about 24 thousand people. In response, the North Vietnam leadership sends its specialists and entire military units to South Vietnam. On August 2, 1964, an armed incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin between the American destroyer Maddox and North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Under this pretext, US aviation attacked military facilities in North Vietnam. Thus, began the Vietnam War, which lasted twenty years and took over a million and three hundred thousand lives.
The war gave rise to a powerful protest movement in the United States, which began immediately after the bombing of the territory of North Vietnam and the sending of new contingents of American troops to Southeast Asia. This movement was intensified by the unresolved nature of a number of internal socio-economic problems such as racial and gender inequality, etc., and mostly covered students and other youngsters – people who could potentially take part in the increasingly unpopular war (Cain, 2016). The main idea of the protest was directed against conscription. Conferences were held in various American cities to discuss measures to counter the military solution of the Vietnam Conflict.
However, the government was not as forthcoming to end the war as protestants required. Moreover, the US government was constantly increasing the number of US troops involved in the conflict. When, in 1968, Nixon, then a candidate for President of the United States, explained to Laird Secretary of Defense why the United States could not win the war in Vietnam, he said that it was not necessary to speak directly to the public about it. It was essential to say the exact opposite to “maintain leverage in negotiations with the Vietnamese” (Cain, 2016). This tactic made Nixon, who came to the White House as a peacemaker president, a man prolonging the war.
Given the complex forces that affected the loss of the US in the Vietnam War, it is hard to argue which particular factor contributed the most to the outcome of the war. Instead, it was an amalgam of the US military strategy, the civil antiwar movement, and the American Cold War strategy responsible for the loss. As a leader of a democratic world, the US wished to insulate communism’s expansion, and Vietnam War was the derivative of a more significant ideological confrontation between the US and USSR. Indeed, as a superpower, the US possessed one of the strongest armies in the world. However, the military supremacy could not provide the victory, which was exaggerated by irrational military command decisions.
References
Locke, J. L., & Wright, B. (Eds.). (2019). The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open US History Textbook, Vol. 2: Since 1877. Stanford University Press.
Cain, F. (2016). America’s Vietnam War and Its French Connection (Routledge Advances in American History) (1st ed.). Routledge.