The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, was a conflict between North and South Vietnam and lasted from 1955 to 1975. The anti-communist coalition that supported South Vietnam was led by the US. The leading nations that fought on the side of North Vietnam were the Soviet Union and China. The US administration used the civil war in Vietnam as one of the instruments of its containment policy that aimed to hinder the spread of communism. The current essay discusses why President Johnson got the United States so profoundly into Vietnam and suggests what could have he done to avoid the escalation.
The first reason that determined the escalation of military actions in Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin incident that happened in 1964. The incident is marked by the attacks of the USS “Maddox” and “Turner Joy” by the North Vietnamese torpedo boats. This incident is of particular significance because it led to the quick adoption of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that allowed the president to take any measures to prevent the aggression directed against the US (Berkin et al. 879). Therefore, from one point of view, the Resolution empowered Johnson to promote security and peace by any means. However, from another point of view, this did not facilitate the peacebuilding and, on the contrary, justified US military actions and atrocities.
Secondly, it is essential not to forget about the role of personality in global history. Robert McNamara served as a Secretary of Defense under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. In the 1960s, McNamara was afraid that South Vietnam would fall and, thus, the entire region would become communist. That is why in 1966, he emphasized the necessity to increase the number of troops in South Vietnam by 100,000 and mobilize the US Army Reserve. McNamara was a businessman and saw the Vietnam War from this perspective. He did not consider that increasing the number of soldiers means the increase of deaths of the US citizens and aggressive public response. For him, people were only tools to achieve the goal. From the mid-1960s, he began to doubt the ability to win the war, and in the last years at the office, he was remorseful for the decisions taken (Berkin et al. 882). Still, McNamaras decision to send more troops to the war that could not be won facilitated the US going deeper into the quagmire.
Thirdly, Johnsons devotion to the idea of US superiority and the danger of communism is another reason that explains why the US got so deeply into Vietnam (Berkin et al. 879). It was more important for Johnson to contain the USSR because the failure would facilitate the spread of the Communist regime all over the region, as proposed by the domino theory. Besides, it was a matter of prestige and national pride. The US should show the rest of the world its power and the ability to win at any cost.
To conclude, it seems that little could have been done to avoid the escalation in Vietnam. From the reasons mentioned above, it could be inferred that the situation would be better if McNamara was not appointed or was replaced by one of the politicians against increased troops. Simultaneously, the escalation of the war in Vietnam was unavoidable because it was all about the rivalry between the two regimes and the two superpowers.
Work Cited
Berkin, Carol et al. Making America: A History of the United States, Volume II: Since 1865. 7th ed., Cengage Learning, 2014.