HIST103: World History (1600–Present)

The Vietnam War was a military conflict in which communist forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV or North Vietnam) and the indigenous forces of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (also known as the Việt Cộng) fought against the anti-communist Republic of Vietnam (RVN or South Vietnam) and its allies – most notably the United States – in an effort to unify Vietnam into a single state that would be based on communist ideology.

U.S. aircraft spraying chemical defoliants in South Vietnam

The chief cause of the war cause was Ho Chi Minh's desire to establish a single Vietnamese state. Ho viewed the existence of South Vietnam as an ongoing reminder of the era of colonization after Vietnam's struggle for independence from France in the First Indochina War of 1946-1954. Allies of the Vietnamese communists included the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. South Vietnam's main anti-communist ally was the United States, but it also received assistance from South Korea, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, and New Zealand.

The United States deployed large numbers of military personnel to South Vietnam. U.S. military advisers first became involved in Vietnam as early as 1950, when they began to assist French colonial forces. In 1956, these advisers assumed full responsibility for training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam or ARVN. President John F. Kennedy made a substantial increase in the presence of U.S. military advisers in Vietnam prior to his assassination. Under President Lyndon Johnson, large numbers of American combat troops began to arrive in 1965, and the last left the country in 1973.^[1] To some degree, the Vietnam War was a "proxy war," one of several that erupted during the Cold War period that followed the conclusion of World War II and decolonization.

The Vietnam War was finally concluded on April 30, 1975, with the fall of the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces. The war claimed approximately 2.5 million Southeast Asian lives (including Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and Thais), a large number of whom were civilians. Although it enjoyed a degree of popular support in the early years, it became increasingly controversial. The United States was widely successful in its military actions in Vietnam, but it failed to gain popular support in the States, and the war aroused a great deal of opposition in the United States. President Lyndon B. Johnson was unsuccessful in his approach to the war, and this led to his decision not to seek reelection in 1968.

Richard Nixon was elected to the presidency in 1968 based upon his claims to have a "secret plan" for a withdrawal from Vietnam with honor. Once in office, Nixon implemented a strategy of "Vietnamization" by replacing Americans with Vietnamese troops. Nixon's strategy did not continue Johnson's strategy of engagement with the enemy; instead, it focused on "pacification," an initiative aimed at making the widest possible area of South Vietnam safe from Viet Cong activity, and it included promoting education and development within those areas.

In his book No More Vietnams (1985), Nixon maintained that in 1969, the first year of the implementation of his strategy, an average of four thousand pro-communist military forces a month turned themselves over to the South. Nixon boldly pursued North Vietnamese forces into Cambodia in 1970 amidst great controversy. In 1972, when North Vietnam withdrew from ongoing peace negotiations in Paris at the time of the U.S. Presidential elections, Nixon responded by an extensive bombing of the North in December 1972 that led the North and its allies to return to the negotiations table in Paris in January 1973.

Because of the Watergate scandal, Nixon's popular support continued to dwindle. The Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress cut off all logistical and military support to the South Vietnamese forces. Due to overwhelming popular opposition and damning evidence in the Watergate case Richard Nixon resigned from office in August 1974.

Eight months later, South Vietnam and Cambodia were communized. In the years immediately following the fall of Vietnam, Laos, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Capa Verde, Santome e Principe, Grenada, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan were all brought into the Soviet sphere of influence. The United States had surrendered its role as the "world's policeman." As has often been observed, the Vietnam War was not lost on the battlefield; it was lost in America's court of public opinion. It remains a lesson that is relevant for all future conflicts.

Source: New World Encyclopedia, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Vietnam_War
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