American naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin, on the coast of Vietnam, reported being fired upon by North Vietnamese gunboats. Related to this, the U.S. was adamantly against providing any aid to France that would in any way prop up France's … What for? One reason is resurgent public interest in a topic that had lost some of its salience in American life during the 1990s. The US entered the Vietnam War in an attempt to prevent the spread of Communism.The objective is to make a country safe for the people to freely choose and live with their own government. Internationally, following World War II, country after country in Eastern Europe had fallen under communist rule, as had China, and the trend was spreading to other nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia as well. Also, during that time the President of the United States declared that any country from their allies if demanded help to end communism, the US would provide it. The Korean War, sandwiched between the romanticism of World War II and America's traumatic experience in Vietnam, is often forgotten among the conflicts of … The main reason for the United States of America to become apart of the Vietnam War was to end communism and since the Soviet Union was involved already, it seemed more inviting for them. America went to war with Vietnam as a general way of trying to prevent Communism. Stewart, Richard W., editor. As 1963 progressed, the issue of Vietnam became more prominent in America. Even though the cause of the Vietnam War was generally unknown to the public, the government pressed on with the attacks. In the 1950’s, John Foster Dulles, US Secretary of State, had formulated the Domino Theory. The Johnson administration began a series of airstrikes against targets in North Vietnam. Decades later, the US is again trying to extract itself from costly wars. Should we trace it back to the 1940s when President Harry Truman authorized U.S. financial support of the French war in Indochina? Anti-involvement theorists argue that the U.S. shouldn’t have invaded Vietnam because Vietnam’s internal conflicts and political battles didn’t directly influence or affect America. Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The United States government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and part of their wider strategy of containment. But there was still considerable support for the war, and Nixon had campaigned in 1968 pledging to bring an "honorable end" to the war. The United States enters the war Between the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the U.S. presidential election in November 1964, the situation in Vietnam had changed for the worse. Why the United States Went to War in Vietnam, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/seato, https://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower/foreign-affairs, https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/Vietnam-Conference-Washington-DC_19560601.aspx, https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations/Inaugural-Address.aspx. However, by the early 1970s the USA was forced to withdraw. One reason included how they thought it would be an 'easy' war to fight and for that reason, they would be able to easily win and the war would not go … The U.S. felt that it was losing the Cold War and needed to "contain" communism. What Americans call the Vietnam War was the second of three wars in Indochina during the Cold War, in which the United States, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China intervened in shifting patterns of enmity and alliance. But did his government listen? With the departure of the French, South Vietnam was left as an anti-communist dictatorship with U.S. backing. However, the forces of the South, without American combat support, could not hold off the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. In the 1972 presidential campaign, Democratic nominee George McGovern campaigned on a platform of withdrawing from Vietnam. This stated that if one country fell to communism, then its neighbour would and then the neighbour to this country. Fifty years ago, during the first six months of 1965, Lyndon Johnson made the decision to Americanize the conflict in Vietnam. Why did the U.S. go to war in Vietnam? After decades of conflict, more than 2.7 million Americans served in Vietnam and an estimated 47,424 lost their lives; and still, the reasons why the U.S. entered the Vietnam War to begin with remain controversial.. During the Vietnam War, there were a variety of reasons why USA became increasingly involved. The Cold War soon turned hot in divided Korea and Vietnam. The U.S. involvement in South Vietnam stemmed from a combination of factors: France's long colonial history in French Indochina, the US War with Japan in the Pacific, and both Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong's pledge in 1950 to support Ho Chi … The first wave of U.S combat troops invaded South Vietnam on March 8, 1965. Japanese forces invaded Vietnam during World War II. The country spent much of the 1950s under the influence of the Red Scare, led by the virulently anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy. The United States supported the anti-communist government in South Vietnam. Top Essentials to Know About the Vietnam War. One American crawled for three days to take a single shot that would change the course of the war. Office of Academic Affiliations. With the vacuum caused by the defeat of Japan, an opportunity arose for the Communists to declare the "independence" of Vietnam in 1945. One was the Civil Rights War within the country, the other was the Vietnam War and another was the Cold War. In March of that year, US troops landed in Da Nang. This is a question historians continue to debate. The main reason for the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was to prevent the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. The United States had provided funding, armaments, and training to South Vietnam’s government and military since Vietnam’s partition into the communist North and the democratic South in 1954. In 1966, the troop totals rose again to 385,000. Out of fear of a great power confrontation with the Soviet Union, the United States fought a limited war, with the South China Sea to the east and … Why did the USA become increasingly involved in the Vietnam War? That did not happen. Timeline of the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War), "President Warns of Chain Disaster If Indo-China Goes. France'… First, the Americans were an … ” It was a scary thing and the U. S. ealized what it was up against and why they needed to go to war with Vietnam. It was assumed by Johnson’s advisers that air attacks alone would cause the North Vietnamese to negotiate an end to armed conflict. "Military Advisors In Vietnam: 1963." During the Second World War, Japan invaded the country. That same year, the Korean War began, pitting Communist North Korean and Chinese forces against the U.S. and its UN allies. The military suffered over 58,000 casualties, and America withdrew in defeat. Vietnam might not have become a zone of conflict for the United States had she adhered to Franklin Roosevelt’s wartime opposition to the return of French colonialists and his support for independence for Indochina once the Japanese had been defeated. The Domino Theory held that communism would spread if Vietnam became communist. His vice-president, Hubert Humphrey advised him against it. Given Eisenhower’s credibility on military matters, his prominent endorsement of the Domino Theory placed it at the forefront of how many Americans for years would view the unfolding situation in Southeast Asia. Under the Party’s leadership, Vietnam fought wars against Japan (1945), France (First Indochina War, 1946-1955), and America (Second Indochina War, 1954-1975). U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Nguyyan Dinh Thuan, Chief Cabinet Minister to President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, confers with President Kennedy in his White House office today. The anti-war movement mobilized Americans in vast numbers, and public protest demonstrations against the war became commonplace. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. In 1954, the French lost and Vietnam was divided between north and south. The conflict between the French and the Viet Minh came to a head at the … In the article “The Causes of the Vietnam War” Andrew Rotter talks about all kinds of reasons why America went to war with Vietnam along with things that promoted America to get involved with Vietnam. The United States had provided funding, armaments, and training to South Vietnam’s government and military since Vietnam’s partition into the communist North and the democratic South in 1954. The United States backed France and its puppet emperor Bao Dai. Instead his time in office is mostly associated with deepening American involvement in the war in Vietnam which ultimately proved futile. Learn why a country that had been barely known to most Americans came to define an era. The first wave of U.S combat troops invaded South Vietnam on March 8, 1965. Taken to its extreme, the Domino Theory suggested that other nations throughout Asia would become satellites of either the Soviet Union or Communist China, much like nations in Eastern Europe had come under Soviet domination. In March 1965, President Johnson ordered U.S. Marine battalions to defend the American airbase at Da Nang, Vietnam. At the time, the capitalist South Vietnamese region was losing their fight against the communist North Vietnamese. There were a couple of reasons for this. Here, retired Colonel William C Haponski, co-author of ‘Autopsy of an Unwinnable War: Vietnam’, explains that the British were in fact one of five main players in early post-World War 2 Vietnam. At the end of this war, North Vietnam was a communist dictatorship led by Ho Chi Minh while South Vietnam was all that remained of French colonial rule. Ho Chi Minh began a campaign to fight a weakened France and seize independence through force. By January 1966, the number was more than 200,000. The US invaded Vietnam to contain Soviet and Chinese influence, simply put. But things changed with an incident in the summer of 1964. The attack was made near the Communist Chinese held island of Hainan. Anti-communist sentiment at home influenced foreign policy views. Throughout the whole article every paragraph talks about why America did what they did over in Vietnam and how it affected us. Kallie Szczepanski contributed to this article. Learn why a country that had been barely known to most Americans came to define an era. On February 8, 1962, the Kennedy administration formed the Military Assistance Command Vietnam, a military operation intended to accelerate the program of giving military aid to the South Vietnamese government. Vietnam war facts are also ones of remarkable feats of courage, determination, and sacrifice. In a TV speech to the Nation from the White House, President Nixon announced that several thousand American ground troops entered Cambodia to wipe out Communist headquarters for all military operations against South Vietnam. The Vietnam War displayed the limits of US military power - 58,000 Americans died, millions of Vietnamese were killed. Ousting and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm McGovern lost in a historic landslide, which seemed, in some part, to be a validation of Nixon’s avoidance of a speedy withdrawal from the war. Tensions escalated into armed conflict between the two sides, and in 1961 U.S. President John F. Kennedy chose to expand the military aid program. 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