Justifying Vietnam

In chapters 3 and 4 of Robert McMahon’s Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War, there are a number of reasons given for the increased American involvement in Vietnam from the late 1940s to the mid 1950s. McMahon includes several documents in these chapters that point to three main reasons used to justify our role in Vietnam. One underlying reason for the early American presence in Vietnam is given in chapter 3, where in McMahon’s first essay Cold War Strategy and U.S. Intervention he states that, “…the initial U.S. commitment to provide military assistance to the French in the context of broader American Cold War priorities” (McMahon 58). I think this means that we were justified in starting a limited war with the Vietnamese to prevent a war with a superpower such as China or Russia. The Truman administration was “convinced that Moscow and Beijing had become even more dangerously opportunistic foes…” (McMahon 67). Vietnam was uniquely placed not far from these Communist countries and with our presence there we could strategically have a military presence closer to that of China and Russia than the United States is. In the Statement of U.S. Policy Toward Indochina, the State Department reviewed that, “This hatred of the Vietnamese people toward the French is keeping alive anti-western feeling among oriental peoples, to the advantage of the USSR and the detriment of the US” (McMahon 51). Our geographical position in Vietnam and subsequent relationships forged during the Vietnam War with Southeast Asian countries was a major contribution to our victory in the Cold War. The second reason justifying US presence stems from Vietnam’s weak position to fight off potential invading countries. The State Department concluded, “The countries and areas of Southeast Asia are not at present in a position to form a regional organization for self-defense nor are they capable of defending themselves against military aggressive, without the aid of the great