General William Westmoreland had a responsibility to the people of the United States, the people of South Vietnam and the troops under his command, to lead them to an honorable victory. Instead, General Westmoreland failed to come up with an original strategy to fight the opposing forces and their effective guerrilla warfare. I will be analyzing General Westmoreland’s poor decision to use an ineffective attrition strategy in the Vietnam War and how some people consider him, “the General that lost Vietnam.”(Thompson 2011)…
Embedded in a push and pull between two different parties, the citizens and peasants of South Vietnam found themselves left with a choice: stand and defend their own government, or join the revolutionary movement of the Vietcong. Although both sides claim that they were winning the war and fighting for the people, speculation has to be cast on which one really was. In Jeffery Race’s book, War Comes to Long An, Race makes an argument for the Vietcong that is hard to refuse.…
Richard Nixon, President of the United States from 1969 -74, introduced a new strategy called Vietnamization in which had the purpose of ending American involvement in the Vietnam War(1954-75). Nixon's administration was deeply engaged in geopolitics and had aims with global dominance, the United States involved in the Vietnam war is an example of this goal. The war had gradually become unpopular in which had started to create deep divisions within American society. President Nixon's administration masterminded this strategy soon to be known as Vietnamization. The construction and strengthening of the South Vietnamese military would soon allow gradual withdrawal of U.S milita from Vietnam.…
During his lecture at Mississippi State, “Withdrawing from Vietnam: How America Left a Long [And Lost] War,” Dr. Gregory Daddis provided an interesting viewpoint of the United States Campaign in Vietnam. Dr. Daddis thesis states that the dysfunctional relationship between military commanders in Vietnam and stateside leadership, was due largely in part to the unascertainable demands of the President back home, and the failure of United States politicians to understand the capabilities of the military overseas.…
Following the election of 1969, the incoming Nixon administration inherited many immediate challenges from its predecessor Lyndon B. Johnson. The Vietnam war was entering its fourth year, and over 31,000 American troops had been killed. At that time, 540,000 American soldiers were currently stationed in North Veitnam, and no progress had been made at peace negotiations in Paris. The nation would further divide itself following the assassinations of Anti-war activists Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 and a rising rate of inflation. Nixon's administration implemented an effective foreign and domestic agenda which regulated price controls, opened diplomatic relations with China, signed a National Environmental Policy Act, withdrew…
In 1963, only hours after Lyndon B. Johnson had become the 36th President of the United States, his first words on the Vietnam War were “I’m not going to lose Vietnam. I’m not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia become communist.” (CITE HERE) At the time, the United States was fighting to keep communism out of Southeast Asia. The main problem with President Johnson’s approach was sending bombs could carpet bomb miles of territory easily, Defoliants that killed jungles and humans alike, and ground fire power that was greater that any in history rather than sending ships and Gatling guns.…
The 1968 Tet Offensive displayed how leadership and its inability to properly analyze the battlefield can ultimately reshape a war and inspire the political landscape. Many analytical flaws caused the Tet Offensive to become a negative turning point in the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. A main example of this is how the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF, or more commonly known as the Viet Cong) used deception as a tactical advantage. This had a profound effect on the American military leadership’s ability to properly assess the NVA’s intentions leading up to Tet. In addition, poor planning and cooperation with allied agencies caused many Americans to view the Johnson Administration with distrust and questioned the legitimacy of US involvement in Vietnam.…
The United States initially aided South Vietnam with economic and military support in hopes they would eradicate the communist threat within North Vietnam themselves. The United States put immense effort into eliminating any foreign communist presence because of President Eisenhower’s “Domino Theory,” which proposed that a communist government in any nation would spread communism to their neighboring nations (Berman and Newman). Despite being warned by state officials, such as George Ball, of the possibility of the United States entering a new war, President Johnson, a year after the Southeast Asia Resolution, deployed 50,000 to 100,000 men to Vietnam (Berman and Newman). Johnson even ignored the warning of the U.S. Defense Secretary, who warned that the possibility of victory is slim because "the level of guerrilla to antiguerrilla forces is unfavorable to the government" and revealed to the public that he increased the numbers of troops from 75,000 to…
Ho Chi Minh, the Communist leader of North Vietnam, invaded the Democratic North Vietnamese. Immediately, the United States began pouring troops, numbering over five hundred thousand at is peak, into the jungles of Vietnam. Again, nearly sixty-thousand American troops lost their lives, and this time, not even saving the defended country. The Vietnam War greatly hurt American spirits and the overall American attitude towards the philosophies which inspired the Truman Doctrine (Blum 837). Soldiers returned not as heroes, but as national disgraces and the reminders of the only completely failed American war. American liberators were now seen as American imperialists (Brinkley 937). Although the Vietnam War greatly stunned the American cause of spreading freedom, this cause would not easily die, and the Truman Doctrine would live to see another…
Some people, particularly anti-war protesters, saw the Vietnam War as an American war of occupation. The war was a Vietnamese civil war, which the American’s became involved in to “stop communism”.…
How significant was the Tet Offensive in achieving a communist victory in Vietnam by 1975?…
Casualties, drugs, terror, violence, volatility, and mental instability are all well too common for any war. For the Vietnam War, it exceeded all of these. In The Things They Carried, all of the soldiers were faced with these burdening issues on a day-to-day basis, fearing for their lives, their perceived loved ones, and their own emotional sanity. Because this war put on a great deal of stress on the soldiers, there was an eagerness to escape the war and their life that they were fighting for. It got to the point where the war that they were fighting for turned into their mental wellbeing that they were fighting for. For the soldiers, there…
In 1969, Richard Nixon was elected into presidency. One of Nixon’s campaign promises was ‘peace with honour’. Peace with honour was a strategy that involved taking U.S troops out of Vietnam, but did not involve directly giving in to North Vietnam and the Vietcong. Peace with honour started the process of Vietnamization. From 1969 to 1974, negotiations and ceasefires took place, until in March 1975 no further aid was given to Indo-China from the USA. There are many important causes and consequences of Vietnamization; these include Anti-War protests in America, the Tet Offensive in 1968 and the election of Richard Nixon. Consequences include the fall of Vietnam to Communism, the Cambodian civil war and the fall of Laos.…
In 1961 the worst war ever fought by America had just started. The Vietnamese of the north also known as the Viet Cong had invaded the south to take control of the entire country. America and other democratic countries felt the spread of communism to this country would be a stepping-stone for other communistic countries around the world, also known as the Domino Effect. America, as cocky as they were, invaded Vietnam to help the southern Vietnamese. Although America is one of the most powerful countries in the world, it extremely underestimated the dedication of their enemy. Backed by China and the USSR, the Viet Cong were a determined and very tough enemy. The Vietnam War as a whole was a terrible act by the US government. Vietnam was going through their own civil war and we should not have participated in it. Just as America shouldn 't have tried to help Iraq when they were having social problems. The American army that was sent to Vietnam in the sixties was composed of five hundred thousand infantry including one of those soldiers being my father who was drafted into the war. The Vietnam War had a negative impact on the soldiers due to the mental, social, and physical problems they had encountered during and after the war.…
Think for a minute about the most thrilling time of your life, that time when your life seemed so exciting, your body was filled with adrenaline, now imagine that moment being drawn out over 4 or more years. This is how a soldiers term overseas feels, they are always on their toes, waiting for the next ambush or ever waiting for their next attack. They never know what is next and soldiers often say they have never felt as alive as they feel in a firefight. Often when soldiers return from war they find their life boring and uneventful, they feel like no one is there for them like they were 4 years prior. They feel empty.…