Domino Effects Of The Vietnam War

At the peak of the Cold War, the US faced many social and international issues. Some of the decision that were made in the 1960s, still affect Americans today. People were mostly concerned with the idea of the draft and being sent to fight in a war that has lost its purpose. The main reason that America was still fighting in vietnam was the idea of the domino effect where if Vietnam were to fall to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would follow. While president, Nixon took an immoral stance where facing many of these challenges in leaving vietnam, ending the cold war, and dealing with the watergate scandal. Many of these problems arises from the America’s involvement on the war. During World War II, the United States helped the people
To stop this, American troops went on “search and destroy” missions. To get them out in the open for combat, the U.S. uses napalm and Agent Orange. President Kennedy sharply increases military aid to South Vietnam. President Johnson escalates U.S. involvement and gains war power after the news of North Vietnamese torpedoed two American destroyers. By having the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the president is able to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the U.S. Americans applauded President Johnson’s response to a Vietnam attack with aggressive air strikes. As the war continued, General William Westmoreland of the south reported that the North was on the brink of losing. The United States commits over 380,000 ground troop to fighting in Vietnam by the end of 1966. American people question the government's honesty about the war, creating the so-called “credibility gap.” The war casualties and the unfair draft system cause civil unrest. In 1965 for example, the faculty members and student skipped class to talk about the issues surrounding the war in a teach-in. The wartime economy hurts domestic spending for programs such as the Great
Kissinger issued a policy called linkage to improve relations with the Soviet Union and China. Meanwhile, Nixon began reducing the number of troops through Vietnamization to gradually withdraw from the war. This became more and more important as Nixon began to lose support for the war. The Pentagon Papers had shown that the members of the Johnson administration questioned the war while publicly supporting it worrying Americans. Americans also lost support when the people of My Lai were wrongfully killed by an American Platoon under Lieutenant Calley. Americans also lost interest in the war when Nixon ordered American troops to invade Cambodia. The students at Kent State protested against this as they saw it as the widening of the