Fear of Communism Caused the Vietnam War Essay

Vietnam had been a unified country. Should America not have involved, Vietnam should have been unified in the general election in 1956. Hence, American involvement in Vietnam could be considered highly politically motivated. Vietnam was just a “proxy” in the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet

On the 19th of December 1946, The Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh leadership launched a rebellion against the French authority governing the colonies of French Indochina. The first few years of the war were a low-level rural insurgency against French authority. However, after the Chinese communists reached the Northern border of Vietnam in 1949 the conflict became a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons. These were supplied by the Chinese communist and Russian communist.

America had a few reasons to be involved in the Vietnam War. The big reason was to fight communist power. Countries like North Korea, North Vietnam, Indochina, and parts of Asia were trying spread their communist aggression (Document 2a). In Document 2b, you can see that America wall out the communist aggression, but it just kept coming. The United States was involved in the Vietnam war because we had

The American involvement in the Vietnam War was a very controversial decision, with many people being for the war, however many people in the United States were also against the war. The Vietnam War was the longest lasting war in the United States history, before the Afghanistan War, in which most people felt strongly about, be them United States citizens, Vietnamese citizens, or just the global population. In order to better understand the ideas of those American citizens that are either for or against the war, one would have to look at the reasons that the United States was involved in the war, the impact of the Vietnam war on the American society, and the impact on the United States foreign policy.

The beginning of the war started during World War Two, when Japanese forces invaded Vietnam forcing out the French influence. After the war Japanese forces refused to vacate Vietnam, therefore causing Vietnam’s future leader Ho Chi Mien to request foreign help. Ho Chi Mien requested help from both the US and China, and was successfully able to expel all

Fighting in Vietnam started well before the actual “Vietnam War”. The Vietnamese people had been under French rule for several decades until Japan invaded in 1940. In 1941, when Ho Chi Minh came back from his travels there were two foreign powers occupying the Vietnam territory, the French and Japanese. Ho Chi Minh established the Viet Minh in hopes to rid Vietnam of these two powers. On September 2, 1945 the Viet Minh established the Democratic Republic of China after getting support in northern Vietnam. This action spawned the French to fight back to keep control of their colony. Ho Chi Minh wanted support from the United States against the French; he went as far as to supply the United States with information about the Japanese during WWII. The United States kept with their Cold War foreign policy of containment as to prevent the spread of Communism, fearing the “Domino Theory” that said “if one country in Asia fell to Communism then surrounding countries would soon fall”.

While the soldiers fought the war in Vietnam, the people were fighting a political war at home. By 1968, the country was divided between the anti-war “doves” and the pro-war “hawks.” The people were horrified at the atrocities of the Vietnam War. At the beginning of the war, President Johnson told the American public that the war would be a quick one. The Vietcong proved multiple times over during the war that they could survive the onslaught of the U.S. military and could draw out the war. The war draw out so their was no end in sight. After the Tet Offensive, the people's opinion quickly soured even more so soon after the peace protests turned violent. Johnson’s support all but evaporated.

In the beginning of the Vietnam War was on the first of November, and war finally ended on April 30th 1975. This Vietnam war was very horrible. Not only was it a hard time for the soldiers but also back home. This war took place in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. Even though the war was in Viet Cong against South Vietnam. The United States was the primary ally for South Vietnam. It happened because Communism was threatening to expand all over South-East Asia.

The Vietnam war started with a governmental conflict that would cause major problems across the country. The North Vietnamese wanted Communism and the South wanted to avoid Communism at all costs, because of Southern Vietnam’s stance of anti-communism they would be joined by America in their attempts to get rid of Communism. America involved

The Vietnam War was seen by all as horrible and by many, senseless. War has the ability to change people, countries, and even the harmony of the planet. After the Vietnam War’s end, many Americans didn’t want to hear or speak about the war. Many of the citizens in America wanted to forget it ever occurred. The United States had lost their invincibility to their negligence; the nation believed it could do anything. They especially thought they could end the war quickly in Vietnam and stop the spread of communism. The United States had joined the Vietnam War with hopes of becoming an alliance with France. This alliance would help turn the tide easily for them on what they thought was a naïve,

There is no single fixed reason as to why the U.S. entered the Vietnam War. The United States became involved in the war step by step until it was completely committed, which was when Japan took over Indochina. There is, however, multiple reasons as to why stopping communism in Vietnam became a major U.S. priority. Presidents Eisenhower and Truman both advocated doing everything in their power to keep communism, which is a social system where all property is collectively owned instead of by individuals, from spreading throughout the world. Therefore, the domino theory is one of the major reasons it became a U.S. priority to prevent Vietnam from falling to communism. Another major reason for the action taken by the United States towards this dilemma would be that if the United States hadn’t taken part, the non-communist people of South Vietnam would have been persistently victimized and tortured. Lastly, it became a priority to the U.S. because the nation just generally felt responsible in helping Vietnam become independent and to be involved in the global fight against communism.

Over 58,000 U.S. troops died in Vietnam and over 300,000 were wounded. Many of the men were young in their late teens. (Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics) The way the war was being fought by the U.S. using the war of attrition. War of attrition was used not to capture territory but do as much damage as they could do to the country. One of the largest military search and rescue mission took place in Vietnam. Five U.S. aircrafts were shot down trying to rescue a lieutenant. Eleven U.S. troops were killed in the crash and some were captured. (William Westmoreland) North Vietnam was dedicated and were underestimated by the U.S. This wore soldiers down and had effects on all their lives. More than two million American troops suffered from cancer or disease caused from Agent Orange. Agent Orange was a highly dangerous toxin to humans used to defoliate jungles. The U.S. knew the dangers of using Agent Orange and continued with using it. The soldiers faced mental and physical side effects. (Agent Orange) Troops also faced post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is when a combat veteran faces violent trauma from war. The ones that did make it back also had to deal with a lot of backlash from American people calling them drug addicts and killers. Troops were constantly moving in Vietnam and not stationed in one place. This affected how veterans shifted back to regular peaceful

First and foremost, the Vietnam War was a conflict between the communist regime of the north and southern allies. People viewed the war as a continuation of the First Indochina war against France; while the involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. The purpose of the war was to reunify Vietnam and by doing that North Vietnamese government against the Viet. Congress had to fight bringing something that was once broken back together again. Fear that the public would not forgive them for losing Vietnam made it impossible for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to remove the United States from an increasingly untenable situation. By 1968, the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam exceeded half a million and the conduct

The Vietnam War took place November 1, 1955 through April 30, 1975, also called the Second Indochina War (Spector, 2017). The United States began involvement in the conflict in

This war caused many tensions on the American home front. People lost trust in the government because of the war. Many innocent Vietnamese people were killed. American reasons for war to stop Communism is what started the war. The Vietnam War caused many tensions, many lives were lost, and it caused distrust in the government. In this new age people saw thing about that war that they were never able to see before.