The Vietnam War ( 1964-1971 ) Essay - 1867 Words

With casualties of over 58,000 Americans, over a million Vietnamese and $5 billions spent, the Vietnam War (1964-1971) was America’s longest and most unpopular along with being one of its most expensive. Viewed as a battleground for the new ‘flexible response’ policy of dealing with international aggression, Vietnam quickly dismissed any hope of a clean and easy US victory. The Vietnam conflict began as a conflict between North and South Vietnam, with the rise of Ho Chi Minh in the North and Ngo Dihn Diem leading the South after the country was divided in the Geneva agreement of 1952 with the expectation that an election in 1956 would reunite the country. The North’s regime was backed by the Communist powers although, at the time, Ho Chi Minh did not identify himself as a communist, simply as anti-colonial. The Diem led South was backed by the United States government. In response to Diem’s claims of Minh being a communist, President Eisenhower backe d South Vietnam’s refusal to participate in the election, following which, in 1958, South and North Vietnam went to war in what the US saw as a proxy war between the Communist and non-communist blocks. Initially, the US sent in 2000 advisors to Vietnam, a number that quickly grew to 13,000 advisors in 1963. The conflict was then escalated by President Johnson with air strikes and then ground troops when air strikes proved ineffective. Then in 1968, the Tet Offensive turned the US public against the war when itShow MoreRelatedThe War Of The Vietnam War1224 Words   |  5 Pages Intervention in Vietnam. Second Analysis Paper Student’s Name Institution of Learning Introduction The Vietnamese was very detrimental because several people died. Indeed, the Just War Wage Policies (JWPs) were famous with the Vietnam War of 1961-64. Critically, the JWPs might fail in certain war cases owing to several challenges such as terrorism, lethal weapons, and genocide issues, which render this policy ineffective. Therefore, it is important to re-think whether this policyRead MoreHow The Vietnam War Changed America1291 Words   |  6 Pagesthe Vietnam War† (Hall xi), a rightfully said statement. Lasting from 1960-1975, it is America’s longest war and changed the United States politically, socially, and culturally during that period. In the early 1970s, the voting age was lowered to 18, largely because of the war. Also, Vietnam was one of the first wars in which African Americans largely participated. Lastly, Vietnam changed America culturally by causing mistrust in government. In the 1960s through early ‘70s, the Vietnam War changedRead MoreThe War Of The Vietnam War1379 Words   |  6 PagesBetween 1964 and 1975 the heightened tensions over the Vietnam war caused many americans to become divided on the actions taken by the government across seas. Americans questioned whether the government could be trusted. The feeling of betrayal and government secrecy created the â€Å"Credibility Gap,† in which many americans believed that the government no longer was for the people, but for anything else that would benefit the government. The Vietnam War exacerbated the gap between the pro-war traditionalistsRead MoreChanging History: 1945-1980 Essay1088 Words   |  5 PagesFollowing the end of World War II, the United States of America needed to rebuild and advance overall. In the late 1940’s the Cold War began, rather than a physical war, this was one of political and social disagreements between nations, the two biggest being the United States and the Soviet Union. 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The war was useless for the American governmentRead MoreVietnam War : History And History1695 Words   |  7 Pages http://www.scribd.com/doc/28238272/Vietnam-War-DBQ#scribd Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Americans became uneasy not only about the troubled position of the United States in world affairs, but also about the disorder wrought at home byforeign entanglements. Vietnam, either because of the searing war experience itself or because of the lessons Americans later drew from the experience, drastically altered society during the1960s and 1970s. The belief in the right to influence the internal affairsRead MoreThe War Of The Vietnam War1370 Words   |  6 PagesThe Vietnam War, lasting almost twenty years and deploying 2.7 million troops to the front lines, was one of the largest wars in United States history. Beginning August 2nd, 1964, the war killed 58,000 American soldiers and disabled twice that number. The war brought humiliation to our great nation, and created very overwhelming tensions, in a quote by President Nixon, â€Å"Let us be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United Stat es. Only AmericansRead MoreThe Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution1526 Words   |  6 Pageson the liberalisation of economic policy from 1959-62, the issue of Sino-soviet rapprochement in response to the Vietnam war and the increasing Party allowance of anti-Maoist influences in the cultural arena. In the end, what manifest as a power struggle amongst the upper party leadership, was in Mao’s eyes, a struggle between two roads, one capitalist and the other communist (Tung, 1964). Thus, any opposition encountered by Mao was viewed with increasing suspicion for it marked a dangerous diversionRead MoreAn American War976 Words   |  4 Pages American involvement in Vietnam was largely in response to Cold War polices and Strategies. Kennedy took a much more laid back approach to Vietnam than Eisenhower did. He only wanted to support the South and not give them direct military aid by getting involved. Kennedy believed that the nations themselves should bear the burden of fighting the war and America would merely give them supplies and political support. However, the administration’s attempt to help the South largely failed because neitherRead MoreLyndon B. Johnsons Immediate Advocacy of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution1493 Words   |  6 Pagescheck in conducting the Vietnam War. Johnsons accusation of unjustified attacks on American ships by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin led to the resolutions nearly unanimous passage in Congress three days later. Although with the passage of time the certainty of these attacks has come into question, President Johnson through his presidential powers was able to get the T onkin Gulf Resolution passed, which gave him near free reign in conducting the Vietnam War. The events leading up