America's Involvement in the Vietnam War - Essay Example

How can we explain America's involvement in the Vietnam War. To what extent did America get it "wrong, terribly wrong" America's involvement in the Vietnam War (1957 to 1975) began when it supported South Vietnam by sending troops and munitions with some other 40 countries when the war broke out while Communist North Vietnamese wanted to overthrow Communist Guerrillas in the south. The North Vietnam was supported by USSR and the People's Republic of China which ultimately led to an international conflict After nearly 80 years of fighting, France signed a cease-fire agreement at Geneva on 20 July 1954 and completed the transfer of sovereignty to Vietnam on 29 December 1954.There were at that time two rival governments in the country. In the North, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam first proclaimed in September 1945, which the French had fought to suppress; in the south, the Government of the Emperor Bao Dai, which the French had sponsored. Both governments were committed to achieve the unity of the country. In the south, the chief minister Ngo Dinh Diem, the strongest figure in the government faced lots of difficulties because the gangster called as Binth Xuyen controlled the country side which was a total failure in the field of agriculture, communication and defence.Ngo Dinh diem defeated both Binh Xuyen, Bao Dai and proclaimed himself as president of the Republic of Vietnam on 26th Oct 1955.President Diem was greatly helped by United States and it disapproved of the Geneva agreement as a partial victory for the communists and was determined that they should make no further advance. "1955: the United States agrees to help train the South Vietnamese army." (735) In the last critical months of the Indo- China war, it had developed the view that the situation in the whole South East Asia was in danger of slipping under the pressure of the Soviet Union and China, that if the South Vietnamese or any other friendly government was allowed to fall to the communists, the others might fall down one by one. In the months following the Geneva agreement, the Eisenhower Administration took the basic decision to assist the South Vietnamese Government economically and to help it to build up its forces for internal security. On 8 Sep 1954, it led Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand in the signature of the South East Asia Collective Defense Treaty. The "free territory under the jurisdiction of the state of Vietnam" together with Cambodia and Laos were designed in a protocol as coming under the provisions of the Treaty The final Declaration of the Geneva Conference had affirmed the unity of Vietnam and had envisaged the holding of general elections in July 1956. However, the South Vietnam Government had protested against the proceedings at Geneva and then proved to have no intention of holding elections jointly with the North. The wartime destruction was greater in North than in the South. The authority of Dang Lao Dong and the president Ho Chi Minh like they made local Mines, factories and industries were nationalized; those measures resented the people which led to execution and "suicides" in November 1956. When the quarrel between the Soviet Union and China developed in the late 1950 the North Vietnam reduced its dependence on them it was seen in their share of foreign aid had fallen from 65.3 to 19 percent in 1962. From 1956 onwards discontent with the rule of President Diem grew in the South. His manner of ruling, arbitrary arrests, censorship, suppression of dissent, were resented.Some economic progress was made but that was confined to the towns. In the countryside, broken land reform was implemented but it was too little. The communists were able to make use of this discontent. By the end of 1960, the South Vietnamese Government was faced with full scale insurgency, with the Communists in control of the Mekang delta, the coastal provinces north-east of Saigon, and the highlands in Central Vietnam. Over the next three years, the new United Administration of President John F Kennedy, simultaneously facing a deteriorating situation in Laos, increased United States support for the South Vietnamese military effort. By October 1963, United States military personal in South Vietnam numbered some 16,000. Despite this assistance, the South Vietnamese Government continued to lose control of the countryside to the Communists. The policy adopted in 1962 of seeking to concentrate the peasants in "strategic hamlets" appears to have made little security contribution to counter balance the resentment aroused. The rule of President Diem and the influence of his brothers and sister-in-law, Ngo Dinh, Ngo Dinh Nhu and Madame Nhu, were increasingly feared and hated. In May 1963, Buddhist Demonstrations against the regime began in Hue and spread to Saigon and were met with harsh repression. Finally on 1 November, a group of officers led by General Duong Van Minh mounted a successful coup, with the knowledge of the United States, and President Diem was killed. In 1964, the United States Administration then headed by President Lyndon Johnson, concluded that the United States must take stronger action to demonstrate its determination, to stiffen the South Vietnamese Government, and to influence the policy of the North Vietnamese both towards South Vietnam and Laos. In February, it launched an increased programme of South Vietnamese command attacks on the North and in March began to consider United States air attacks, warning the North Vietnamese of this privately in June. On 2 August, following commandos attacks in the Gulf of Tong king, North Vietnamese toped boats fired on two United States destroyers, on August 7, the United States declared that the United States is prepared as the president determined, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed forces to assist any member or protocol state of the South- east Asia. Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom. United States aircraft immediately made retaliatory strikes in the Gulf of Tong king. In November, president Johnson won the presidential election, in March 1965, bombing of the North began. In April 1965, President Johnson decided to send United States troops to Vietnam. Commanded by General William Westmoreland, who adopted an aggressive "search and destroy" strategy, their numbers increased from some 1, 50,000 at the end of 1965 to 1, 80, 000 in 1968. In the months of 1965, North Vietnamese army units entered the south to support the Vietcong. From April 1965 onwards President Johnson stated the readiness of the United States to engage in peace talks unconditionally. In reply, the North Vietnamese and National Liberation front made four demands too; United States must end the bombing and withdraw its troops. Vietnam must be neutralized as in the Geneva Agreement, the NLF's programme for South Vietnam must be accepted; and the country must be reunified peacefully. In January 1968, they declared their readiness for talks if the United States would halt its bombing but the United States hesitated to do that without some corresponding concession by them. In the final days of January 1968, the Vietcong- North Vietnamese force hitherto fighting for the countryside launched the great Tet (Lunar New Year) offensive against the towns of South Vietnam. At that point, Johnson administration lost the confidence internally as well as the world at large for the policy he had adopted towards Vietnam. Only states like Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand showed considerable sympathy and support. On 3rd April, President Johnson announced that the North Vietnamese Government had agreed to talk, the talks began on 10th May in Paris but made no progress, the North Vietnamese insisting on a complete end to United States bombing, the United States requiring a decrease in Vietcong action first. In Oct 31st it agreed to talk together with the South Vietnamese Government. The South Vietnamese Government disliked that implied recognition of the standing of the NLF and the following months were spent in discussions of the shape of the Conference table, the point being whether the NLF had independent status or not. Eventually an ambiguous seating arrangement was arrived at and in May 1969, the new United States Administration of President Richard Nixon, inaugurated in January, unveiled major proposals, the bulk of non-local forces would withdraw from South Vietnam over a twelve-month period, a cease- fire between the South Vietnamese would be arranged by an international commission; prisoners of war would be exchanged; the Geneva agreement would be reinstated; country-wide election would be held. Both the North and South Vietnamese raised many objections to those proposals, and the talks dragged on without progress. Meanwhile, the new Republic Administration pressed by the United States public opinion and assisted by the considerable gains from the political and military efforts of recent years, had developed a new policy; the "Vietnamisation" of the war. After the period of chaos following the overthrow of president Diem, South Vietnam had been ruled with an improved degree of concord and confidence by a succession of military leaders until finally, on 1 April 1967, a new constitution had been held, in which two of its military leaders, General Nguyen Van Thieu and Air Vice-Marshal Nguyen Casky, became president and vice president respectively. They henceforth appointed governments with a high civilian membership and those appeared to have made progress in stabilizing the administration and winning the country-side with such measures as local elections, land reforms and various social programme. In the North, president Ho Chi Minh died on 3 Ed Sep 1969. On 8 June 1969, president Nixon announced that he would order the withdrawal of 25,000 United States troops and that he intended to make further withdrawals stage by stage subject to three factors; progress in the ability of the South Vietnamese army to take over the conduct of the war; the level of Vietcong- North Vietnamese military action, and progress in the Paris peace talks. Despite the anxieties of the South Vietnamese and the lack of fulfillment of the third criterion, President Nixon felt sufficiently confident of the other factors and convinced of the necessity of unburdening the United States, to announce further withdrawals over the course of the year. By April 1970, some 120,000 United States troops had left. Thus it can be concluded that the involvement of America in the Vietnam War was absurd. Its intervention was terribly wrong. It only increased the enmities against America. The burden of the War fell mainly on the civilians' .The loss of lives and the property to both the nations was enormous. At the time, however, Vietnam was seen in America as equivalent to a national crisis - and in 1967 historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr warned that Vietnam must not poison America's national life. The war was widely interpreted as a corruption of American ideals - witness the My Lai massacre - and as a convulsion within its political system - witness the resignation of Lyndon Johnson and the forced resignation of Richard Nixon over Watergate. Victory in the Cold War transformed the meaning of Vietnam. Thirty years ago its meaning lay in American humiliation - the US was seen to be humbled militarily by a third-world nation and its intervention was widely seen to have reduced America to a moral equivalence with the communists. It was a double blow, a strategic and moral defeat. Even while he fought the Vietnam War, President Nixon said "the objective of any American Administration would be to avoid another war like Vietnam any place in the world." The end of the Cold War, however, liberated not just communist nations; it liberated the US from its Vietnam malaise because this victory was almost universally seen as a vindication of US military resolve and of the political and moral superiority of its liberal democracy. Work Cited Ajit Kumar Sen (1972), International Relations since 1914, New Delhi. Gibbons (1982), An Introduction to world politics, Oxford. Holsti, K. J. (1987), International politics, Cambridge. Lisa Wolff (1989), The New York Public Library Desk Reference, A Stone Song Press Book. Morganthean (1980), Politics among Nations, Princeton. Schuman (1990), International Relations, London. Toynbee. A.J. (1992), Survey of International Affairs, New York. Read More