The Vietnam War - Essay Example

? The Vietnam War Jerry Ciacho The Vietnam War The late nineties was a time of great enthusiasm, fervor and prosperity in many countries such as The United States. However, it too was a great time of massive battle and warfare, a long struggling age of enormous divergence within nations and also between other countries that were in great incongruity. During this time, millions of people lost their lives, their loved ones, and their country’s freedom while others gained prodigious victory and became great worldwide superpowers. Among the most renowned of these clashes was The Vietnam War, a war that according to some historians, is among the most important war of the Twentieth Century. (Wiest 5) The Vietnam War was the long-drawn-out clash between pro-self-government forces endeavoring to amalgamate the nation of Vietnam under a communist administration and the United States, with the assistance of the Southern Vietnamese, struggling to thwart the blowout of communism. Involved in a conflict that many regarded as having no way for victory, U.S. leaders suffered the loss of the American community's cooperation for the war. From the time when the war ended, the Vietnam War has turned out to be a point of reference for what one should not do in all forthcoming U.S. external battles. The Vietnam War was an era during the Cold War period of great military divergence that happened in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and lasted from 1955 to the plummet of Saigon in 1975. This war came after the First Indochina War. It was a fight between North Vietnam, reinforced by its communist allies, and the administration of South Vietnam, where the United States and other anti-communist nations reinforced it. Like many wars fought during this time, the reason for it was mainly the division of a desire for communism, and the desire for democracy. It was known to be a war much “tougher than-and different from-World War II and Korea.” (Langer 183) The foremost military establishments tangled in the conflict were the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, also known as ARVN and the U.S. military on one side, and the Vietnam People's Army or VPA also known as the North Vietnamese Army or NVA), and the Viet Cong, or National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF), a communist paramilitary group in South Vietnam, on the other side. There had been a lot of hostility in Vietnam for a long period of time before the Vietnam War started. The Vietnamese people had undergone suffering from the French colonial ruling for almost sixty long years when eventually, Japan conquered parts of Vietnam in 1940. It was a year later when Vietnam had two external supremacies dominating them, that communist Vietnamese avant-garde leader Ho Chi Minh came to Vietnam in return after expending roughly three decades travelling the world. Once Ho Chi Minh was now back in Vietnam, he started centers of operations in a cave in the northern part of Vietnam and founded the Viet Minh, whose purpose was to divest Vietnam from the Japanese and French inhabitants. Having increased support for their goal in Northern Vietnam, the Viet Minh proclaimed the formation of a self-governing Vietnam with a new administration named the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the September of 1945. However, the French colonists were not disposed to hand over their colony so effortlessly and fought back. For many years, Ho Chi Minh had endeavored to ingratiate the United States to back him up as opposed to the French, such as supplying the United States with military intellect concerning the Japanese throughout World War II. Notwithstanding this assistance, the United States was completely devoted to their Cold War external policy of suppression, which meant averting the increasing spread of Communism. Ho Chi Minh, aware of this, did not want to draw the United States into the conflict. The Americans, though, could not allow their client state to fall and the road to war began. (Wiest 16) The “domino theory” of the United States, which specified that if one nation in Southeast Asia fell to the rule of Communism, then neighboring nations would also quickly fall, amplified this trepidation of the spread of Communism. To assist in preventing Vietnam from turning into a communistic country, the U.S. made a decision to aid France defeat Ho Chi Minh and his insurgents by distributing French military assistance in 1950. Four years later, after undergoing a conclusive defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French resolved to drop out of Vietnam. During the Geneva Conference of 1954, several countries gathered to conclude how the French could possibly depart peacefully. The settlement named the Geneva Accords that came out of the session demanded a cease-fire for the nonviolent departure of French powers and the short-term separation of Vietnam alongside the 17th parallel, which divided the nation into communalist North Vietnam and non-communist South Vietnam. Furthermore, an overall democratic voting was to be organized in 1956 that would reunify the entire nation under one administration. The United States refused to approve to the election, dreading the possible victory of the communists. Meanwhile, The Viet Cong was gaining more influence and control in South Vietnam through violence and terror. (Levy 19) With aid from the United States, South Vietnam implemented the voting solely in South Vietnam instead of a nationwide election. Subsequent to the elimination of most of his opponents, Ngo Dinh Diem was selected. His governance, however, was proven to be so terrible that he was executed in 1963 during a rebellion reinforced by the United States. Since Diem had isolated many South Vietnamese throughout his term, communist supporters in South Vietnam founded the National Liberation Front (NLF), otherwise known as the Viet Cong, in 1960 to use revolutionary war versus the South Vietnamese. As the unrest between the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese persisted, the U.S. carried on to transmit added advisers to South Vietnam. When the North Vietnamese attacked straightforwardly toward two U.S. vessels in international waters on in the August of 1964, termed as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Congress answered back with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This response provided the President the power to intensify U.S. participation in Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson used that power to command the first U.S. ground military to Vietnam in 1965. President Lyndon’s ambition for U.S. immersion in Vietnam was not for the United States’ victory for the war, but for U.S. troops to boost South Vietnam's resistances until South Vietnam could finally take control. By joining the Vietnam War without an objective to triumph, the President set the stage for imminent civic and military frustration when the Americans found themselves in a deadlock with the Viet Cong. and the North Vietnamese. In a span of four year from 1965 until 1969, the U.S. was tangled in a restricted war in Vietnam. Though there were midair bombings of the North, President Johnson desired the warfare to be restricted to South Vietnam. By controlling the warfare parameters, the U.S. militaries would not perform a severe ground attack into the North to assault the communists straightforwardly nor would there be any keen determination to disrupt the Viet Cong's source path that went through Cambodia and Laos, or the Ho Chi Minh Trail. U.S. troops struggled a jungle warfare, predominantly versus the well-supplied Viet Cong. The Viet Cong would assault in ambuscades, establish traps, and getaway through a intricate net of underground passageways. For U.S. militaries, even just locating their opponent proved challenging. Since Viet Cong concealed themselves in the thick brush, U.S. forces would release napalm explosives or Agent Orange, which emptied a space by triggering the leaves to fall off or to be eaten away by the fire. In each community, U.S. troops had a difficult time identifying which ones, if there was any, residents were the enemy because even women and kids were able to construct traps or help shelter and feed the Viet Cong. U.S. military soldiers regularly became irritated with the fighting situations in Vietnam. Many writhed from low optimism, became heated, and some even used drugs. In 1968, the North Vietnamese stunned the U.S. forces as well as the South Vietnamese by coordinating an organized attack with the Viet Cong to assault roughly around a hundred South Vietnamese municipalities and townships. While the U.S. forces and the South Vietnamese military were able to resist the attack, this showed the Americans that the enemy was greater and better controlled than they had been steered to believe. The attack also known as the Tet Offensive was a major roundabout in the war since President Johnson, challenged now with displeased Americans and bad updates from his armed leaders in Vietnam, made a decision to no longer intensify the war. By 1969, Richard Nixon was elected as the new U.S. President. He had his own idea to finally put U.S. participation in Vietnam to a close. President Nixon delineated a plan known as Vietnamization, a course of action to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam while turning in the struggling to the South Vietnamese. The retraction of U.S. troops started on the month of July in 1969. To faster end the conflicts, President Nixon also extended the war into other nations, such as Cambodia and Laos. This was a move that instigated numerous remonstrations, particularly on university campuses in the United States. To work for peace, new peace talks arose in Paris in 1969. When the United States had extracted majority of its military from Vietnam, the North Vietnamese conducted another enormous attack, named the Easter Offensive or the Spring Offensive in 1972. North Vietnamese military groups crossed across the DMZ or the demilitarized zone at the 17th parallel and attacked South Vietnam. The remaining U.S. military along with the South Vietnamese military attacked back. By January of 1973, the peace talks in Paris ultimately achieved in creating a truce arrangement. The final U.S. troops left Vietnam, already in mind that they were leaving a feeble South Vietnam who would certainly not be able to endure another enormous communist attack from North Vietnam. Subsequent to the withdrawal of all U.S. troops, the hostility remained in Vietnam. During the early months of 1975, North Vietnam made yet another giant push which tumbled the South Vietnamese administration. Finally, South Vietnam formally surrendered to North Vietnam on April 30, 1975. It was a year after that when Vietnam was reunified as a communist country called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. References Langer, Howard. The Vietnam War: An Encyclopedia of Quotations. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2005. Print. Levy, Debbie. The Vietnam War. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 2004. Print. Wiest, Andrew. The Vietnam War. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2008. Print. Hall, M. K. (2008). The Vietnam War (2nd ed.). Pearson Longman . Palmer, B. (1984). The 25 Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam . Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. Anderson, D. L. (2005). The Vietnam War. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Read More