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The Vietnam War
The thirty year war in Vietnam included several different governments and peoples. While each of these governments, the French, the United States, the North Vietnamese communists (alongside first the Viet Minh and then Vietcong), and the South Vietnamese chose to go to war, they did so for their own individual and respective reasons.
The first Indochina war, which began in 1945 and spanned nine years, pits the Vietnamese people against the French government. ... Although warfare dates to 1945 as the start of French fighting, the French had a rich history of colonialism in Vietnam. The French lost this power when the Japanese entered the country in 1940 during World War II, and five years later when the Japanese were forced to leave, they saw it as a ripe opportunity to take back their land in hopes to restore power. ... By the early twentieth century, therefore…Vietnam was under the domination of a foreign power (p. ... (101) When heavy warfare began between the French and Vietnamese people, French troops under General Jean Leclerc proceeded to undertake the pacification of the south in a series of bloody campaigns and French colons of the south and their leaders…sought to resume their former lives of colonial ease…(101) The need for lost resources such as rubber, their past colonialist ways and a once strong Empire were all motives that drove the French to fight in the Vietnam War. (Magee recitation 9/10) The French tried desperately to restore their glory, and the means of accomplishing this feat meant full scale war in Vietnam for nine long years.
While the French fought in Vietnam to restore their past colonialist ways, the United States entered Vietnam for a completely different reason altogether. ... troops into Vietnam in 1965. ... The communists in Vietnam were on the verge of winning again what they had largely won in 1945, and again in 1954…and in 1965, Washington refused to tolerate the idea of the Communists taking another inch of territory…(Harrison pg 2). ... As Johnson explains “…over this war-and Asia-is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist China…our strength imposes us an obligation to assure that this type of aggression does not succeed…we must demonstrate that the communist technique of guerilla warfare can be dealt with…. ... 4) American credibility was tied to Vietnam as well, as guarantees around the world would be hopelessly undermined if the Communists won in Vietnam. The memory of “the Munich syndrome” (the failure to stop Hitler in the 1930s), …and the current fear of communism as the “new fascism”…all seemed to Washington to dictate its fateful involvement in Vietnam. ... The “Domino Theory” was prevalent during this time, as the United States used this reasoning to engage in war.
Approximate Word count = 2228
Approximate Pages = 8.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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