Vietnam War

From Ibstudy

Leadup to war

• Vietnam divided along the 17th parallel, U.S.-backed Ho Chi Minh in South.
• French leave Vietnam at the end of the Indo-China war in the face of popular, strong opposition.
• U.S. gets involved around 1957:
  • advisors
  • then military
  • escalation (under Johnson: "...if I left that war and let the communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the globe.")
    • max. 500,000 American soldiers in Vietnam (1968)
  • success stories reported, though not altogether connected with reality
    • Tet Offensive was a large coordinated surprise attack by the NLF (Vietnam National Liberation Front)
      • Militarily, it was crushed quickly -> an American victory, but it showed that the NLF was not defeated
• USA withdraws troops beginning in 1969, under strong anti-Vietnam-war public opinion.
• Vietnam falls to communism, 1975

Nature of the war

• American tactics:
  • bombing: firebombing(napalm), chemical defoliants(eg. Agent Orange). A greater mass of bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were on Germany during WWII.
    • Vietnam wasn't industrialized, and so bombing missions had a limited amount of tactical targets.
    • Agent Orange had adverse effects:
  • Setting up "strategic hamlets" or "safe" villages
    • forcibly relocating people to new villages alienated them
• Anti-American tactics:
  • Vietcong and NLF were highly motivated, experts at guerrilla warfare
    • Generally, the guerrilla war couldn't be won by the USA: enemy combatants couldn't be distinguished from civilians until they shot at you. The USA's conventional warfare, even with numbers, funds, and technology, was ineffective.
    • Despite heavy bombing, Vietcong supplies couldn't be stopped on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
  • Vietcong/NLF had military/supply support from China, Russia, North Vietnam.
• NLF had widespread support, even in South Vietnam, because of anti-government, anti-imperialist ideas. America did not recognize this need, and focused purely on military intervention.

Effects

• Victory for the communist world
• Vietnamese costs great
  • 1-2 million civilians dead, 18 million homeless
  • Agent Orange: birth defects
• U.S.A:
  • Detracted attention from domestic reforms
  • Shook the confidence of this new world power
• U.S. soldiers:
  • shunned by an anti-Vietnam-war society
  • many had post-traumatic stress disorder