The Vietnam War
Although Vietnam had not been eagerly sought after by either Moscow or Washington, the Vietnam war was brought about by the interventionist mindset of both powers as a response to political dynamics of the Vietnamese Revolution. As both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations believed that the fall of South Vietnam to communism would again cause a domino effect throughout Asia, leading the U.S to not accept a unified Vietnam under any communist leadership stating they would ‘rather intervene’, becoming the sine qua non of U.S policy. [O.A Westard; The Global Cold War; page 180] The U.S also viewed Ho’s Chi Minh’s Hanoi Government as an extension of The Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China’s power into southeast Asia, furthering their determination to prevent the unification of Vietnam.
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Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam situated in the North of Vietnam. He was responsible for leading the North Vietnamese in an effort to rid Vietnam of the US forces that were supporting the South, by expelling these forces he would be able to crush the South Vietnamese government so that he could reunify the country. America saw this force as an extension of the Soviet Union and China’s influence because of the support that the Viet Minh forces received. As well as receiving military aid, the Soviet Union supported Ho Chi Minh economically. What North Vietnam received as aid from the larger communist states set the benchmark for what other communist parties could hope to achieve domestically and displayed why kind of support they could hop to achieve from Moscow and Beijing. [O.A. Westard; The Global Cold War; page 180]
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In the 1950s the Soviet Union aimed to assist Ho Chi Minh in building a viable socialist state in the northern half of the country that would be economically successful as well as politically and militarily strong. This strategy for ‘socialism in half of a country’ was the only possible solution that Moscow was willing to support, therefore making it the only viable option to further the spread of communism from the Soviet Union’s position. [O.A Westard; The Global Cold War; page 181]
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With the intensifying Cold War, the United States had strengthened foreign policies against allies of the Communist countries such as China and the Soviet Union. Due the increasing Soviet interest in the North of Vietnam, America’s support had been pledged to South Vietnam by President D.Eisenhower by 1955 following the idea of the policy of containment, America provided the South of Vietnam with military equipment and training in order to resist the large and strong forces go the Viet Cong. In 1961 a team was sent by President John F Kennedy that was to report on the conditions in South Vietnam, this report advised “a build up of American military, economic and technical aid” that would help ‘confront the Viet Cong threat”. [Vietnam War History; History.com] This advice worked under the “domino theory” that is one Southeastern Asian country fell to communism, many would follow [Vietnam War History; History.com]
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War in the South was immediately escalated by an event named the Gulf of Tonkin Incident or the USS Maddox Incident that occurred in 1964. In 1964, the Maddox Destroyer, owned by the US exchanged shots with Torpedo Boast owned by the Vietnamese within the Gulf of Tonkin. After this there were more reports of the Maddox coming under fire, although this has since been concluded that these reports are false, by the end of the day the current President at the time, President Lyndon B Johnson ordered air strikes categorised as retaliatory. [The Gulf to Tonkin Incident; History.com]
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Richard Nixon, the next president began withdrawing American troops under the idea of Vietnamization, in the hopes that South Vietnam would take more responsibility for fighting the war, Nixon took a different approach than many other Presidents before him, by attempting to slow the the flow of North Vietnamese supplies and soldiers by destroying soviet supply camps in Cambodia, breaking the Cambodian neutrality. Through 1968 to 1973 efforts were made to end the war with diplomacy, leading to the establishment of the Paris Peace Accord in January of 1973. When signed, it established a ceasefire, however did not end the war. The Vietnam War ended after the Fall of Saigon in April of 1973. This lead to the unification of Vietnam as one country, under a communist power, supported by the Soviet Union.
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