The Vietnam War

#Causes of the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, was a conflict that lasted from 1955 to 1975 and was fought primarily in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The causes of the war can be traced back to the end of World War II and the rise of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Here is a quick summary of them before getting into the details:

• Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union
• Fear of the spread of communism in Southeast Asia
• U.S. involvement in the First Indochina War (1946-1954)
• The 1954 partition of Vietnam into North and South
• The rise of communist leader Ho Chi Minh in North Vietnam
• The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident
• U.S. escalation of military involvement in Vietnam under President Lyndon B. Johnson
• The growth of anti-war sentiment and protests in the United States
• The role of the media in shaping public opinion on the war
• Political and economic factors within Vietnam and the region.

#Fall of Indochina

After losing their Southeast Asian colony of Indochina to Japanese invaders in World War II, the French made the mistake of trying to retake it. Wanting independence, native Vietnamese and Cambodians resisted. French imperialism had the effect of increasing support for nationalist and Communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

Truman’s government started to give U.S. military aid to the French while China and the Soviet Union aided the Viet Minh guerrillas led by Ho Chi Minh. In 1954, a large French army at Dien Bien Phu was trapped and forced to surrender. After the disastrous defeat, the French tried to convince Eisenhower to send in U.S. troops, but he refused.

#Vietnam Divided

By the terms of the Geneva Conference, Vietnam was to be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel until a general election could be held. The new nation remained divided, as two hostile governments took power on either side of the line. In North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh established a Communist dictatorship. In South Vietnam, a government emerged under Ngo Dinh Diem, whose support came largely from anti-communist, Catholic, and urban Vietnamese, many of whom had fled from Communist rule in the North.

#Image Courtesy of Khan Academy

From 1955 to 1961, the US government gave over $1 billion in economic and military aid to South Vietnam in an effort to build a stable, anti-communist state. In justifying this aid, President Eisenhower made an analogy to a row of dominoes. According to his **d...