Honourable Peace. This was the strategy employed by President Nixon with regards to ending the war in Vietnam. Promising the U.S public of this ‘peace with honour’ ensured his victory in both the 1968 and 1972 presidential elections. Given that he was a resolute ‘hawk’ and known to be a ‘cold war warrior’ and in addition to America having ‘lost’ China to communism and not able to afford another large-scale setback, it was a surprising turn of events that Nixon became the first president to begin U.S withdrawal from Vietnam. (www.lars-klein.com ) When Nixon was elected president, Vietnam was causing great unrest in the domestic front and the political climate in the U.S was one of fierce division and antagonism between the ‘Hawks’ and the ‘Doves’. …show more content…
In order to facilitate a smooth U.S withdrawal or ‘honourable peace’, Nixon deployed a series of policies created to end the conflict while also attempting to maintain America’s position as an undefeatable world superpower. The first of these policies was the creation of the Nixon Doctrine. Crafted on the 25th of July 1969, the doctrine outlined significant changes in U.S foreign policy concerning Vietnam, the support provided to the South Vietnamese Army and U.S attitude towards its allies worldwide. No longer would America use its military to defend and fight for its allies. Each country allied to the U.S would be required to ensure their own military victories, specifically concerning the use of ground troops. In particular, while the U.S would still continue to train and economically support the South Vietnamese Army, Nixon would begin the proceedings for withdrawing the U.S troops present in South Vietnam. In 1969 there were 475,000 US troops serving in Vietnam but by the following year there were 344,600 and just two years later only 24,200 U.S troops remained in Vietnam (Class Notes, 2014). This drastic reduction in ground troops in only three years demonstrated the President’s resolve and commitment to his Doctrine and his desire to be known as the
Kissinger read a letter from Nixon that stated that he had checked to see how much support he had in the Senate, and the results of that check indicated that if the only roadblock from reaching an agreement were from Saigon, the Senate would personally lead the fight to cut off funding when the new Congress reconvenes (195). This shows that both Kissinger and Nixon knew that Congress was getting ready to pull funding for the war. It also proves that Nixon knew that even if the United States pulled out of the war – and if the North invaded the South – there was nothing he could do to prevent it from
1b. The significance of Vietnamization is that it was started by Richard Nixon and it stated that he would withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam slowly and give South Vietnamese money, weapons, and training needed to win the war. This event caused the number of US troops in Vietnam to go from 540,000 to 30,000 in a span of four years. He got U.S. troops out of a war they did not know why they were fighting in. 2a.
In 1973, Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act. The goal was to prevent the extinction of animal and plant life. It was also to eliminate threats towards them. Vietnamization was a strategy that helped reduce American involvement in the Vietnam war by transferring all military responsibilities to South Vietnam. President Nixon really believed in his Vietnamization strategy, which was to build South Vietnam’s armed forces and withdrawing U.S. troops.
Nixon wanted to end the war just like every other American. He had many plans for this war and one of them was called Vietnamization. Vietnamization was a policy that would replace U.S. troops with South Vietnamese troops and supply them with supplies and weapons (Rubel 182). It was a way to retreat U.S. troops and end involvement in the war. Even though he ended involvement in the Vietnam War by withdrawing U.S. troops, he decided to bomb enemy forces in Cambodia (Lillegard 71).
At his introduction in January 1977, President Jimmy Carter started his discourse by expressing gratitude toward active president Gerald Ford for all he had done to "recuperate" the scars departed by Watergate. American appreciation had not been sufficiently awesome to return Ford to the Oval Office, yet eagerness for the new president was very little more noteworthy in the new environment of thwarted expectation with political pioneers. Without a doubt, Carter won his gathering's assignment and the administration to a great extent in light of the fact that the Democratic authority had been pulverized by death and the corrupt of Vietnam, and he had precisely situated himself as a pariah who couldn't be rebuked for current arrangements. Eventually, Carter's administration demonstrated a dreary one that was set
The growing public’s skepticism and mistrust of the government were increased, now involving both peaceful and violent protests. The Pentagon Papers was the catalyst that eventually brought down the Nixon administration. Furthermore, I believe the majority of the American people who had originally supported the government-led conflict in Vietnam had a change of heart and viewed the administration’s
“I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it” - George McGovern. There are numerous controversial topics dispersed among the subject of American history due to the amount of unethical decisions that have been made in order to improve the lives of the people or keep America out of the clutches of war. Throughout American history, historians have debated the ethical impact that the Vietnam war had on the United States. Although some people may believe that the Vietnam War achieved the goal of avoiding communism and protecting the people, the overarching idea is that it was an unjust war because of the countless lives that were lost from the participating countries, the
As we discussed in class, Nixon ended the war by pulling troops from South Vietnam, which led to the Fall of Saigon, where many innocent people were left behind and taken by North Vietnam. The US spent billions of dollars on the Vietnam War, just to lose. The US could have used that money to benefit its citizens. It also left a lot of innocent South Vietnamese citizens, who helped the US, behind. Many of those people could have been saved, but they weren’t.
Being known for his foreign policy acted as a personal goal of Nixon during his presidency. A visit to China donoted something unlike any other president had done before, and it helped to developed Nixon’s credibility as a foreign policy leader. “It has been said that Nixon 's trip to China and its results mark the most significant achievement in U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II, because it shifted the global balance of power in favor of the United States” (“The Richard M. Nixon Administrations”). Along with his visit to China to help promote Nixon’s popularity in foreign affairs, Nixon utilized
The U.S public finally learns about the secret peace talks. Unites States B-52’s bomb Hanoi and Haiphong. Henry Kissinger says “ peace is at hand”. In November of 1972 Nixon wins
One of the most controversial wars in history and a turning point in American foreign policy, the emotions and events surrounding the Vietnam War capture the essence of the era. The rise of rebellious youth culture and anti-war and anti-draft movements were key social aspects of American life leading up to and during the fighting. (Doc 2, 3) On the political side, Congress aimed to control the Chief-Executive with legislation such as the War Powers Act of 1973, requiring the president to remove all unreported troops in Vietnam and report any further sent. (Doc 7) To say the country was divided would be a massive understatement.
It is quite difficult to compare two wars that happened 180 years apart from each other, the Vietnam war 1955 to 1975, and the American Revolutionary war 1775 to 1783. Yes, both wars are all that different from each other, in fact I would say that they were the two least similar wars in American history. These wars are very similar because they both used guerilla warfare, a form of irregular warfare that uses tactics such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, and mobility to fight a larger less mobile military force. However a major difference in the wars was that the Revolutionary war was fought to gain independence, while the Vietnam war was fought to maintain independence. Another difference is that the U.S. were ‘Victors’ in the Revolutionary war, and were not so in the Vietnam war.
saw the war in Vietnam as a battle of the Cold War, the Vietnamese saw it as a civil war instead. Unfortunately, President Johnson failed to empathize with the Vietnamese the same way President Kennedy was advised to do so with the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even though constructivism would fail to explain this decision in world politics, Realism manages to explain it well. The U.S. saw the Soviets as a threat to their own security, both due to their growing economy and their military capabilities. Seeing as the Vietnamese were communists, in the eyes of the U.S., the Soviets had just gained an ally in the South-East Asia region.
He increased the number of forces in South Vietnam. The war escalated then he decided to not run for reelection. Nixon used the war to his advantage. He promised to find a way to end the Vietnam War, pledging America would have “peace with honor”. Now he had to uphold this promise and implement a plan, but it didn’t work.
In his essay, Hills explains how Nixon evokes the intended response from the immediate audience by gaining support for the war. Nixon states in his speech, “tonight-to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans-I ask for your support.” Here, Nixon uses resentment in sacrifice in lives and finance, longing for some action in a marked direction were strategies used to gain support instead of “teaching.” This in turn allowed America to continue in the war which proves that he agrees with Foss for Nixon’s primary role was not that of a teacher or