Was US involvement in Vietnam Justified? US involvement in Vietnam was to large extent unjustified. Even though the United States. Even though the United States, and other western countries, alleged that American involvement in Vietnam was morally justified (Source B)
The Vietnam war took a major death toll in Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. Just in the U.S., “more than 58,000 American soldiers were killed while more than 150,000 others wounded”. On both sides, there were almost 2 million civilians dead and 1.1 simply on the Vietnamese side. The My Lai Massacre, where soldiers brutally killed Vietnamese children and mothers, presents an example where the war mentally changed the soldiers in the war in a very horrendous way. On the other hand, the United States took brutal losses in the Tet Offensive, where the Vietcong slaughtered over 100 towns and twelve United States air bases.
Vietnam and the Watergate scandal affected popular trust in the government in immense ways. The Vietnam War was one war that United States had ever lost, and it had proven to be a military, political, and social disaster. By the end of the war 58,000 Americans had been killed, and 3 to 4 million Vietnamese. Vietnam undermined Americans’ confidence in their own institutions and challenged long-standing beliefs about the country and its purpose. However, two decades later former secretary of defense Robert McNamara published a memoir.
At the beginning, it was great propaganda to go fight to make sure communism from taking over and preventing another red scare. Then every big news channel and big tv shows started to show the war on live television so the people could feel involved and know what’s going on. Eventually once the war took a sharp right turn and got gruesome the media lost focus on the other things happening and focused more on the casualties of both Americans and Vietnamese. Once all of that got aired on tv the war became unpopular and the people didn’t want to see it anymore, they wanted peace and the fighting to stop in return caused the protests and everybody coming together. This in return caused the withdraw of American troops and the decrease in aid to south Vietnam.
In its initial years, the Vietnam War had huge amounts of help originating from US citizens. We thought that the war would not take long at all and would make new American Casualties. Their thoughts started to change once they understood that the legislature had sugar coated how "well" the war was going when in actuality, it wasn't looking good. Major offensive attacks were launched by the Viet Cong on major bases. It was a decision of good or bad for the administration, their decision was constantly awful.
The Vietnam War was a war which many people felt negative about, this attitude became especially true after the Tet Offensive took place. Northern Vietnamese forces attacked the South and Americans on the Tet Holiday in hopes to start revolutions in major cities. The outcome was decreased support for the war in America, slowed economy in the south, and a loss in moral for the north. The Tet Offensive proved to be a smart offense by the North, yet did not reach the desired outcome and was not a victory for either side.
He cites the “domino theory” for communism as the primary reason for the war. The theory was that if Vietnam became communist then, it leave way for other countries to become communist as well. At the end of the war, the United States had wasted its resources, had millions die, growing unrest due to anti-war movements and lost the war. The US lost the war, according to PAT, due to generals’ odd strategies and the president’s reluctance to pursue the war in the first place. Schweikart and Allen explanation differs from Zinn’s, again, due to focusing more on war strategies and fighting rather than the causes and
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.
The Vietnam War was one of the most divisive wars of all time. It changed how many people view the country and war and social ideas as a whole. It created the heated political parties we have today, It lead to one of the biggest anti war movements for a while, and also helped shape the future for civil rights at the time. The Vietnam War may have been one of the most polarizing war but it was also extremely important to the shaping of this country.
The war in Vietnam to do this day has gone down as one of the influential and controversial wars in United States history. The war lasted from 1955 to 1975.The nation as a whole began to uproar over the war and the major consequences of the war. There were many reasons why so many Americans were against the war. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam (Wikipedia). Not to mention, many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture and drug culture in American society and
During the Vietnam War, President Eisenhower placed CIA operatives and many different military advisers into Vietnam. President John F. Kennedy was the one to finally make the decision to send American soldiers over to Vietnam so that we could fight. President Lyndon Johnson announced and ordered the very first authentic combat by American troops, and finally, President Richard Nixon was the one who ended the war all together. Unfortunately for America, despite all the decades of resolve, whopping amounts of money, over 60,000 American lives and injuries, the United States had still ultimately failed to achieve all of its
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.
1. What problems did the United States face in the Vietnam War? As the United States struggled against communism in Vietnam, it would face many problems. In the late 1950’s President Eisenhower and later President Kennedy sent military supplies and advisers to South Vietnam. Despite the American aid the Vietcong grew stronger with support from North Vietnam.
Thousands of Americans soldiers died in Vietnam. The war had cost so much that President Johnson was forced to cancel multiple programs including his social reform program. America had failed to contain communism and many people lost confidence in our country. It was nearly 20 years before America again tried to police the world. However, the domino affect was proved wrong because the loss of South Vietnam to communism did not immediately effect what happened in governments of other countries.
When the long lasted Vietnam war ended in April of 1975, more than five thousands of Americans had been killed. Years after, American still suffered from far-reaching post-war consequences. The Vietnam War has affected the U.S. economically, socially, and politically. First, the war decreased the U.S. economy.