immediately intervened in the beginning of the Korean War. This is mainly because the capitalist country was extremely afraid of communism spreading around the world, particularly Asia, and would do anything to stop it. The events following the U.S. joining the war created a tension between the country and the Soviet Union, which will later lead to the “Cold War”, because of the U.S.’ plans on stopping the spreading of communism throughout different parts of the globe. The whole conflict between the two countries was caused mainly caused by communism and one’s desire of dominating the whole world. Due to the U.S. worrying about the Soviets’ plans on spreading communism, they centered their foreign policy on the containment of communism, both home and abroad.
The Vietnam War, which lasted from 1954–1975, is one of the most intriguing examples of foreign policy in American history and is notable for being one of the few wars where the U.S. was not the victor, as well having one of the strongest Anti-War movements the nation has seen (). After 1954, Vietnam, which had previously been a French Colony, was split apart during the negotiation for the Indochina Wars, with the northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam led by the Vietnam Communist Party, and the southern State of Vietnam, soon to be the Republic of Vietnam, eventually led by Ngo Dinh Diem (britannica 2). While the United States had already played a role in getting Diem elected, President Eisenhower would continue to provide South Vietnam with
Contextualization and introduction The Vietnam War served as a major turning point of the Cold War, during which the American public split in its support of the conflict. As a proxy in the superpower conflict between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR), the US entered to support the South Vietnamese who were at war against the communist North. To support the South and its Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the United States sent military advisory, conducted airstrikes, and committed ground forces with the hope of curbing the growth of communist ideology in the Asian sphere of influence through a communist defeat. However, the American military ultimately did not apply full force against the Northern combatants under the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN/NVA) and Viet Cong (VC). Despite investing considerable quantities of human and material resources to support the South’s fight over control of Vietnam, the focus often diverted to concurrent threats such as West Germany.
The Viet Cong eventually lost power and disappeared as well after the war when both the South and North unified. The United States had joined the fight because of the Containment Policy, Domino effect theory, and the attacks against the US by North Vietnam. The United States believed that it was their responsibility to contain Communism. They wanted to stop the spread of communism across the world. They saw that Vietnam as the start of the spread of Communism so it contributed as one of the reasons of going to war.
But the US did not want to go straight in and start a war because of the USSR had ties to Vietnam. So instead America used one of its allied states to do the fighting for them, America actually fought themselves but with a mask on. Therefore the USSR could not intervene so instead they decided to send military equipment such as weapons, meds, etc. to China which then they would send to help the Vietnamese fight America and southern Vietnamese people. The Vietnam War had a major impact on especially on itself.
U.S. foreign policy in Latin America did not take into account that countries would want to opt out of monolithic block set up by U.S. corporations and the U.S. government. In Nicaragua, the “Marxist regime allied to the Soviet Union and Cuba” was a constant danger. Nicaragua had previously been a U.S. ally under President Somoza, who like U.S.-backed Chilean Eduardo Frei, held American ideals, but the U.S. lost its influence in the country. The U.S. saw itself as the protector of the Western Hemisphere and intended to keep its influence over Latin America. Partly because of the Monroe Doctrine, in which the U.S. could intervene in American countries that were in danger of European invasion, the U.S. was able to exercise much authority over weak Latin American states.
In his “Moscow and the Marshall Plan”, published in 1994, Geoffrey Roberts seems to have combined his research interests by writing about the origins of the Cold War and particularly the role of the USSR in it. To be more precise, he argues that the ideological shift within the Soviet Union after the World War II with the following misinterpretation of the U.S. foreign policy in general and the Marshall Plan in particular led to the USSR “embarking on its Cold War” (Roberts 1381; italics added); i.e. since “Soviet ideology, like any other, was more than a set of beliefs”, but “a language of political communication” (1382), it influenced the USSR’s reception of the Marshall Plan and led to the eventual estrangement of the two superpowers and, finally, to the Cold War. He also argues that prior to 1947 both sides – the USSR, as well as the USA – were trying to cooperate and coexist peacefully with each other (Roberts 1382).Thus, as well as Leffler, Roberts does not seem to believe in the inevitability of the Cold War proceeding only from the mutual exclusiveness of the USA’s and the USSR’s ideological natures from the very beginning. Yet, as already mentioned, the author claims that ideology was the main reason why the Soviet Union did eventually launch the conflict.
Firstly the Korean War was a Cold War conflict was the manifestation of the Cold war through a proxy. This moved the rivalry of the superpowers , fighting from Europe to Asia, and became a direct conflict. Syngman Rhee (South Korea) under USA’s support, was a strategist who claimed to “produce a victorious end to the wars in Korea … would swing the balance of power so strongly against the Soviet Union that it would not dare risk war with the United States”. Kim Il Sung (North Korea) was emboldened by both China and USSR and said “the liberation of the Korean people in the south is next in line”. It would seem that North Korea had plans to unify Korea and USSR supported the unification.
Vietnam had been an important symbol for capitalism for the USA government with the fail of China in 1949 and the failure in Korea from 1950 - 1957 it was essential for the US that Vietnam maintained a capitalist presence and not lose Vietnam to communism. Since it would be a massive personal blow to the US government as well as the US authority around the world. There are many arguments that US tactics were inefficiently used. To begin with they used heavy bombings which did damage North Vietnams supply routes the Ho Chi Mhin trail but it did not stop the trail which provided the Viet Congs with equipment and weapons from neighboring countries. It's an embarrassment that the US failed to stop countries such as Cambodia and Laos since the
A few reasons that caused the United States to be allied with South Vietnam are communism, Truman Doctrine, and reunification. The Vietnam War started in 1954. According to The Vietnam War: an intimate history, it states: “Ho Chi Minh and Ngo Dinh Diem, the two best-known Vietnamese leaders of the Vietnam War era, have long been viewed as polar opposites” (Ward and Burns 44). Ho was a representation of communism while Ngo is anticommunist. Ho ruled the North while Ngo ruled the South.