Vietnam Dbq Analysis

Timeline: 1970 - Kent State University Shooting On May 1, 1970, students at Kent State University were protesting President Nixon’s orders to bomb Cambodia. The protest gradually got out of hand, students were throwing bottles and rocks at police officers and lighting bonfires. On May 2, Ohio National Guard was ordered to Kent State to help maintain order. When the National Guard arrived, they discovered that the students had set the Reserve Officer Training Corps building on fire. On May 4, the National Guard fired tear gas at the students during a rally.

However, in a letter sent by the USSR to America shows the Soviet Union’s desire to reach some sort of a treaty stating that “… be coupled with the conclusion of a peace treaty.” (Source L) Likewise, the focused military action by, at that time, the strongest military force in the world on Vietnam, a much smaller, much poorer country. (Source I). The economic resources spent on the Vietnam War by the United States, could have funded a humanitarian effort to provide basic human rights to those affected by the civil conflict.

U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence. Once the reinforcements arrived the Unites States held power of what was South Vietnam, which is was they desired for. Once U.S troops were in South Vietnam the Vietnamese people felt support and comfort. They were being attacked by their own people which was North Vietnam, all because they wanted them to become a communist party.

Imagine if you lived in a place where you had no freedom, and you were ruled by a man like Joseph Stalin. That is what it would be like in many countries if it weren’t for the United States’ policy of containment. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union wanted to take over other countries and make them have the government system of Communism. The United States didn’t like that, because they thought their governmental system of Democracy was better. As a result, the U.S. adopted a policy of “Containment”.

1. Summarize the reasons that one individual might have been strongly opposed to the Vietnam War while another person from the same family or circle of friends may have supported the war. Many Americans were strongly opposed to the Vietnam war. These Americans had many reasons to resent the war effort occurring in Vietnam. One reason that many, especially young men, opposed the war effort was because of the draft.

The Vietnam war lasted almost twenty years while the Iraq war only lasted about eight years. The

Walking through the heart filled Jungles of Vietnam, US soldiers fought these Vietnam and North Vietnamese soldiers from the year 1955 to 1975. These American soldiers were drafted from their homes, schools, and jobs to fight a war halfway around the world seem to do nothing with their daily lives. The 1970’s was a decade for the United States and the world of much accomplishment in peace and the cooling of tensions on a global scale, but there were also hardships and awful catastrophes that crippled the US and the World. In the United States, the 1970’s were a time of great economic hardships, stagflation grew and spread amid throughout the country. Stagflation was in latent terms stagnant economy and terrible inflation of the US dollar.

Communism was finally starting to come close to an end on its own, so there was no need for the United States to be involved to stop it, but the United States went to war

Some of the actions that the U.S. took was the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, going into nations that were controlled by the Soviets to fight back, and had the wrong motives. The United States actions during the cold war were not justified, because of the motives that they had behind their actions which were selfish and did not think about everyone else, these actions also caused more aggression. The U.S made the decision to drop a bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The U.S dropped the bomb because they wanted the fighting to be over in Japan and they wanted them to surrender without having to have any American soldiers step in and lose American lives.

The Vietnam War was a war the United States should have never been involved in. The “Domino Theory” was a direct cause of the war. The war resulted in much death; innocent civilians and young Americans were killed. The Vietnam war also resulted in rioting, distrust for the United States government, and the loss of many lives. 58,000 Americans were killed and 300,000 were wounded.

The motivation behind the invasion was the United States’ tremendous fear of communism. “I mean, now we look back on that and it can seem sort of ridiculous that we ever had a time when we thought the Communists were going to take over the world. But that is indeed what most Americans thought at the time” (Rasenberg 1). The fear communism was more powerful than the desire to respect the sovereignty if other nations, especially one so close to America as

After WWII, there was communism fever in the northern part of the world. This domineering outbreak of communism threatened the US and our capitalist allies. Through the outbreaks, the US took things to drastic measures and did everything in their power to stop communism, causing multiple wars and combat. During June of 1950, North Korea first invaded the Southern part of Korea due to their pessimistic views on communism.

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. The Domino theory was a theory that if one country in a region falls to Communism that the surrounding countries would fall to communism as well. The U.S. also saw the Domino Theory in Vietnam.

The Vietnam war was preceded by a very turbulent time in our history with problems here in the states such as racism, women’s rights, and a president being shot. But in Vietnam they were going through a civil war, which they had done before, but not to this extent, this time they got the U.S.S.R. involved. It was communist Russia and North Vietnam against South Vietnam. The U.S. started to get

Fearing the spread of communism to Laos, the United States declared an anticommunist containment. This was the first time United States declared said statement as it was a rather bold move. Southern Laos was the home to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which the United States deemed dangerous, as it connected the South part of Laos to the Northern communist regions, and they sought to destroy it (Vang). The United States also firmly believed Laos couldn’t defend itself. They thought that Laos lacked the economic development needed to get out of its poverty.