Domino Theory Vietnam War

Therefore, even more nations will fall into Communism, and not be in democracy. Also, in L.B.J.’s speech “Speech on Vietnam” he says that by tackling this problem now there will be way less of a chance of a nuclear war (Johnson,3). It is better to fight this problem now because in the future it can be more violent. L.B.J stresses in his speech that by going into war there will be less nuclear weapons and less

Before his time in office, the tension was escalating between the North and the South of Vietnam. The North supported Communism and wanted to spread it out to the South and all of Southeast Asia. A war started from this tension but America's involvement came later. Once America had realized the North’s intentions, they feared that Communism would spread over to America and the idea of their Democratic society being taken over by Communism scared them the most. America had to intervene so they decided to support the South.

To the Americans, this was not a trivial border dispute between two parties somewhere on the map. Instead, they feared that it was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world - they believed that should one country fell to communism, then others would follow, much like a domino effect. Hence, it is in US’s stance to intervene in this conflict, as per their containment policy. (In fact, in April 1950, the NSC-68, a National Security Council report, had recommended that the US use military force to “contain” communist expansionism “regardless of the intrinsic strategic or economic value of the lands in

The Vietnam War gives valuable lessons that can be used in the present-day war campaigns. For one, the Vietnam War was based on deception that is the trend today as with the insurgents and terrorist groups. Though U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the Communist attacks, the offensive shocked and demoralized not only their forces but as well as the American public and further eroded support for the war effort. The victory gained by the ‘Tet offensive’ (CNN, 1988) that triggered the deliberate and shameful withdrawal of US forces from the region.

“The Middle East, which has been converted by Russia ,Would today be prized more than ever by international communism.” Thesis: While all Cold War presidents wanted to stop communism,they all had different ideas on how to accomplish that issue. President truman used economic aid. President Eisenhower focused on military aid. President Kennedy used military use.

The United States got wrapped up in this war because they wanted to prevent communism spreading to different areas in the world. As stated above, one of the sources of media used was the

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.

In the aftermath of World War II, growing tensions and rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union resulted in the Cold War. Having lasted for much of the second half of the 20th century, this state of economical, political and propaganda-based confront, with a lack of military conflict and open hostility, is considered a turning point in modern history. The root cause of the conflict was fundamentally the belief in completely opposing ideologies. The confrontation between capitalism and communism led to an international power struggle that left the world on the brink of disaster.

Many Americans post-world war II were afraid of the spread of communism because of their belief in the domino theory, if one country falls then the rest will too. Under external and internal pressures such as the failure of the Potsdam conference Harry Truman adopted a foreign policy during the early years of the cold war ( the late 40’s) called containment. The objective was to stop the spread of communism around the world by creating military alliances such as NATO ,and providing aid to unstable/weak countries through the Marshall Plan. Unfortunately, like many other U.S foreign policies it was effective at times, but also dreadfully ineffective. In order to combat the continuous spread of communism, Truman passed the Truman doctrine, which allowed for foreign intervention in countries affected by Communism.

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

Truman was in favor of containment, simply keeping North Korea north of the 38th parallel. Seeing this, MacArthur overstepped his bounds and openly criticized the President. Truman promptly had him removed. During this time there were other alternatives preferred by different politicians in Washington. Isolationism, detente(a form of friendliness that just ignores the problem), and rollback, which was what MacArthur favored.

However, Schelling strongly argued that the limited war theory had numerous flaws, primarily that the strategy was an academic rather than a military concept. This consequently resulted with the misconception of the dynamics of war (Herring #2, 4). Hence, the North Vietnamese did not respond as limited war theory suggested that they would, refusing to bend to American pressure and instead tried to match the US escalation by escalating themselves(Herring #2, 23). As a limited war grew into a full-scale war, the military

American being a capitalist national and Russia being a communist nation, these two highly contrasting ideologies resulted in major aggression between the two countries resulting in a series of proxy wars across the world including Korea and Vietnam in a attempt to eradicate each other. Communism ideas began to become more prevalent in China during the 1950’s. China then began to support smaller countries in Indochina to become communist nations such as Korea and Vietnam; this was an early example of Australia using military action in order to defeat communism in the Asia pacific. The domino theory was a thesis put forward by America stating that if South Vietnam were to fall to communism, because of its geographical position the entire region would eventually convert to communism therefore communism had to be eliminated in South Vietnam to prevent the spread of communism in the Asia Pacific. Australia due to its allegiance with Europe became weaker overall after the war as Europe would be unable to support Australia in case of a mainland invasion as they needed to rebuild from the effects of war, this left Australia in search for a new powerful ally.

This speech was eventually interpreted as a doctrine against all people, nations, and items affiliated with the Communist ideology. The Truman Doctrine was a specific request by the leader of the US to prevent the encounter and exchange of Communism in Greece and the rest of the world. Furthermore, the US initiated a containment policy, which sought to prevent the expansion of Communist ideology and Soviet repression, which included direct military engagements. For example, President John F Kennedy entered the Vietnam War with intention defeat the Communist North

As a former Vice President, Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of Commerce, Henry A. Wallace, a strong proponent of the New Deal and advocate of a more lenient Soviet Union policy which ultimately became controversial within the Democratic Party. Although Wallace’s criticism of President Harry S. Truman’s resulted in his dismissal, he nevertheless, actively voiced his criticisms during the Cold War. In “The Path to Peace with Russia,” Wallace criticized America’s foreign policy, while asking to judge the Soviet Union interests against those of the United States. Henry believed the United States involvement in the reconstruction of the Soviet Union could have helped the economies of both countries only if the mentality of international affairs could have been shifted. Wallace’s private letter, primarily to influence President Trumans’ thinking was achieved by creating a world where the United States was without their air bases, weapons and the atomic bomb and a Soviet Union who had “[created] a level of armed strength far exceeding anything in their previous history.”