The Vietnam War (1955-1975) was fought between communist
In political and social sciences, communism is the philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state.
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The Vietnam War started in the 1950s, according to most historians, though the conflict in Southeast Asia had its roots in the French colonial period of the
Similar questions: what caused the Vietnam war? what started the Vietnam war? causes of the Vietnam war why was the Vietnam war fought? In short, the Vietnam War started as a result of the U.S.’s strategy of containment during the Cold War, which aimed to prevent the spread of communism throughout the world. After the … Continue reading Why did the Vietnam War start? →
The conflict in Vietnam took root during an independence movement against French colonial rule and evolved into a Cold War confrontation. The Vietnam War (1955-1975) was fought between communist North Vietnam, backed by the Soviet Union and China, and South Vietnam, supported by the United States. The bloody conflict had its roots in French ...
Did you know? Ho Chi Minh used the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a model for his Proclamation of the Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, writing: “All men are born equal: the Creator has given us inviolable rights, life, liberty, and happiness!”. 2.
Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam’s independence from France on September 2, 1945, just hours after Japan’s surrender in World War II. When the French rejected his plan, the Viet Minh resorted to guerilla warfare to fight for an independent Vietnam.
Vietnam was a battleground in the Cold War, when the United States and Soviet Union grappled for world domination. By war’s end, North and South Vietnam would be reunited, but at great cost. Here are six events that led to the Vietnam War. 1.
During the Cold War, the U.S. practiced a policy of containment . President Harry S. Truman ’s Truman Doctrine pledged political, military, and economic assistance to democratic nations facing threats from communist forces.
Apic/Getty Images. Vietnam became a French colony in 1877 with the founding of French Indochina, which included Tonkin, Annam, Cochin China and Cambodia. ( Laos was added in 1893.) The French lost control of their colony briefly during World War II, when Japanese troops occupied Vietnam.
North Vietnam would be ruled by Ho Chi Minh’s communist government and South Vietnam would be led by emperor Bao Dai. An election was scheduled in two years’ time to unify Vietnam, but the U.S., fearful that a national election would lead to communist rule, ensured it never took place.
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people (including ...
During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh —inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism —formed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam.
By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. As the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s repeated claims that the war was being won.
After Ho’s communist forces took power in the north, armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh’s decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. The French loss at the battle ended almost a century of French colonial rule in Indochina.
Nixon sought to deflate the anti-war movement by appealing to a “silent majority” of Americans who he believed supported the war effort. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization: withdrawing U.S. troops, increasing aerial and artillery bombardment and giving the South Vietnamese the training and weapons needed to effectively control the ground war.
Despite the concerns of some of his advisers about this escalation, and about the entire war effort amid a growing anti-war movement, Johnson authorized the immediate dispatch of 100,000 troops at the end of July 1965 and another 100,000 in 1966.
In 1955, however, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN), often referred to during that era as South Vietnam.
The causes of the Vietnam War trace their roots back to the end of World War II. A French colony, Indochina (made up of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) had been occupied by the Japanese during the war. In 1941, a Vietnamese nationalist movement , the Viet Minh, was formed by their leader Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) to resist the occupiers.
Under pressure from the Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh sought to negotiate with the French, who desired to retake possession of their colony. Their entrance into Vietnam was only permitted by the Viet Minh after assurances had been given that the country would gain independence as part of the French Union.
A communist, Ho Chi Minh waged a guerrilla war against the Japanese with the support of the United States. Near the end of the war, the Japanese began to promote Vietnamese nationalism and ultimately granted the country nominal independence. On August 14, 1945, Ho Chi Minh launched the August Revolution, which effectively saw ...
These actions began a conflict between the French and the Viet Minh, known as the First Indochina War. Fought mainly in North Vietnam, this conflict began as a low level, rural guerrilla war, as Viet Minh forces conducted hit and run attacks on the French.
Increasingly well-equipped, the Viet Minh began more direct engagement against the enemy and the conflict ended when the French were decisively defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
To help deal with the post-coup chaos, Kennedy increased the number of US advisers in South Vietnam to 16,000. With Kennedy's death later that same month, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson ascended to the presidency and reiterated the U.S. commitment to fighting communism in the region.
South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem (1901 - 1963) watching an agricultural show just minutes after an assassination attempt had been made on his life. Keystone/Stringer/Getty Images. A year after the Geneva Accords, Prime Minister Diem commenced a “Denounce the Communists” campaign in the south.
One cause had to do mainly with the Vietnamese and one cause had mainly to do with the Americans. On the Vietnamese side, the main cause of the war was the desire to have a national government that was truly independent.
Basically, the Vietnam War represented a power struggle between Russia and the United States for global dominion. While the United States favored capitalist open market economies, Russia's Communist government supported closed-state economies. China, which had just fallen to Communist control on October 1, 1949, became Russia's natural ally.
So, various American presidents took steps to stop what they viewed as Russian aggression in the region. President Eisenhower sent military advisers to train the South Vietnamese army; he also directed the CIA to conduct psychological warfare on the North Vietnamese.
After WWII, the USA and the USSR emerged as the most powerful nations on the world stage, and both nations became engaged in a Cold War between 1945-1991. The USSR had no intentions of openly revealing its support for Communist China or its plans for global dominance.
With this history, Vietnam was eager to have true independence. The group that had the most credibility as a nationalist force was the Vietminh, led by Ho Chi Minh.
Before his death, President Kennedy sent 400 Special Operations Green Berets to train the South Vietnamese in counter-insurgency warfare. Kennedy 's successor, Lyndon Johnson, formally authorized American entry into the war. So, the war was essentially fought over two differing ideologies: communism and capitalism.
Ho Chi Minh was a communist and American leaders believed that he would be controlled by the Soviet Union. They believed that a communist Vietnam would lead to a “domino effect” in which more and more countries in East Asia would become communist, leaving the communists to dominate that area of the world.
The discrediting of the U.S. theory that the emergence of a unified, communist Vietnam would produce a " domino effect " involving the spread of communism throughout the rest of Southeast Asia.
Chaos in neighboring Cambodia, where the radical communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge seized power and caused the deaths of at least 1,500,000 Cambodians before being overthrown by Vietnamese troops in 1979. The emigration of some 2,000,000 refugees from Vietnam from the late 1970s to the early ’90s.
The defeat of France in the French Indochina War in 1954, after which Vietnam was divided into the communist-dominated North and the democratic South. An insurgency of communist Vietnamese (known as the Viet Cong) against the South Vietnam army beginning in the late 1950s that grew into an ongoing guerrilla campaign.
In 1941, a Comintern agent named Ho Chi Mihn formed the League for the Independence of Vietnam, better known as the Viet Mihn. This communist affiliated force fought against the Japanese, who were actually in control of French Indochina during WWII. While ostensibly administered by Vichy France, Imperial Japan was actually in charge on the ground with French bureaucrats doing their bidding. The OSS (US Office of Strategic Services) aided the Viet Mihn against the Japanese, but the Pentagon correctly saw this theatre as a sideshow, and refused to commit significant assets.
In January of 1968 the NLF attacked Khe Sanh in the Demilitarised Zone in what proved to be the biggest battle of the whole war. Some 10,000 North Vietnamese were killed as well as around 500 US soldiers. It proved to be a diversionary tactic from what was to take place a week later, the Tet Offensive.
The conflict in Vietnam took root during an independence movement against French colonial rule and evolved into a Cold War confrontation. The Vietnam War (1955-1975) was fought between communist North Vietnam, backed by the Soviet Union and China, and South Vietnam, supported by the United States. The bloody conflict had its roots in French ...
Did you know? Ho Chi Minh used the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a model for his Proclamation of the Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, writing: “All men are born equal: the Creator has given us inviolable rights, life, liberty, and happiness!”. 2.
Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam’s independence from France on September 2, 1945, just hours after Japan’s surrender in World War II. When the French rejected his plan, the Viet Minh resorted to guerilla warfare to fight for an independent Vietnam.
Vietnam was a battleground in the Cold War, when the United States and Soviet Union grappled for world domination. By war’s end, North and South Vietnam would be reunited, but at great cost. Here are six events that led to the Vietnam War. 1.
During the Cold War, the U.S. practiced a policy of containment . President Harry S. Truman ’s Truman Doctrine pledged political, military, and economic assistance to democratic nations facing threats from communist forces.
Apic/Getty Images. Vietnam became a French colony in 1877 with the founding of French Indochina, which included Tonkin, Annam, Cochin China and Cambodia. ( Laos was added in 1893.) The French lost control of their colony briefly during World War II, when Japanese troops occupied Vietnam.
North Vietnam would be ruled by Ho Chi Minh’s communist government and South Vietnam would be led by emperor Bao Dai. An election was scheduled in two years’ time to unify Vietnam, but the U.S., fearful that a national election would lead to communist rule, ensured it never took place.