Why Did America Fight the Vietnam War?|5 Minute Video
Why did America fight the Vietnam War? The military suffered over 58,000 casualties, and America withdrew in defeat. What for? Historian Victor Davis Hanson describes.
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Script:
The Vietnam War lasted ten years, expense America 58,000 lives and over a trillion dollars, adjusted for inflation. It lowered a president, stirred social unrest, and ended in defeat.
Nobody in hindsight thinks battling a losing war is ever worth the cost. Consequently, the Vietnam War is normally crossed out as a gigantic tactical mistake and a humanitarian disaster.
Historical appraisals may have been much different had the Vietnam War followed the pattern of the Korean War, which the United States battled for nearly identical reasons: the defense of flexibility in Asia.
The U.S. had military consultants in Vietnam during the 1950s, however didn’t become associated with a major way up until 1963. President John F. Kennedy securely believed in the “domino effect,” the diplomacy theory that susceptible nations without help would fall, one after another, like dominos, to external communist aggression.
Kennedy thus wanted to stop Soviet- and Chinese-backed communist intrusions in the manner President Harry Truman had in Korea by deciding in Vietnam.
Just like Korea, it was a war the United States did not look for. As with Korea, Vietnam presented no “royal” benefits: no natural deposits, or resources of any kind, that the United States needed to secure or wanted to acquire. As with Korea, the aggressor was a communist federal government in the North intent on taking control of the South, and its military crossed a worldwide recognized border to do so.
Following Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963, President Lyndon Johnson greatly intensified America’s function in 1964. Even as he did so, Johnson prosecuted the war with deep uncertainty, licensing considerably more soldiers and money for the war, but never ever pushing for overall victory.
By 1971, the war was at a stalemate, neither side able to develop a clear advantage. The president, Richard Nixon, pursued a two-prong technique– to turn over fight operations to the South Vietnamese, and to bomb North Vietnam.
The Watergate scandal, the subsequent resignation of President Nixon, and the Democrats’ sweeping congressional success in the 1974 mid-term election all assisted to persuade the North Vietnamese that America would not enforce the peace arrangement.
They were right.
Without U.S. air support and material aid, the South Vietnamese had no chance against the North. Well supplied by the Soviet Union and the Chinese, the communists gained complete control over the country in April 1975.
The war proved far more costly than Korea since the location and landscapes of Vietnam were even more favorable to revolt operations. There were likewise much more constraints placed on American leaders than throughout the Korean War. And the United States in the 1960s was a far less cohesive and conservative nation than America of the 1950s.
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source
Why Did America Fight the Vietnam War? Why did America battle the Vietnam War? As with Korea, it was a war the United States did not look for. Even as he did so, Johnson prosecuted the war with deep ambivalence, authorizing substantially more troops and money for the war, but never pushing for overall triumph. The war proved far more pricey than Korea since the geography and landscapes of Vietnam were far more favorable to insurgency operations.
