Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The U.S. involvement in the Cold War and the worldwide spread of Communism sparked an interest in Vietnam in the early fifties. When the Vietnamese fought the French empire of Indochina for complete control in 1946, the U.S. provided military equipment to France because Communist Russia backed the Vietnamese rebellion. The fighting ended in 1954 with the split of Vietnam into a Communist controlled north and a non-Communist controlled south. The Korean War of 1950-53 had already proven to Americans that Russia and China were successfully spreading the Communist view throughout Southeast Asia. The fighting in Vietnam would continue into the seventies and the U.S. would lose countless lives, eventually withdraw, and not return to fight the unavoidable Communist take-over.

In 1954 the Geneva Peace Accord temporarily split Vietnam but civil war soon broke out. The war between the north and south governments was an attempt to unify the country but the fear of the much stronger Communist party winning, encouraged U.S. support of the south. Of course, Russia and China supported the north. The domino affect was being felt across Southeast Asia with Cambodia and Laos also turning to Communist views. These states viewed the U.S., France, and their allies as imperialistic foreign aggressors. During the FDR era, Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh had expected support from the U.S. to end European imperialism in Vietnam after WWII but the onset of the Cold War and Ho's Communist sympathies led the U.S. to side with France.

The U.S. kept an eye on the fighting in Vietnam from a distance for as long as possible. Entering the war would certainly create more tension with China and Russia, possibly resulting in WWIII. Cultural differences and standards in South Vietnam were also of concern. The U.S often viewed the normal standards in the region to be corrupt compared U.S. standards. This weakened the U.S. position to back the non-Communist state but the alternative was to allow South Vietnam to fall to Communism. Concerns of low morale among the leadership for the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) brought the first U.S. troops into Vietnam to play the role of advisor, which ultimately marked the beginning of a U.S. commitment.

America had different strategies for involvement in Vietnam. War was never actually declared; therefore, the state of escalation allowed government to provide