Vietnam War (1964-1973): Policies and Strategies

Table of Contents

Vietnam War (1964-1973): Policies and Strategies3

Introduction3

Discussion4

US involvement in Vietnam5

President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1968)6

The Vietnam conflict7

Political Challenge Of The War7

Air Attacks against North Vietnam12

Approach To The Cold War14

Conclusion15

Bibliography17

Vietnam War (1964-1973): Policies and Strategies

Introduction



The Vietnam War was the legacy of France's inability to curb the nationalist forces in Indochina as it struggled to restore its colonial rule after World War II. Vietnam gained independence from France in 1954. (Sorley 1999) South anti-communist government led by Ngo Dinh Diem. Although the Cold War was the dominant post-1945 world, another important change in the international system took place at the same time: after five centuries of European domination of non-European world. Several hundred new sovereign states emerged from the wreckage of European colonialism, as well as Cold War competition was promptly extended to many of these new states.

The victory of Communists in the Chinese civil war in 1949 and the Chinese intervention against the United Nations in Korea and China have made the U.S. policy in the Cold War prisoner of war policy. These events also helped transform the American anti-colonialism on the support of a French protectorate in Indochina, and later for their non-Communist successors. (Hunt 1995) American political and military leaders viewed the Vietnam War as the Chinese doctrine of revolutionary warfare in action.

The main purpose of geopolitics behind the United States in Vietnam was to contain the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. To achieve this goal, the United States supported the anti-communist regime known as the Republic of Vietnam (Sinhanouk 1958) (South Vietnam) in its struggle against the communist seizure. South Vietnam faced serious, Dual-tracked threat: communists led revolutionary insurgents within its own borders, in addition to military force of its Communist neighbor and rival, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). Prevention of South Vietnam from falling to the Communists eventually led the U.S. to fight a major regional war in South-East Asia. Does the United States should have largely pledged to provide military communism South Vietnam remains a hotly debated topic. The debate is closely related to the controversy over whether the problems in Southeast Asia were primarily political as well as economic rather than military. (Schlesinger 1978)

Discussion

The U.S. strategy in general, proceeded from the assumption that the essence of the problem in Vietnam was a war, trying to "win the hearts and minds of South Vietnamese population has the second highest. (Public Papers of the Presidents 1966)

To frustrate North Vietnamese and Viet Cong efforts, and in part to "contain" China, the United States eventually fielded an army of over 500,000 men in addition to engaged in extensive air and naval warfare against North Vietnam. The American military effort provoked stiff domestic and international opposition, (Hunt 1995) led to strained civil-military relations at home, and called into question many of the assumptions that had dominated US foreign and military policy since 1945, but failed to compel the enemy to do its will. In short, America's strategic culture was fundamentally altered ...