Vietnam Essay, Research Paper
Since during the Vietnam War there has been argument on whether the United States was right to go involved in the struggle. Some say that we were incorrect to go involved in what was an internal struggle among the people of Vietnam. Others feel that we followed the natural class and that engagement was non merely incorrect, but besides justified. Which position is right? Should we have been in Vietnam or non?
World War II was the defining event for the United States planetary function. After the war we took a really intense in the rebuilding of Europe and Japan. Even though we worked with the Soviet Union to win the war, we were now more than of all time wary of communism. Those two factors together formed the footing for the policies and thoughts that would take to our engagement in Southeastern Asia.
China had fallen to communism right after the war. Obviously this was immense as they were the largest and most powerful state in eastern Asia after the war. What was even more dismaying to US foreign policymakers was the menace of the Domino consequence. China, if it wanted to, was really capable of exercising a batch of force per unit area on the smaller states around them. Once the spread of communism started, the fright was that it would distribute so far and so much that shortly all of Asia would be under communist regulation and that it would go on to distribute around the universe. Vietnam was seen as one of the basiss in this procedure. If they could maintain Vietnam from falling to communist regulation, so that would assist the part as a whole.
The United States took the enterprise to reconstruct Japan for a few grounds. Part of the US s new committedness to a planetary, unfastened economic system included Japan as a key to Asia. If the US did non step in, so political convulsion would happen. Second, US functionaries feared that communism grew in countries where there is political convulsion. If the US did non reconstruct order to Japan, they feared non merely that communism would organize, but besides that China would be the one to establish it.
I don t think the US had a ground for taking specifically Vietnam. Most of it had to make with the timing of it. The US needed to turn out that democracies would predominate over communism. Furthermore, they needed to turn out that the US could suppress communism. Vietnam merely happened to come along at the right clip. The US did non hold any ground for taking Vietnam. They were non a universe or even a regional power. They had no influence over any other state, but they did supply for the perfect illustration.
Our desire, nevertheless, was non so much to destruct communism but to incorporate it. US policymakers formulated a program that would be known as the Containment Theory. Our end was to incorporate communism from distributing, non set it out wholly. In many respects, our war in Vietnam followed a class, as stated by Stephen Ambrose, America fought in Vietnam as a direct consequence of a universe position from which no 1 in power dissented and as a logical apogee of the policy of containment.
Containment was the chief ground we put so much attempt into Southeast Asia. Once we started on that way, it was difficult to halt. We needed to incorporate communism. At the clip, communism was our greatest foreign policy concern, so of class we would set as much attempt into it as possible. In the early 1960 s Kennedy made some committednesss that more or less certain our destiny in Vietnam. He committed a figure of military personnels and the US participated in the remotion of Diem, the president of South Vietnam. Once Diem was no longer in power, the US had to take an even greater function in order to forestall complete political convulsion, which may take to communism. Second, onc
vitamin E he committed those first military personnels, it became progressively difficult to try to go forth.
We could non go forth for a few grounds. First, we had non contained communism. The US can non neglect in this regard, as it is one of if non the greatest foreign policy concern. Second, we can non abandon an ally. How would it look to the universe to set some attempt into assisting South Vietnam, so draw out and abandon them and go forth them to be taken over by Communists.
So committednesss were made and the US was in Vietnam, for better or for worse. We were in Vietnam. Vietnam and the war was in fact a apogee of containment, as Ambrose said.
However, there are others who feel that we should non hold been in Vietnam. We had no concern in that portion of the universe. Were we wrong to be in Vietnam? Well, after some old ages, many would state yes.
After WWII, we felt about unbeatable. We had helped salvage the universe, so a small struggle in Vietnam should hold been no job. After all, the Vietnamese do non hold the military expertness and preparation and supplies that the enemy in WWII did. A small flicker in Southeast Asia should be no job to snuff out. It was this sort of outlook that was portion of the ruin of the US.
Besides, the fact that the South Vietnamese authorities could non stand on its ain became progressively obvious as the war drew on. The US could non remain in South Vietnam everlastingly, and at some point Saigon would hold to fend for itself. As it became progressively evident that this would non go on, the tide turned at place.
However, even though the obvious deficiency of accomplishment and endowment of the South Vietnamese was evident, the US still could non draw out for fright of what our other Alliess would believe.
The US made some policy determinations that had drastic effects on our attempts in Vietnam. Part of our ground for being there was the Truman Doctrine. While this was directed chiefly towards states in Europe, it was applied to the universe. Truman made an unfastened ended promise to the universe that the US would be at that place if needed for military grounds.
A 2nd and unwise policy determination was that of abrasion. The US brass evidently did non make their research on this 1. They did non cognize how deep the human resources the North Vietnamese went. US soldiers were killing many Vietcong each twenty-four hours, but their resources ne’er seemed to be diminished. On top of that, the small towns and countryside was non taken into consideration. They would warn the Vietcong when Americans were coming, therefore leting them to hold the lowest possible figure of casualties as possible.
Some feel that our engagement in Vietnam was incorrect while others feel otherwise. Can both sides be right? The reply to that is yes. Upon looking back, and even to some at the clip of the war, we were incorrect to be at that place and to go every bit involved as we did. However, it was a natural patterned advance. We were so afraid of communism and it distributing that we made important stairss to halt it. Over the old ages, our engagement progresses because of our committedness to containment. In add-on, we were seeking to direct a message to the universe, and in peculiar the Soviet Union and China, in doing an illustration of Vietnam. We were seeking to turn out that we could halt Communism.
However, because of some policy errors, including undervaluing the Vietcong and overrating the forces of Saigon, we failed. In the terminal we did non incorporate communism, as Saigon fell after we left. We tried to command another portion of the universe that we knew small to nil approximately. We were so confident that we ne’er truly stopped to thing about if we should.
