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The long term and short term causes of the Vietnam War that lasted from 1955 to 1975.
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive war which was fought between the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese throughout 1955 until 1975 but it didn't escalate until the 1960s. The north had the support of communist allies including the Soviet Union and China, while the south had the support of the west with the United States. The conflict was worsened by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. This essay will discuss how the causes of the Vietnam War revolve around the simple belief held by America that communism was threatening to expand all over south-east Asia. Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States wanted to risk an all-out war against each other which led to a civil war situation in Vietnam and further impacting other countries as well.
There are several reasons why different parties were involved in the Vietnam War. For the United States the main reason would be that it had a containment policy where Communism was a highly concerned factor. Containment policy was the foreign policy strategy that was followed by the United States during the times of the Cold War. First laid out in 1947 by George F. Kennan, Containment stated that communism needed to be contained and then isolated, or it would easily spread to the neighboring countries. This spread would then give allowance to the Domino Theory to take control, meaning that if any one of the countries fell to communism, then each of the surrounding countries would also fall as well, like a row of dominoes. Adherence to the Containment policy and Domino Theory ultimately led to the United States’ intervention in Vietnam. Orthodox historians like George Herring, Neal Sheehan, and Stanley Karnow characterize American involvement in the war as an avoidable tragedy. American policymakers foolishly exaggerated Vietnam's importance to the United States in the Cold War struggle against Communism. If they were more soberly assessed its true value to the economic and security interests of the United States, recognized the popular appeal of revolutionary nationalism within the country, and appreciated the limits of American power, then the ensuing tragedy might well have been averted.
Before World War Two Vietnam had been part of the French Empire. During World War Two it had been invaded by Japan. Chi Minh was the leader of the Vietminh, a resistance army which fought for Vietnamese independence. After World War Two Chi Minh captured Hanoi in 1945 and declared Vietnam independent. The French tried to take control again, but this was unpopular with the people. They were defeated by the Vietminh at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Peace was discussed at Geneva in 1954 and the Treaty of Geneva agreed that the French would leave Vietnam and the country would be split along the 17th Parallel until elections could be held. The elections were never held and the country remained divided where North Vietnam was a communist republic led by Chi Minh and South Vietnam was a capitalist republic led by Ngo Dinh Diem. The Vietminh wanted to unite the country under communist leader Chi Minh. Many of the South Vietnamese people supported Chi Minh as they were unhappy with Ngo Dinh Diem. War broke out between the North and South. From 1958 onwards, the South came under increasing attack from communists in South Vietnam itself. They were called the National Liberation Front (NLF). Conservative revisionist historians believed military and civilian leaders failed to develop realistic plans for achieving American politico-military objectives in Vietnam, failed to assess accurately the capabilities and intentions of their adversaries, and failed to coordinate specific battlefield tactics with an overall strategy for securing victory.
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