Domino Effects Of The Vietnam War

At the peak of the Cold War, the US faced many social and international issues. Some of the decision that were made in the 1960s, still affect Americans today. People were mostly concerned with the idea of the draft and being sent to fight in a war that has lost its purpose. The main reason that America was still fighting in vietnam was the idea of the domino effect where if Vietnam were to fall to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would follow. While president, Nixon took an immoral stance where facing many of these challenges in leaving vietnam, ending the cold war, and dealing with the watergate scandal. Many of these problems arises from the America’s involvement on the war. During World War II, the United States helped the people
of Indochina fight the Japanese, who had invaded the region. After World War II, France refuses to give independence to the people of indochina and sends troops to reestablish control. Led by Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Minh to fight the French. Ho Chi Minh wants Vietnam to be independent but also wants to build a Communist society in Vietnam. Concerned about the spread of communism, President Eisenhower sends aid to help the French retain control in Vietnam.They wanted to capture the mountain of Dien Bien Phu to cut off supplies, but they were bombarded by Viet Minh forces. After losing the battle of Dien Bien Phu, France pulls out of Vietnam. The Geneva Accords created North and South Vietnam along the 17th parallel. Ho Chi Minh becomes the leader of North Vietnam and makes it a Communist nation allied with the USSR and China. The South was ruled by Ngo Dinh Diem who was educated abroad but was pro-Western and fiercely anti-Communist. North Vietnam begins arming guerrillas to blend into the South Vietnamese population and fight the South Vietnamese government. They used the Ho Chi Minh trail to send and receive supplies and arms through the jungle. They were part of a South Vietnamese Communists organization called the Vietcong.
American leaders become worried that a “domino effect” might cause all Southeast Asia to fall to communism if South Vietnam falls.
To stop this, American troops went on “search and destroy” missions. To get them out in the open for combat, the U.S. uses napalm and Agent Orange. President Kennedy sharply increases military aid to South Vietnam. President Johnson escalates U.S. involvement and gains war power after the news of North Vietnamese torpedoed two American destroyers. By having the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the president is able to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the U.S. Americans applauded President Johnson’s response to a Vietnam attack with aggressive air strikes. As the war continued, General William Westmoreland of the south reported that the North was on the brink of losing. The United States commits over 380,000 ground troop to fighting in Vietnam by the end of 1966. American people question the government's honesty about the war, creating the so-called “credibility gap.” The war casualties and the unfair draft system cause civil unrest. In 1965 for example, the faculty members and student skipped class to talk about the issues surrounding the war in a teach-in. The wartime economy hurts domestic spending for programs such as the Great
Society.
President Nixon is elected largely on promises on ending the war and unite a divided country. On one side the people who wanted to withdraw from the war were the doves, but on the other side people who insisted it were called hawks. As the two groups debated, the war took the turn for the worst. On the Vietnamese New Year, the North and Vietcong, launch a massive Tet Offensive on airbases, cities, and the American Embassy.
After becoming president, Nixon appointed Henry Kissinger as a special assistant to security affairs and giving him a wide range of authority to end the war.
Kissinger issued a policy called linkage to improve relations with the Soviet Union and China. Meanwhile, Nixon began reducing the number of troops through Vietnamization to gradually withdraw from the war. This became more and more important as Nixon began to lose support for the war. The Pentagon Papers had shown that the members of the Johnson administration questioned the war while publicly supporting it worrying Americans. Americans also lost support when the people of My Lai were wrongfully killed by an American Platoon under Lieutenant Calley. Americans also lost interest in the war when Nixon ordered American troops to invade Cambodia. The students at Kent State protested against this as they saw it as the widening of the
war.
After a series of bombings and negotiations, the U.S. withdraw from the longest war in history war and agreed to exchange prisoners of war. Congress passes the War Powers Act to limit the power of the president during wartime. They also passed the 26th amendment that the right to vote could not be denied by the government. Afterward the war between the North and South continued without help from the U.S., resulting with the North winning the war.