Political Climate of 1970's

Each day that goes by holds something different than what yesterday or tomorrow olds. Therefore each year always contains something different than what last year or next year contains. Some things are repeated but not all. That is why this paper will be different than if I was writing about the 1960’s or the 1980’s. The political climate of the 1970’s actually turns out to be quiet interesting. It is interesting to hear about the Vietnam War and about the Watergate scandal that went on. It is also interesting to see just how the public was changing at this time. These are the things that make studying the 1970’s so fascinating.
There were many different political and social outcomes that came from the war in Vietnam. Some of them hit home pretty hard. Examples of some of the social outcomes are listed here. The number of troops that were going to Vietnam kept increasing. There were close to three million Americans that served in Vietnam before the war ended. This was not good. As the number of troops that were serving in Vietnam kept rose, the United States kept getting farther and farther into debt. Because there was such a big financial burden on the United States, President Lyndon Johnson had to raise taxes. From 1965 all the way to 1973 the United States had spent close to, if not over one hundred and twenty billion dollars, just on the Vietnam War alone. Davidson, (2002) stated that “after 1973 the economy went into a big recession that made Americans recognize that they had entered an era of limits both at home and abroad.” Some of the political outcomes that came from the Vietnam War are listed too. “The decision to escalate the United States involvement with Vietnam eventually destroyed the political consensus that had unified Americans since the late 1940s.” (Davidson, 2002). When Vietnam died liberal dreams died too. These are just a few of the examples that show what the political and social outcomes were like after the war in Vietnam ended. The war resulted in a large federal budget deficit. Vietnam demonstrated that no power, not even a superpower, like the United States of America has unlimited strength and resources. However, we must recognize that the Vietnam War illustrated that political will just as much as material might, is a decisive factor when it comes to the outcome of conflicts.
President Nixon’s policies of engagement and the strategies that were used during the cold war are similar and different in many ways. First of all Nixon’s strategy of engagement was peace with honor. They also used the French word détente. This strategy was one where negotiations were used as the tool instead of weapons to ease tension. During the time of the Cold War, countries such as the United States and the Soviet Union used the threat of using massive weapons of destruction against one another. “The Cold War strategy was using force and threats while under an undeclared War.” (Davidson, 2002). Nixon’s priority during his term in office was to settle the Vietnam War while using the peace with honor method. One strategy that President Nixon used was called Vietnamization. Vietnamization is a method used that is called a carrot on a stick method. “This method was used to gradually move the troops away and force the South Vietnamese to fight for themselves in order to advance peace talks in Paris.” (Davidson, 2002). This method was used to reduce the anti-war protest in the United States.

References
Davidson, J. (Ed.). (2002). Nation of nations: A concise narrative of the American republic (3rd ed., Vol. 2). New York: McGraw-Hill.

References: Davidson, J. (Ed.). (2002). Nation of nations: A concise narrative of the American republic (3rd ed., Vol. 2). New York: McGraw-Hill.