The Significance Of The Vietnam War To New Zealanders
The significance of the Vietnam War to New Zealanders
The Vietnam War was a highly controversial war that attracted severe international criticism towards the US and its allies. New Zealand’s direct involvement started due to the international pressure exerted on us by Australia and the USA, and the increasing threat of the spread of communism this created huge divisions throughout New Zealand and questioned our reasoning to commit military forces there in the first place. The Vietnam War was significant to New Zealand in a number of long term and short term ways. The Vietnam War was the first losing war New Zealand had ever fought in. It was the first war that had the public and political parties divided in opinion. It was the first war that was so uncensored, and widely televised. The significance to New Zealand can be classified into three main areas: political, social, and militarily strategic.
Firstly Vietnam was significant to New Zealand as it had many political long term and short term consequences. Throughout the war the National Government, and more directly Prime Minister Holyoake, took huge criticism for our participation in the war. This was mainly due to a bipartisan split between the two main political parties, National and Labour. As the majority of New Zealanders disagreed with our participation in the war, it meant that labour became more popular as it did not support the war and wanted to remove our troops from Vietnam. This had a severe impact on Holyoake’s reputation as he was seen to be in the wrong for supporting the war. Although he was seen to be pragmatic, and thought that the allies were in Vietnam for the wrong reasons, he was also seen to be principled in the fact that he valued our ANZUS treaty with USA and Australia. However this mentality would eventually lead to his demise in February 1972 when he resigned from being Prime Minister. This lead to National losing the election later in the year with Norman Kirk coming into
The Vietnam War was a highly controversial war that attracted severe international criticism towards the US and its allies. New Zealand’s direct involvement started due to the international pressure exerted on us by Australia and the USA, and the increasing threat of the spread of communism this created huge divisions throughout New Zealand and questioned our reasoning to commit military forces there in the first place. The Vietnam War was significant to New Zealand in a number of long term and short term ways. The Vietnam War was the first losing war New Zealand had ever fought in. It was the first war that had the public and political parties divided in opinion. It was the first war that was so uncensored, and widely televised. The significance to New Zealand can be classified into three main areas: political, social, and militarily strategic.
Firstly Vietnam was significant to New Zealand as it had many political long term and short term consequences. Throughout the war the National Government, and more directly Prime Minister Holyoake, took huge criticism for our participation in the war. This was mainly due to a bipartisan split between the two main political parties, National and Labour. As the majority of New Zealanders disagreed with our participation in the war, it meant that labour became more popular as it did not support the war and wanted to remove our troops from Vietnam. This had a severe impact on Holyoake’s reputation as he was seen to be in the wrong for supporting the war. Although he was seen to be pragmatic, and thought that the allies were in Vietnam for the wrong reasons, he was also seen to be principled in the fact that he valued our ANZUS treaty with USA and Australia. However this mentality would eventually lead to his demise in February 1972 when he resigned from being Prime Minister. This lead to National losing the election later in the year with Norman Kirk coming into