US Involvement In The Vietnam War
United States Involvement in the Vietnam War
History 308: The Vietnam War
May 1, 2013 Did the United States blindly plunged into an unnecessary conflict for wider Cold War considerations? Some characterize the conflict as a limited war fought to defend South Vietnam and its neighbors against communist aggression and bring a united peace for a self-governing Vietnam. But was it necessary and justifiable for the U.S. to intervene in Vietnam: to defend freedom and liberty or to protect imperial interests dictated by America 's world position and economic means? Although it had functioned as an independent state for over a thousand years, the French were just the latest to impose colonial dominance over Vietnam in the …show more content…
mid-19th century. Vietnam 's history has totally been influenced and developed if you will, by the impact of numerous other countries around them and their desire to control or govern them. Although this war lasted over a quarter of a century, little did the U.S. know that they would encounter a people with the will and a solidarity that far exceeded their own, with allies ready to take real risks, and with a capacity to absorb the blows of an uneven war undeterred until the enemy – demoralized in the field, divided at home – abandoned Vietnam to its stubborn people, just as the Chinese and the French had done. So, why did the U.S. stay involved for so long and ultimately how did we get out of Vietnam? Via the readings mostly from Herring (2002) and McMahon (2008) along with other sources, I will try and shed light on some of these questions.
Ho Chi Minh, a committed nationalist willing to fight for Vietnamese independence, was born and raised in Vietnam. He inherited from his father, a sturdy patriotism, an adventurous spirit and eventually devoted his life to obtaining liberation for the Vietnamese. He witnessed the division between the Vietnamese elite and the peasants and he felt drawn to communism and became a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920 and organized the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930. After perfecting his craft in numerous other countries as a master organizer for the revolution, Ho returned to Vietnam and founded the Vietminh political organization and conceived the strategy that would eventually drive the French from Vietnam. In his homeland, the hardships imposed by the Japanese and their French puppets, along with a devastating famine, fanned popular discontent. Ho continued to fight and amass troops. After the Japanese removed the French government in March of 1945, the Vietminh (with limited U.S. assistance) began the systemic harassment of the new colonial masters. Then in August of 1945, the Japanese troops were disarmed by the Vietminh. Although Ho Chi Minh declared independence for his country the French were determined to regain control and the fighting ensued. For over a year, attempts were made between France and the Vietminh to reach a settlement but their objectives were irresoluble as the Vietminh’s solemn request was unification of their country. The French, equally determined, had retained control in the southern colony where their economic interests were greatest. Negotiations proved futile and thus began a war that would last over a quarter of a century.
So if the U.S. was not involved already, what drew us into someone else’s affairs? For a time, the U.S. actively opposed the return of Indochina to France. However, Southeast Asia provided about 90 percent of America’s crude rubber and 75 percent of its tin, and U.S. oil companies produced about 27 percent of the sizable output of the East Indies. U.S. officials observed the growth of nationalism in Vietnam and feared that a French attempt to regain control might provoke a long and bloody war, bringing instability to what American strategists viewed as an area of economic and strategic significance.
Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time, profoundly disliked the French leader, Charles de Gaulle, he advocated placing Indochina under international trustee-ship in preparation for independence and shifted toward limited support of France hoping to regain influence and prestige. Throughout this period, the U.S. limitedly supported France, as Ho 's long-standing ties with Moscow reinforced the U.S. 's fears of a communist takeover. Before his death in 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt wavered support between Frances 's colonial exploitation of Vietnam and proposals aimed at liberalizing and preparing a self-governing Vietnam. The French sought to regain sovereignty in Indochina and an outbreak of hostilities between French and Vietminh forces in 1946 pushed then President Harry S. Truman into a position of either maintaining a policy of official neutrality or choosing to support either side in the colonial struggle. By 1950, the United States administration abandoned their neutrality policy and began to supply the French with substantial military and economic assistance. Was the American commitment prompted by a growing appreciation of the economic importance of Southeast Asia to the United States? Or were strategic considerations stemming from America 's perceived national security needs a more significant influence on American policymakers? Although U.S. 's long-term objectives were to eliminate communist influence and to see installed the self-governing nationalist state, they wanted it to be patterned after its conception of a democratic state as opposed to the totalitarian state which would evolve inevitably from communist domination. We wanted to foster the association of the peoples of Indochina with the western powers, raise the standard of living to contribute to a better balanced world economy and we wanted to prevent undue Chinese penetration. However, in light of all this, we were unwilling to take on this monumental endeavor alone. Military and civilian strategists perceived that the war had left the Soviet Union the most powerful nation in Europe and Asia. Consequently, France as an ally, took on renewed significance for the U.S. in their quest to save all of Southeast Asia from the spreading of communism, which they highly believed could lead to the “domino effect” and possibly infiltrate our homeland. Ultimately this resounds as the biggest indicator as to why the U.S. entered into the Vietnam War.
Was this the time to review our options and avert looming disaster by reaching an accommodation with the Vietminh? As history has proven, we didn’t attempt this option. So why did the U.S. stay so long in Vietnam? Although the U.S. entered Vietnam with the desire and a promise to help the Vietnamese people gain independence and a better life, they empowered South Vietnamese leaders who could not relate to the peasants and thus they were not passionate about helping to unify Vietnam and they repressed progress immensely. Furthermore, the military’s strategy, the elusive enemy, the administrations’ arrogance and the exaggerated fear of the threat posed to the U.S. interests by the Soviet Union and communist China over shadowed all the administrations’ decisions. Concurrently, dealing with economic woes and poor public support from back home, it was inevitable that this war would not end quickly. The U.S. also felt the need to validate itself and to advance its credibility as a military power and reliable ally, in the eyes of other European countries. Strongest records suggest that the Vietnam War was a proxy war between the U.S., the Soviet Union-then growing rapidly in military power, confidence and prestige- and communist China. A Cold War culture of near hysterical fear, paranoiac suspiciousness, and stifling conformity took shape, and militant anticommunism came to dominate foreign and domestic policies. Throughout the years and as administrations changed, none of the presidents wanted to be the first to one to lose a war. Additionally, our military strategy was ineffective.
The emphasis on firepower and attrition emanated from an organizational structure strongly predisposed to conventional war-fighting approaches. Yet it proved both ineffectual and counterproductive given the unconventional nature of the Vietnam War. The U.S.’s bombing campaigns to try and gain control seemed to back fire as not only were the bombs inaccurate, the North Vietnamese Army continually rebuilt in the bomb’s wake and were undeterred. Our ground troops, who entered the country in 1965, were in unfamiliar territory. They didn’t understand the culture or the Vietnamese language of those they were trying to help and all too often they didn’t understand the reasons they were there risking their lives for a people who didn’t seem want them there in the first …show more content…
place. The enemy was elusive and sneaky. Not only were our troops untrained for the type of ground fighting they would encounter, they were used to head to head fighting and easily knowing who their enemy was. So was not the case in Vietnam. The guerilla fighting by an enemy they couldn’t distinguish, and the booby traps and invisible snipers were whittling away at not only our troop numbers but also the morale in what was becoming known as an unwinnable war. Simultaneously back on the home front, there were a number of domestic issues shaping up. The Civil Rights movement, women’s liberation and the anti-war movement were all competing for the administration’s attention and the Great Society programs were competing for financial backing. As a result at times, the focus on the Vietnam War took a back seat, additionally adding to our extended time in Vietnam. Withdrawal became more apparent as American support for Vietnam began to wane as the very public, media-covered war was splashed across their televisions nightly. The bloodshed of both the U.S. soldiers and the innocent people of Vietnam, along with the sheer destruction and devastation proved to be a major factor in why the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam. The questionable certainty whether this was an unnecessary war that was costing the U.S. in terms of lives lost and the astronomical financial burden to our economy and our domestic programs, was more than the Americans were willing to bear. The illusion that we could win a war which the South Vietnamese could not win for themselves was becoming all too real. Furthermore, the public felt deceived by their government when in 1968, after continually hearing that the U.S. was winning the war, the North Vietnamese Army attacked numerous cities, including the U.S. Embassy in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. Though the victory belonged to the U.S., it made the American public suspicious about their government and they began to heavily favor a withdrawal from Vietnam as soon as the South Vietnamese troops were trained and equipped enough to take over. This was a significant turning point that contributed to the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Under the Nixon administration, a quest for peace was sought.
“We will not make the same old mistakes,” Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger proclaimed of Vietnam in 1969. Although Kissinger and Nixon wished to withdrawal from Vietnam under honorable conditions and not abandon the South Vietnamese, their policy suffered similar flaws as the administrations’ preceding them. Nixon’s ‘comprehensive peace plan’ was no better than Johnson’s so why would the North Vietnamese Army relent now? This resulted in four more years of bloody warfare in Indochina, a marked increase in domestic strife and a peace settlement that permitted American extrication but was neither honorable nor lasting. The North continued to demand the total and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Vietnam and called for the establishment of a government from which the U.S. backed Thieu, would be
excluded. Initially, Nixon was certain his administration could end the war quickly but he grossly underestimated his adversaries. When they didn’t relent, he ordered secret, intensive bombing attacks to try and force them into surrendering. Nixon’s support from the public had plummeted and he announced phased withdrawal of American combat troops at the beginning of 1970. Nixon and Kissinger later claimed to have courageously persisted and put together a peace agreement that extracted the U.S. from war, secured the return of American prisoners of war, and kept South Vietnam intact. In fact, there was no peace. Nor was there honor. The South Vietnamese government fell to communism more quickly than anticipated and Nixon was forced to resign in 1974 under a veil of shame due to the Watergate scandal. Were the causes for the U.S. involvement in Vietnam valid? Reflecting back to the many reasons for U.S. involvement in Vietnam - our intense fear of communism and its subsequent spread to not only neighboring countries but possibly to our own; our protection of our future, global economic interests on foreign soil and the importance of South Vietnam to America’s position in the world, and our assumed views that we, as a superpower, needed to help the Vietnamese people regain their independence - none of these have proven to be valid reasons for entering or escalating the war. The reality was that Vietnam held no more economic interest for the U.S. than most other surrounding countries and in the end, proved that the impact on world politics due to America’s failure in Vietnam, was considerably less than U.S. policy makers had predicted. Our arrogant assumption that we could assist the backward Vietnamese people who were unwilling to save themselves, was bound for failure because we never trained their army to be independent nor did we supported a regime that would be as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it in his famous Gettysburg Address, “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” And as far as the biggest concern of keeping communism out of American boundaries starting with Vietnam proved false also because the U.S. wrongly attributed the conflict to external sources and misapplied its Cold War containment policy by intervening in what was essentially a local struggle and it placed itself at the mercy of local forces, a weak client, and a determined adversary. Political Scientist, Hans Morgenthau put it honestly when he talked about U.S. not getting involved in Vietnam, “It would have required moral courage, but no more of it than Americans should expect of their leaders.” There were a handful of leaders throughout the Vietnam years and most all of them continued to perpetuate the war ultimately for reasons of avoiding personal and/or career failures. It became clear that the personalities and leadership styles of these powerful but deeply insecure individuals exerted crucial influence on the decisions to go to war, the manner in which the war was fought and ended, and especially the ways in which dissent at home was handled. The war caused deep social divisions within American society, fostered a destructive cynicism about government claims and actions that persists to this day, and exacted staggering short and long term economic costs. War is genetically derived as a human trait. War is never fair. For as many wars and conflicts as the U.S. gets involved with, there will be just as many unpredictable outcomes, because they will always be driven by the human psyche.
Bibliography
Herring, George C. America’s Longest War. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
McMahon, Robert J. Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War 4th edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008
Arauz, Cynthia. “’Viterbo University Week Four Voice Narrated Power Point’: U. S. Military Strategy.” Accessed April 12, 2013. https://moodle.viterbo.edu/course/view.php?id=12741
Basler, Roy P. Abraham Lincoln Online-Speeches and Writings. Accessed April 29, 2013. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
Arauz, Cynthia. “’Viterbo University Week Seven Voice Narrated Power Point’: Nixon’s Vietnaminization Strategy & Lessons of Vietnam.” Accessed April 12, 2013. https://moodle.viterbo.edu/course/view.php?id=12741
History 308: The Vietnam War
May 1, 2013 Did the United States blindly plunged into an unnecessary conflict for wider Cold War considerations? Some characterize the conflict as a limited war fought to defend South Vietnam and its neighbors against communist aggression and bring a united peace for a self-governing Vietnam. But was it necessary and justifiable for the U.S. to intervene in Vietnam: to defend freedom and liberty or to protect imperial interests dictated by America 's world position and economic means? Although it had functioned as an independent state for over a thousand years, the French were just the latest to impose colonial dominance over Vietnam in the …show more content…
mid-19th century. Vietnam 's history has totally been influenced and developed if you will, by the impact of numerous other countries around them and their desire to control or govern them. Although this war lasted over a quarter of a century, little did the U.S. know that they would encounter a people with the will and a solidarity that far exceeded their own, with allies ready to take real risks, and with a capacity to absorb the blows of an uneven war undeterred until the enemy – demoralized in the field, divided at home – abandoned Vietnam to its stubborn people, just as the Chinese and the French had done. So, why did the U.S. stay involved for so long and ultimately how did we get out of Vietnam? Via the readings mostly from Herring (2002) and McMahon (2008) along with other sources, I will try and shed light on some of these questions.
Ho Chi Minh, a committed nationalist willing to fight for Vietnamese independence, was born and raised in Vietnam. He inherited from his father, a sturdy patriotism, an adventurous spirit and eventually devoted his life to obtaining liberation for the Vietnamese. He witnessed the division between the Vietnamese elite and the peasants and he felt drawn to communism and became a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920 and organized the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930. After perfecting his craft in numerous other countries as a master organizer for the revolution, Ho returned to Vietnam and founded the Vietminh political organization and conceived the strategy that would eventually drive the French from Vietnam. In his homeland, the hardships imposed by the Japanese and their French puppets, along with a devastating famine, fanned popular discontent. Ho continued to fight and amass troops. After the Japanese removed the French government in March of 1945, the Vietminh (with limited U.S. assistance) began the systemic harassment of the new colonial masters. Then in August of 1945, the Japanese troops were disarmed by the Vietminh. Although Ho Chi Minh declared independence for his country the French were determined to regain control and the fighting ensued. For over a year, attempts were made between France and the Vietminh to reach a settlement but their objectives were irresoluble as the Vietminh’s solemn request was unification of their country. The French, equally determined, had retained control in the southern colony where their economic interests were greatest. Negotiations proved futile and thus began a war that would last over a quarter of a century.
So if the U.S. was not involved already, what drew us into someone else’s affairs? For a time, the U.S. actively opposed the return of Indochina to France. However, Southeast Asia provided about 90 percent of America’s crude rubber and 75 percent of its tin, and U.S. oil companies produced about 27 percent of the sizable output of the East Indies. U.S. officials observed the growth of nationalism in Vietnam and feared that a French attempt to regain control might provoke a long and bloody war, bringing instability to what American strategists viewed as an area of economic and strategic significance.
Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time, profoundly disliked the French leader, Charles de Gaulle, he advocated placing Indochina under international trustee-ship in preparation for independence and shifted toward limited support of France hoping to regain influence and prestige. Throughout this period, the U.S. limitedly supported France, as Ho 's long-standing ties with Moscow reinforced the U.S. 's fears of a communist takeover. Before his death in 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt wavered support between Frances 's colonial exploitation of Vietnam and proposals aimed at liberalizing and preparing a self-governing Vietnam. The French sought to regain sovereignty in Indochina and an outbreak of hostilities between French and Vietminh forces in 1946 pushed then President Harry S. Truman into a position of either maintaining a policy of official neutrality or choosing to support either side in the colonial struggle. By 1950, the United States administration abandoned their neutrality policy and began to supply the French with substantial military and economic assistance. Was the American commitment prompted by a growing appreciation of the economic importance of Southeast Asia to the United States? Or were strategic considerations stemming from America 's perceived national security needs a more significant influence on American policymakers? Although U.S. 's long-term objectives were to eliminate communist influence and to see installed the self-governing nationalist state, they wanted it to be patterned after its conception of a democratic state as opposed to the totalitarian state which would evolve inevitably from communist domination. We wanted to foster the association of the peoples of Indochina with the western powers, raise the standard of living to contribute to a better balanced world economy and we wanted to prevent undue Chinese penetration. However, in light of all this, we were unwilling to take on this monumental endeavor alone. Military and civilian strategists perceived that the war had left the Soviet Union the most powerful nation in Europe and Asia. Consequently, France as an ally, took on renewed significance for the U.S. in their quest to save all of Southeast Asia from the spreading of communism, which they highly believed could lead to the “domino effect” and possibly infiltrate our homeland. Ultimately this resounds as the biggest indicator as to why the U.S. entered into the Vietnam War.
Was this the time to review our options and avert looming disaster by reaching an accommodation with the Vietminh? As history has proven, we didn’t attempt this option. So why did the U.S. stay so long in Vietnam? Although the U.S. entered Vietnam with the desire and a promise to help the Vietnamese people gain independence and a better life, they empowered South Vietnamese leaders who could not relate to the peasants and thus they were not passionate about helping to unify Vietnam and they repressed progress immensely. Furthermore, the military’s strategy, the elusive enemy, the administrations’ arrogance and the exaggerated fear of the threat posed to the U.S. interests by the Soviet Union and communist China over shadowed all the administrations’ decisions. Concurrently, dealing with economic woes and poor public support from back home, it was inevitable that this war would not end quickly. The U.S. also felt the need to validate itself and to advance its credibility as a military power and reliable ally, in the eyes of other European countries. Strongest records suggest that the Vietnam War was a proxy war between the U.S., the Soviet Union-then growing rapidly in military power, confidence and prestige- and communist China. A Cold War culture of near hysterical fear, paranoiac suspiciousness, and stifling conformity took shape, and militant anticommunism came to dominate foreign and domestic policies. Throughout the years and as administrations changed, none of the presidents wanted to be the first to one to lose a war. Additionally, our military strategy was ineffective.
The emphasis on firepower and attrition emanated from an organizational structure strongly predisposed to conventional war-fighting approaches. Yet it proved both ineffectual and counterproductive given the unconventional nature of the Vietnam War. The U.S.’s bombing campaigns to try and gain control seemed to back fire as not only were the bombs inaccurate, the North Vietnamese Army continually rebuilt in the bomb’s wake and were undeterred. Our ground troops, who entered the country in 1965, were in unfamiliar territory. They didn’t understand the culture or the Vietnamese language of those they were trying to help and all too often they didn’t understand the reasons they were there risking their lives for a people who didn’t seem want them there in the first …show more content…
place. The enemy was elusive and sneaky. Not only were our troops untrained for the type of ground fighting they would encounter, they were used to head to head fighting and easily knowing who their enemy was. So was not the case in Vietnam. The guerilla fighting by an enemy they couldn’t distinguish, and the booby traps and invisible snipers were whittling away at not only our troop numbers but also the morale in what was becoming known as an unwinnable war. Simultaneously back on the home front, there were a number of domestic issues shaping up. The Civil Rights movement, women’s liberation and the anti-war movement were all competing for the administration’s attention and the Great Society programs were competing for financial backing. As a result at times, the focus on the Vietnam War took a back seat, additionally adding to our extended time in Vietnam. Withdrawal became more apparent as American support for Vietnam began to wane as the very public, media-covered war was splashed across their televisions nightly. The bloodshed of both the U.S. soldiers and the innocent people of Vietnam, along with the sheer destruction and devastation proved to be a major factor in why the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam. The questionable certainty whether this was an unnecessary war that was costing the U.S. in terms of lives lost and the astronomical financial burden to our economy and our domestic programs, was more than the Americans were willing to bear. The illusion that we could win a war which the South Vietnamese could not win for themselves was becoming all too real. Furthermore, the public felt deceived by their government when in 1968, after continually hearing that the U.S. was winning the war, the North Vietnamese Army attacked numerous cities, including the U.S. Embassy in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. Though the victory belonged to the U.S., it made the American public suspicious about their government and they began to heavily favor a withdrawal from Vietnam as soon as the South Vietnamese troops were trained and equipped enough to take over. This was a significant turning point that contributed to the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Under the Nixon administration, a quest for peace was sought.
“We will not make the same old mistakes,” Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger proclaimed of Vietnam in 1969. Although Kissinger and Nixon wished to withdrawal from Vietnam under honorable conditions and not abandon the South Vietnamese, their policy suffered similar flaws as the administrations’ preceding them. Nixon’s ‘comprehensive peace plan’ was no better than Johnson’s so why would the North Vietnamese Army relent now? This resulted in four more years of bloody warfare in Indochina, a marked increase in domestic strife and a peace settlement that permitted American extrication but was neither honorable nor lasting. The North continued to demand the total and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Vietnam and called for the establishment of a government from which the U.S. backed Thieu, would be
excluded. Initially, Nixon was certain his administration could end the war quickly but he grossly underestimated his adversaries. When they didn’t relent, he ordered secret, intensive bombing attacks to try and force them into surrendering. Nixon’s support from the public had plummeted and he announced phased withdrawal of American combat troops at the beginning of 1970. Nixon and Kissinger later claimed to have courageously persisted and put together a peace agreement that extracted the U.S. from war, secured the return of American prisoners of war, and kept South Vietnam intact. In fact, there was no peace. Nor was there honor. The South Vietnamese government fell to communism more quickly than anticipated and Nixon was forced to resign in 1974 under a veil of shame due to the Watergate scandal. Were the causes for the U.S. involvement in Vietnam valid? Reflecting back to the many reasons for U.S. involvement in Vietnam - our intense fear of communism and its subsequent spread to not only neighboring countries but possibly to our own; our protection of our future, global economic interests on foreign soil and the importance of South Vietnam to America’s position in the world, and our assumed views that we, as a superpower, needed to help the Vietnamese people regain their independence - none of these have proven to be valid reasons for entering or escalating the war. The reality was that Vietnam held no more economic interest for the U.S. than most other surrounding countries and in the end, proved that the impact on world politics due to America’s failure in Vietnam, was considerably less than U.S. policy makers had predicted. Our arrogant assumption that we could assist the backward Vietnamese people who were unwilling to save themselves, was bound for failure because we never trained their army to be independent nor did we supported a regime that would be as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it in his famous Gettysburg Address, “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” And as far as the biggest concern of keeping communism out of American boundaries starting with Vietnam proved false also because the U.S. wrongly attributed the conflict to external sources and misapplied its Cold War containment policy by intervening in what was essentially a local struggle and it placed itself at the mercy of local forces, a weak client, and a determined adversary. Political Scientist, Hans Morgenthau put it honestly when he talked about U.S. not getting involved in Vietnam, “It would have required moral courage, but no more of it than Americans should expect of their leaders.” There were a handful of leaders throughout the Vietnam years and most all of them continued to perpetuate the war ultimately for reasons of avoiding personal and/or career failures. It became clear that the personalities and leadership styles of these powerful but deeply insecure individuals exerted crucial influence on the decisions to go to war, the manner in which the war was fought and ended, and especially the ways in which dissent at home was handled. The war caused deep social divisions within American society, fostered a destructive cynicism about government claims and actions that persists to this day, and exacted staggering short and long term economic costs. War is genetically derived as a human trait. War is never fair. For as many wars and conflicts as the U.S. gets involved with, there will be just as many unpredictable outcomes, because they will always be driven by the human psyche.
Bibliography
Herring, George C. America’s Longest War. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
McMahon, Robert J. Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War 4th edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008
Arauz, Cynthia. “’Viterbo University Week Four Voice Narrated Power Point’: U. S. Military Strategy.” Accessed April 12, 2013. https://moodle.viterbo.edu/course/view.php?id=12741
Basler, Roy P. Abraham Lincoln Online-Speeches and Writings. Accessed April 29, 2013. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
Arauz, Cynthia. “’Viterbo University Week Seven Voice Narrated Power Point’: Nixon’s Vietnaminization Strategy & Lessons of Vietnam.” Accessed April 12, 2013. https://moodle.viterbo.edu/course/view.php?id=12741