THE ROLE OF MAJOR POWERS IN THE VIETNAM WAR

I. The Vietnam War

1. Overview of the Vietnam War
- Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese fought an anti-colonial war against France, which
received $2.6 billion in financial support from the United States.
- The French defeat at the Dien Bien Phu (1954) was followed by a peace conference in
Geneva. As a result of the conference, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam received their
independence, and Vietnam was temporarily divided between an anti-Communist South and
a Communist North.
- In 1956, South Vietnam, with American backing, refused to hold unification elections.
- By 1958, Communist-led guerrillas, known as the Viet Cong, had begun to battle the South
Vietnamese government.
- To support the South's government, the United States sent in 2,000 military advisors - a
number that grew to 16,300 in 1963. The military condition deteriorated, and by 1963,
South Vietnam had lost the fertile Mekong Delta to the Viet Cong.
- In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson escalated the war, commencing air strikes on North
Vietnam and committing ground forces - which numbered 536,000 in 1968.
- The 1968 Tet Offensive by the North Vietnamese turned many Americans against the war.
- In June 1969, the next president, Richard Nixon, advocated Vietnamization, withdrawing
American troops and giving South Vietnam greater responsibility for fighting the war.
- From 1968 to 1973, efforts were made to end the conflict through diplomacy. In January
1973, an agreement was reached; U.S. forces were withdrawn from Vietnam, and U.S.
prisoners of war were released.
- On April 30th 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North, and Vietnam was reunited.
2. Consequences of the Vietnam War:
- Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 800,000 to
3.1 million.

- About 2 million Vietnamese were affected by toxins from chemical bombs.

- The Vietnam War cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000 casualties.
- American Congress enacted the War Powers Act in 1973, requiring the president to receive
explicit Congressional approval before committing American forces overseas.

II. The role of major powers in the Vietnam War

1.The United States:
- The US is the country which directly involved in the Vietnam War. The U.S. government
viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a Communist takeover of South
Vietnam. This was part of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the
spread of communism.
- The role of the US in the Vietnam War was presented above.
2. China
- When Vietnam was against war with France in the mid 1900s, China helped us with
military power and financial power.
- In 1962, they had promised to give the Government of Hanoi military rifles and guns.
- Ninety thousand rifles were sent out to Hanoi as a gift from China.
- China also sent out anti-aircraft weapons to North Vietnam, to fix the damages caused by
chemical bombings from the American troops.
- China helped with rebuilding homes, roads, rail-tracks and other major building works.
- Financial aid to buy weapon.
- 1965 - 1970, nearly 320 thousand soldiers from China came to North Vietnam to fight in
the Vietnam War. The highest point of Chinese military involvement was in 1967, when
nearly 200 thousand were serving in the Vietnam War.
*How Did Chinese Involvement Influence the Vietnam War?

- North Vietnam had the Viet Cong on their side, they were still lacking military power.
When China came in, it boosted the military strength of the army, and it led to the South
Vietnamese surrendering.
- Vietnam and Chinese interactions were seen in World War 1 as well, but they werent as
strong as they were in 1971.
3. The Soviet Union
*Why did the Soviets support North Vietnam?
- In order to overthrow the French from Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and his government needed
financial and military support. He then naturally went to the worlds second superpower,
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and they agreed. In fact, The USSR and
China were the first two countries who recognized the legitimacy of North Vietnam in early
1950.
- Interestingly, The USSR supported Vietnam because not only were they both communists
but also because they wanted to use Vietnamese people to fight against the United States,
who had supported the French war effort in Vietnam since 1948. In other words, it is called
a proxy war.
*The critical role of Russian weapons
- While Vietnamese morale, patriotism, superior training and the belief that ours was a just
cause were clearly critical factors, the victory was also due to the virtually ceaseless flow of
weapons from Russia.
- By the spring of 1967, a river of aid was flowing from Russia into North Vietnam.
- By the late 1960s more than three-quarters of the military and technical equipment
received by North Vietnam was coming from Moscow. Moscow contributed weapons
essential to North Vietnamese defence capabilities against the American air war, including
radar systems, anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
- Russia military supplies completely transformed the nature of the war. The Vietnamese did
not fight with just cunning and camouflage, we hit the Americans with firepower on a
staggering scale. Our arsenal included 2,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 antiaircraft guns and 158 surface-to-air rocket launchers. The new weapons although not the
latest in Moscows arsenal were more advanced than the American ones, leading to many
battlefield routs of US military forces.
- Russia also supplied Vietnam with medical supplies, food, oil, machinery and spare parts.
Besides, they helped to keep North Vietnam's infrastructure running during the bombing

attacks. And unlike the material and weapons supplied by China which demanded deferred
payment most Russian assistance was supplied as aid rather than loans. Over the course of
the war the money donated to the Vietnamese cause was equal to $2 million a day.
- In late March 1965, Brezhnev announced that his government had been receiving "many
applications" from Soviet citizens offering to serve as volunteers in Vietnam. However,
Russian freelancers were not really needed. From July 1965 to the end of 1974, around
6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Russian
armed forces visited the country as advisors. In addition, Russian military schools and
academies trained more than 10,000 Vietnamese military personnel. Just 13 Soviet citizens
lost their lives in the entire conflict, says Eko Planety.