CASE STUDY OF THE VIETNAM WAR (1964 – 1975)

Vietnam was once a French colony called Indo-China along with Laos and Cambodia but the
French were driven out by the Vietminh in 1954. The Vietminh were a Vietnamese Communist
group who were freedom fighters. As a result, Indo-China, by protocol of the Geneva
Conference of 1954 was divided into four parts. These four parts were to be Laos and Cambodia
which would be independent. North Vietnam would be Communist and South Vietnam would
be ruled by a right wing dictator called Diem. This division was made along the 17th Parallel.
The Vietcong forces won against France for four factors:

1. The Vietminh made use of guerrilla warfare which was new to the French.
2. The Vietnamese people supported the Vietminh
3. France was still suffering from WWII. She did not have a large enough army to send, nor
enough funds.
4. China aided Vietnam. China had recently became Communist and she supplied Vietnam
with ammunition, arms and equipment.

It had been agreed that there would be a general election to reunite the country either under
Communist ideals or democratic ideals. Although the US initially supported this, President
Diem and the US government was afraid of the results going against them which could lead to
what President Eisenhower of the US described as the "Domino Effect". This is whereby one
country falls to communism, then the region will follow and fall prey to communism as
well. The falling prey to communism is seem to be synonymous of a row of domino's
falling. Elections were never held and civil war soon broke out as the people as well as
opposition groups were demanding a democratic coalition government so the country could be
united. Amongst these opposition groups were the National Liberation Front and the Buddhists
w ho were well known for setting themselves afire as a form of protest.

USA's presence in Vietnam only made matters worst. Her Policy of Containment was in full
force here as she tried to restrict its influence in the region if not kill it off completely. She
began to increase the arms and army in Vietnam. Generally USA was somewhere she was not
wanted. The Vietnamese just wanted to be united under a Vietnamese government and not
another foreign nation.

As the civil war intensified more freedom fighting groups emerged. The Vietcong, the major
one was now in both North and South Vietnam.

Bombings began in early 1965 with the US bombing the North on a regular basis however to
President Johnson, this was not enough. He approved for some 180 000 US troops to move into
Vietnam. Within three years, Vietnam had almost 550 000 US troops. US involvement in the
war was widely criticized by US citizens. It should be noted that the atrocities of this war was
broadcasted over the Television and radio. It was the first time people could actually see the
intensity of the Cold War period and a war on a whole. To top this off, the US was not doing
well. She was losing despite her obvious advantage as it related to technology however the
Vietcong used guerrilla tactics which the US was not accustomed to. The US used two tactics to
try to combat this issue:

1. massive airpower
2. chemical defoliants (eg. Agent Orange incident)

These did not work to eliminate the Vietcong presence though but it did have a psychological
influence on the citizens. It led the Vietnamese to push further away from the US and give
support to the Vietcong and North Vietnam's leader Ho Chi Minh.

Two significant events occurred. The first being the Tet Offensive. This occurred in 1968
whereby the North Vietnamese Communist forces struck the Southern capital, Saigon. What
was most significant was that it occurred during Tet. Tet is a Vietnamese religious festival. The
attack saw the US embassy being bombed. The aim was to set off a revolution in the South but
this was not achieved. Their plan backfired as the US sent in a large force which killed over 50
000 communist troops within three months. This event however is seen to the the turning point
of the Vietnam War because it was one of the main reasons that North Vietnam ended up wining
the war in the long run. Though the Communists were humiliated, this humiliation did not
amount to US humiliation as the US politicians began to rethink the true reason behind their
involvement if there existed any. This further intensified US citizens disgust.
The second major event is the My Lai massacre in 1968. US soldiers went into the vilage of My
Lai because they thought that a Vietcong force was hiding in the village. They killed almost 500
villagers including the elderly and babies. The soldiers were ordered to shoot and kill "anything
that moved". This further angered US citizens.

A policy of Vietnamisation was pursued by President Nixon of the USA. Under this policy, the
US would re-arm the South Vietnam army. The soldiers would be trained and little by little, the
US would pull out. As Nixon did this, he increased the bombings on North Vietnam. In 1973,
peace talks began following the Summer 1972 Offensive by the North Vietnam Communist
forces which echoed the Tet Offensive but this time a bit more successful. Following this, it
became clear that no end would come as no side could see victory in the horizons. A cease-fire
was arranged in 1973 and US troops started going home. Though a cease-fire was arranged,
fighting continued. It was only two years after that the war finally ended after the North
launched an attack on the South. By this time the US was all gone and the South had no
help. The Saigon government could not resist leading to the fall of South Vietnam. The North
Vietnamese captured Saigon on the 29th April, 1975 bringing the Vietnam War to an end.

The end of the Vietnam War was however a big blow to the US who felt even more humiliated
now. The leaders of the US following the end of the Vietnam War however decided to engage in
a policy of 'detente' and so they set up peaceful relations with the Communist superpowers - the
USSR and China. US self confidence was restored in the 1980s to some extent with Ronald
Regan who ended this peaceful period of relations known as detente and aggressively challenged
the USSR leading to a new arms race known as the Star Wars.