what were the causes of the vietnam war?
364721
The Causes of the Vietnam War\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\nAndrew J. Rotter\n\nMost American wars have obvious starting points or precipitating causes: the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, the capture of Fort Sumter in 1861, the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950, for example. But there was no fixed beginning for the U.S. war in Vietnam. The United States entered that war incrementally, in a series of steps between 1950 and 1965. In May 1950, President Harry S. Truman authorized a modest program of economic and military aid to the French, who were fighting to retain control of their Indochina colony, including Laos and Cambodia as well as Vietnam. When the Vietnamese Nationalist (and Communist-led) Vietminh army defeated French forces at Dienbienphu in 1954, the French were compelled to accede to the creation of a Communist Vietnam north of the 17th parallel while leaving a non-Communist entity south of that line. The United States refused to accept the arrangement. The administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower undertook instead to build a nation from the spurious political entity that was South Vietnam by fabricating a government there, taking over control from the French, dispatching military advisers to train a South Vietnamese army, and unleashing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct psychological warfare against the North.\n\nPresident John F. Kennedy rounded another turning point in early 1961, when he secretly sent 400 Special Operations Forces-trained (Green Beret) soldiers to teach the South Vietnamese how to fight what was called counterinsurgency war against Communist guerrillas in South Vietnam. When Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, there were more than 16,000 U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam, and more than 100 Americans had been killed. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, committed the United States most fully to the war. In August 1964, he secured from Congress a functional (not actual) declaration of war: the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Then, in February and March 1965, Johnson authorized the sustained bombing, by U.S. aircraft, of targets north of the 17th parallel, and on 8 March dispatched 3,500 Marines to South Vietnam. Legal declaration or no, the United States was now at war.\n\nThe multiple starting dates for the war complicate efforts to describe the causes of U.S. entry. The United States became involved in the war for a number of reasons, and these evolved and shifted over time. Primarily, every American president regarded the enemy in Vietnam--the Vietminh; its 1960s successor, the National Liberation Front (NLF); and the government of North Vietnam, led by *Ho Chi Minh--as agents of global communism. U.S. policymakers, and most Americans, regarded communism as the antithesis of all they held dear. Communists scorned democracy, violated human rights, pursued military aggression, and created closed state economies that barely traded with capitalist countries. Americans compared communism to a contagious disease. If it took hold in one nation, U.S. policymakers expected contiguous nations to fall to communism, too, as if nations were dominoes lined up on end. In 1949, when the Communist Party came to power in China, Washington feared that Vietnam would become the next Asian domino. That was one reason for Truman's 1950 decision to give aid to the French who were fighting the Vietminh,\n\nTruman also hoped that assisting the French in Vietnam would help to shore up the developed, non-Communist nations, whose fates were in surprising ways tied to the preservation of Vietnam and, given the domino theory, all of Southeast Asia. Free world dominion over the region would provide markets for Japan, rebuilding with American help after the Pacific War. U.S. involvement in Vietnam reassured the British, who linked their postwar recovery to the revival of t
1070333
Yes. The USSR & its communist satellite countries in the Warsaw pact such as the then East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc. were either directly or indirectly involved in the Vietnam war. They were either financial supporters, weapon suppliers, & military training providers & advisors for the NVA (North Vietnam Army).
444663
Well you see... there were vietnamese people... and we killed a lot of them.  Then they killed a lot of us.  Much like iraq, we should have just turned their country into a charred black rock in east asia.  i mean, after all... the winners of the wars are the ones who write the history books.
501137
McCarthyism in the US.\nThe Berlin Airlift\nThe Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis, revolts against the state in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. the Soviet war in Afghanistan, conflicts in the Middle East with the Soviet Union supporting Arab nations and the US supporting Israel\nThe building of the Berlin Wall.\nNixon's visit to China.\nThe first space satellite launched by the Soviet Union and the subsequent space race which led to the moon landing by the US.
623353
Vietnam War, conflict in Southeast Asia, primarily fought in South Vietnam between government forces aided by the United States and guerrilla forces aided by North Vietnam. The war began soon after the Geneva Conference provisionally divided (1954) Vietnam at 17° N lat. into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). It escalated from a Vietnamese civil war into a limited international conflict in which the United States was deeply involved, and did not end, despite peace agreements in 1973, until North Vietnam's successful offensive in 1975 resulted in South Vietnam's collapse and the unification of Vietnam by the North.
374493
It was a civil war of sorts, because after the Second World War Ho Chi Minh had taken power in North Vietnam, using this power base to try to evict France from all of Indochina and after Dien Bien Phu when France did withdraw a UN agreement split Indochina into four parts. This is where the civil war began, the Communists under Ho Chi Minh had a great deal of prestige because they had been a fairly successful opponent against the Japanese, while the US had recruited known collaborators for their puppet South Vietnam (similar to how the two Koreas were set up). While the regime in the north was brutal, the one in the south became even worse.\n\nThe US continued its support to the South Vietnamese government, but it never actually confronted the south about cleaning up its act, which continued to make it vulnerable to lose support from the people.
721563
Yes it played a major role into the failures of the Vietnam War.  Limited War provides a safe haven for the enemy, where they can regroup and launch additional attacks.
429878
In January, 1968 (I think) the North Vietnamese Army along with the Viet Cong launched an offensive against US and South Vietnamese positions throughout South Vietnam on the holiday of Tet.  While the offensive was a military disaster for the NVA & VC, it so rattled the American public that the anti-war effort got the impetus it needed to eventually cause the US to abandon Viet Nam.
232003
If by Southeast Asia you are referring to former French Indochina, there was a strong French influence due to the occupation of that area by France.  This occupation was ended in 1954 with the fall of Dien Bien Phu.  French Indochina was broken up into the present countries of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam.  The uprising that resulted in the fall of Dien Bien Phu ultimately led to the Vietnam War.  There was some degree of British influence in other parts of Indochina, notably Burma, Singapore, and Thailand.  In India there was a strong British colonial influence.  There also was a Portugese influence in some parts of India, and Goa still exists as a Portugese enclave.
524457
vietnam \nIndo-Pak war 1971
1123051
Australia was pissed, at the time they were at war with their neighbor, Japan. Having been close allies with the US, Australia saw the vietnam war as  another front of war, one that they could not afford to fight along side the US with, when all their funds where being directed towards Japan.\n\nEventaully Australia lost the war, and Japan took the copyrights for the sony playstation, the issue which had sparked the entire war in the first place.
604213
I don't know for sure about the Vietnam war other than South Vietnam wanted to be a democratic society and the north was communism and the US wanted to keep it from spreading, which is the same as what happened in Korea for the most part.  The reason for the Persian Gulf War was because Iraq invaded Kuwait saying that the country belonged to them and we came to Kuwaits defense.
886796
I think it was the other way around.  The United States got involved in Vietnam's political situation by supporting a puppet regieme and taking its side in a civil war , which ultimately determined who the legitimate government was - when the US backed side lost.  We had no business being there in the first place.
834786
Vietnam-a complicated war. As a matter of fact, it wasn't called a war for years-it was a "police action" or "conflict". Not a lot of clear answers there.\n\nU.S. military advisors first became involved in Vietnam as early as 1950, when they began to assist French colonial forces. In 1956, these advisors assumed full responsibility for training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam or ARVN. Large numbers of American combat troops began to arrive in 1965 and the last left the country in 1973.\n\nPresidents involved were:\nHarry Truman 1945-1953\nDwight Eisenhower 1953-1961\nJohn Kennedy 1961-1963\nLyndon Johnson 1963-1969\nRichard Nixon 1969-1974\n\n American forces rose from 16,000 during 1964 to more than 553,000 by 1969. (Johnson). The irony here is we couldn't win that guerrilla war with 553,000  troops but thought 100,000 in Iraq would be plenty. Robert McNamara(then Secretary of defense) has since said he believed JFK would have ended the war has he not been assassinated in 1963.  I believe Democrats were a bit fooled by Johnson in that he fought strongly for great civil rights laws(he did do a lot there) back then but on the other hand escalated the war. It was easy for Democrats to believe he was a good man fighting the good fight. \n\n \n\nNixon had continuously campaigned under the slogan that he "had a plan to end the Vietnam War." (Peace With Honor)Unfortunately, no such plan existed and the American commitment would continue for another five years. The goal of the American military effort was now to buy time, gradually build up the strength of the South Vietnamese armed forces, and to re-equip them with modern weapons so that they could defend their nation on their own. This policy became the cornerstone of the so-called "Nixon Doctrine"\n\nSo Nixon finally pulled troops out but dragged his feet for years.Since he was elected largely because he promised to get us out of Vietnam, people were unhappy it took so long. I believe he finally did withdraw to get re-elected. He was re-elected for a 2nd term but resigned because of Watergate. (Watergate was unraveling during the campaign but most people didn't believe he was involved-thought instead it was a left-wing conspiracy). His Vice-President became President and pardoned Nixon soon after. \n\nIt was a tumultous time indeed. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 during his Primary run for President.\nThere was a lot of talk that he would certainly be President but \nRichard Nixon was instead. \n\nThere was a lot more to all of this and I'd encourage you to research more-a fascinating time, although very sad. History, politics and life seems interchangeable.
598795
The central theme among the three events is the Cold War, and the competition with the Soviet Union.\n\nThe Korean War occured when North Korean invaded South Korea in June, 1950. The United States was able to quickly push back the North Koreans, but this action forced the Chinese into the war, and it became a stalemate for almost three years.  This was one of the first early tests of the containment of Communism.\n\nThe space race was a competition with the Russians, which the USSR seemed to be winning when it put the first satellite in orbit in 1957, and also put the first man in orbit, Yuri Gagarin. It led to Kennedy calling for a mission to the moon.\n\nThe Vietnam War was something we inherited from the France in 1954. The driving theory behind Vietnam was the "Domino theory" that if Vietnam fell, the rest of SE Asia would soon turn Communist as well. Like Korea, China played a more important role in Vietnam than the USSR did, but both did supply the North Vietnamese.
626846
frustrating situation and rising resentment. I can't think of any other nations who supported the vietnam war, that was the problem. Drugs didn't have anything to do with vietnam, it was a domestic issue.
813274
What is your purpose in Vietnam?\nWhy are you killing Vietnameses people?\nAre you allowed to use chemical warfare?\nWhy did you kill prisoners of war?