Origins of US involvement in Vietnam

Reasons for US involvement

The Course of the War

Factors behind the US defeat

Consequences of the US’s Vietnam Experience

Origins of US involvement in Vietnam

From 1954, the Eisenhower administration backed the South Vietnamese government with economic aid and military training assistance for its armed forces. The Kennedy administration (Jan 1961 – Nov 1963) escalated this commitment. Then in the spring of 1965, the Johnson government decided to send combat troops there.

Reasons for US Involvement

1. America’s world view
2. Nature of domestic politics in the US
3. New military doctrine of “flexible response”
4. Perceived techological and economic superiority of the US
5. US decision-makers initially did not take the prospect of a negotiated settlement seriously

The Course of the Vietnam War

Until early 1968, the Johnson administration insisted that military victory was possible and necessary. But the Tet offensive of February 1968 shattered that illusion. Anti-war feelings in the US after Tet intensified and Richard Nixon was elected as President in November 1968 with a pledge to bring “peace with honour” in Vietnam.

Factors behind US defeat in Vietnam

1. US simply fought the war badly

2. America’s ally, South Vietnam, was a weak, corrupt and repressive regime

3. Washington underestimated its communist adversaries in Vietnam

4. Cumulative erosion of US political will to continue the war

5. Costs of the war

Consequences of the Vietnam War

1. Ended anti-communist foreign policy consensus in US

2. Vietnam stimulated retrenchment tendencies in US – so called ‘Vietnam syndrome’

3. Internationally, America’s reversal in Vietnam seemed to strengthen the global position of the Soviet Union