American Involvement in Vietnam: Failure or Not?

More than xxx years went by after the last American combat march left southwesteast Asia, but the well-disposed and governmental fires of the Vietnam warfare calm down keep on burning throughout the linked States and Vietnam. Wars do non simply fade away when the guns are silenced. Millions of citizens in both countries bear out the deep, pestering scars of a conflict that wreaked havoc on the political and social landscapes of both provinces.Even today, legions of state of fight veterans endure the physical and e movemental wounds inflicted during their tours of duty, while the 3 million pot who perished on all sides (Berman 16) are yet memories to millions of husbands, wives, children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, and friends. In the get together States, the commonwealths armed services affair into Vietnam continues to move its political institutions, foreign and demurral policies.The Vietnam War also profoundly altered Americans view of their in the publi c eye(predicate) institutions. magical spell polls suggest that public confidence in the federal presidential term has not declined significantly in more than thirty years, Vietnam did awaken millions of Americans to the feature that their presidents had routinely lied to them rough the American array role in southeast Asia, about Watergate, and about many other issues (Mann 2). Vietnam was, indeed, a bout point in American political history.So, what was Vietnam War for the United States the indispensability to stop communist erosion or tragic delusion? The end of this study is to explore whether American interest in Vietnam was total nonstarter or the nation had strong reasons to go into warfare. Toward this end we will visit the reasons to a lower placelying the decision to launch war affair, analyze the outcomes of Vietnam War, consider the reaction of American comm uniformity upon it, and make the conclusion. The Reasons of American Involvement in Vietnam and It s CourseFive in series(p) American presidents and scores of senators and congressmen had insisted that the preservation of a small, iso posthumousd southeastwardeast Asian nation was vital to the US national security. During a stopover of xxv years, these leaders inaugural funded the war fought by the French and then support and sponsored a indemnity under which the fighting in Vietnam was eventually off-key by the US military to the point that it became, almost entirely, an American war. Americas involvement in Vietnam began in 1950 as a political reaction to events elsewhere in Asia (Olson & freewoman 463).While the communist victory in China in 1949 and the subsequent invasion of southwestern Korea in 1950 had not directly peril the United States, the political fallout from these events had tarnished chairwoman Harry Trumans government and lordly the importance of southeasteast Asia to his administration (VanDeMark 216). By primeval 1965, it was clear that if the Un ited States did not introduce regular domain troops into South Vietnam, communists would brim over the country in a matter of months (Helsing 240).In March 1965, Johnson deployed the first depending on(p) of the US Marines to Vietnam, and by the end of the year more than 184,000 American ground troops were in the country. in spite of the growing American commitment, the government of South Vietnam grew weaker, and the Vietcong, now sustained by troops and supplies from northeasterly Vietnam, grew stronger (Olson & Freeman 464). The cause of the bark for control of South Vietnam has been the subject of prolonged debate, directed toward the ultimate question of whether or not U. S. military involvement there was lawful. umteen of those supporting U. S.involvement in the war insisted that American intervention was an attempt to utilize the principles of the United Nations Charter in Asia. The argument was as follows North Vietnam had attacked South Vietnam in violation of Arti cle 2 of the Charter and the United States had either right to join South Vietnam in bodied defense under Article 51 of the Charter (Frey-Wouters & Laufer 76). The United States had also undertaken commitments to assist South Vietnam in defending itself against Communist aggression from the North thus the admittance of United States military personnel and equipment was justified (Johns 4).The bomb missions in 1972 became a turning-point of the war a campaign of enormous proportions comprising more than fifty-five thousand sorties, during which American planes dropped more than 100,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam by early June were finally yielding the deadly and destructive results (Olson & Freeman 466). By early summer, North Viet rearse intransigence began melting as the outpouring and the ocean blockade dried up communist supply lines.Realizing they could not beat out the South Vietnamese army as it was backed by such(prenominal) massive American air power, the North Vietnamese were now more favorably inclined to negotiations about peace (Mann 702). But Nixons infamous bombing campaign came at a steep price. In addition to losses of twenty-six American aircraft, public opinion about war changed radically. intimately overnight, his approval rating in the polls slumped to 39 percent (Mann 713). Despite its intensity and callous brutality, Nixons bombing worked. In late December, the North Vietnamese finally signaled their willingness to return to the negotiating table (Johns 7).Its obvious that the intense bombing had been largely responsible for North Vietnams sudden eagerness to settle. Then presidencys problem, however, was their mistaken belief that the conflict in Vietnam could be win entirely on the battlefield. Vietnam was also a political conflict in which the hearts and minds of the people were at stake. More bombs could neer force the political and economic changes necessary to persuade millions of South Vietnamese that their govern ment in Saigon was worth fighting for (Mann 729).In capital of France, in 1973, on January 27, Secretary of State William Rogers fall in representatives of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong in signing the accords, bringing about an authorised end to what the New York Times called the longest, most divisive foreign war in Americas history (Mann 714). The Vietnam War, arguably the most misguided political and military crusade in American history, thus, ended. Aftermath of the Vietnam War After the Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973, the war went on for another deuce years until Saigons collapse in April 1975.The Vietnam War was such a traumatic and divisive experience that once the last American combat forces were recede from Vietnam many Americans tried to forget the conflict. But it soon became clear that this was not an easy task. Most Americans agreed that the war in Vietnam was markedly distinguishable from any other experienced by the American nat ion (Johns 11). It was the first war rejected during its fighting by a substantial offset of the American people, and, in retrospect, many Americans continue to have serious doubts about the wisdom of having entered that conflict.Independent survey studies carried out in the postwar period fork up that several years after the end of the war, a majority of the American public agreed that the US should have stayed out of the fighting in Vietnam. In addition, respondents perceived the wars lasting effects on the United States as almost entirely harmful (Frey-Wouters & Laufer 79). The war created serious economic problems. Until 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced the US ground troops into the conflict, the Vietnam War had only a little impact on the American economy.But as the war escalated, government expenditures change magnitude dramatically. The large-scale federal spending fueled an inflationary spiral during the late 1960s. When inflation reached 6 percent in 19 68, Congress passed a 10 percent income tax surcharge in hopes of slowing spending and fall inflation, but it was too little and too late. Although the Vietnam Wars most dramatic impact on American society was social and political, it did set in motion the inflationary spiral that plagued the economy throughout the 1970s and 1980s (Olson & Freeman 465).The legacy of Vietnam, like the war itself, remains a difficult and painful subject for Americans. As passions subside and time bestows greater perspective, Americans still struggle to understand Vietnams meaning and lessons for the country. They still wonder how the United States found itself ensnared in an ambiguous, costly, and divisive war, and how it can avoid repeating such an ordeal in the future (VanDeMark 215). In opinion by many Americans who were opposed to U. S. policy in Vietnam, the American government had engaged in an illegal war in Vietnam in violation of international law and morality.In addition, the United States, in their view, had violated the United Nations Charter by its military intervention in the civil war (Frey-Wouters & Laufer 77). Moreover, many historians argue that American involvement in Vietnam violated international law and that the US committed crimes against humanity victimization napalm, gas, and defoliants, search and destroy operations, treatment of prisoners, forced relocation and pacification programs, and artillery, forward pass and naval bombing (Mann 714). Those who opposed the war do the following points 1) South Vietnam was never a separate state.A separate state or nation of South Vietnam had never existed. A convention signed in 1946 amongst the French commissioner and President Ho Chi Minh recognized the Vietnam Republic as a free state. Peace was finally negotiated, and on July 21, 1954, the Geneva convocation ended with the adoption of a Final Declaration, which reconfirmed the independence of a single, unify Vietnam. An agreement was reached for the temp orary division of Vietnam into two zones for a two-year period (Frey-Wouters & Laufer 76). The reunification of the two zones of North and South Vietnam, which was promised for July 1956, did not materialize (Asselin 2).2) South Vietnam was not subjected to armed attack by North Vietnam. Many opponents of the war argued that the American intervention was not justified by the right of collective self-defence. The Charter of the United Nations permits collective self-defense only in contingency of an armed attack, and no such armed attack existed in the shift of Vietnam. From the antiwar critics perspective, a civil war was going on in Vietnam, and the only proper course for states that were not themselves placed in the necessity of self-defense was to abstain from intervention (Frey-Wouters & Laufer 78).Conclusion The President Nixon had not won the war, or the secure peace that he had promised. He just merely delayed the day of the communist victory, with deadly and disastrous co nsequences. The Vietnam War was Americas longest armed conflict, a tragic crusade that cost millions of lives and ruined millions more. The war dispelled the widespread and unreasonable belief that, in its foreign and military policies, the United States had always exhibited the purest of motives and actions. This, of course, had never been the case, particularly in the twentieth century.From Truman to Nixon, the decisions about Vietnam were almost always made by presidents and other political leaders seeking to preserve or enhance their domestic or international political standings. While these presidents talked of preserving elective institutions in Southeast Asia, the massive influx of American manpower and military in the 1960s actually undermined the ideal of a free and self-supporting South Vietnam and transformed the nation into a client of the United States. By the time the war ended, the region that America had sought to protect from fabianism was, instead, ruled by it. At home, the United States became, in some ways, a stronger nation because of its tragic experience in Vietnam. Organized public dissent became a widely accepted and effective way of influencing public policy. The American people and the news media exhibited a more healthy distrust of government officials and their public pronouncements. These and other positive changes, however, came at a horrible cost. In the name of fighting for freedom in Vietnam, the political and military leadership of the United States inflicted untold damage on a proud nation and its people.Thus, American involvement in Vietnam represented a total failure not just of American foreign policy but also of American statesmanship. The policymakers inflexibly pursued a path which eventually damaged the magnetic core of American power by consuming excessive lives and resources, shook confederate confidence in the US strategic judgment, and demolished liberalisms political unity and legality by polarizing and para lyzing American society. Whatever the conflicting judgments about this debatable war, Vietnam without a doubt stands as the greatest tragedy of twentieth-century U.S. foreign relations. workings Cited Asselin, Pierre. A Bitter Peace Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement. Chapel Hill, NC University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Berman, David M. Never Forget the Sacrifice A Visit to Chu Van an laid-back School In Hanoi, Vietnam. Social Studies 86. 1 (1995) 12-17. Frey-Wouters, Ellen, and Robert S. Laufer. Legacy of a War The American Soldier in Vietnam. Armonk, NY M. E. Sharpe, 1986. Johns, Andrew L. Achilles Heel The Vietnam War and George Romneys Bid for the Presidency, 1967 to 1968. sugar Historical Review 26. 1 (2000) 1-16. Mann, Robert. A Grand Delusion Americas inventory into Vietnam. New York Basic Books, 2001. Olson, James S. , and Samuel Freeman, eds. Historical Dictionary of the 1960s. Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1999. VanDeMark, Brian. Into the drop-off Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. New York Oxford University Press, 1995. Helsing, Jeffrey W. Johnsons War/Johnsons Great Society The Guns and Butter Trap. Westport, CT Praeger Publishers, 2000.