The biases of the time are not as strong today as they were 30 years ago, and yet no real change in how the war is viewed has taken place. The idea that Vietnam was a morass into which the United States should not have ventured is strongly held by millions of Americans today, and the idea is reinforced through repetition so that it seems unlikely that one or two generations more will make that much difference. Many of the people repeating this idea today do not really remember the Vietnam War at all except as a history lesson, and the lesson is not being given as Lind predicts it will. 3. The war had been under way for some time when Johnson inherited it upon the death of President Kennedy. Johnson had to decide whether to commit large number of American troops to this war, and he decided to do so and expanded the war greatly. This decision was the closest thing to a declaration of war that occurred with respect to this war. This began the process of Americanizing the war, whicuh until then had been fought largely by the South Vietnamese with some American advisors offering assistance. The war had been going on for more than a decade when Johnson made his decision. Johnson had approval for conducting the war in the form of the Gulf...
By 1965, Johnson feared that South Vietnam would lose the war. Johnson could have abandoned the South Vietnamese, but he decided that this would hurt him politically at home and also might lead to the fulfillment of the domino theory. Still, the situation weas deteriorating, and Johnson deicded it was necessary to help the people of the south and that the way to do this was to Americanize the war, sending in troops that could do the job the South Vietnamese clearly could not. This was considered the only way to save South Vietnam. Johnson first expanded the air war, and this served as the excuse to follow with an expansion of ground forces. Further expansion followed as the initial thrust failed to end the war, leading to the deployment of thousands more forces in higher and higher numbers as a way of bringing all power to bear on the North Vietnamese in order to force an end to the war. Clearly, this also did not work, and the war simply got bigger and bigger. Once the Americanization process was started, it had to continue and draw in more and more troops. Troops were indeed sent in waves over the next several years, and more and more the war was about saving America's face instead of saving the people of South Vietnam.S. mission in Vietnam. Whenever he had the chance, he restated the nation's moral commitment. His morally-grounded idealistic rhetoric gained him definite advantages. His arguments made him sound tough and pleased those with an equally hard-line position against communism in Southeast Asia. He could also use these arguments to justify and support his policies, such as when Congress threatened to reduce foreign aid. He insisted that foreign aid was an
Vietnam War The lessons from Vietnam War The quest for independence in Vietnam m was widely violent and involved factions arming themselves to face the other. Ho Chi Minh who was a communist activist by 1941 sneaked back to Vietnam after 30 years in exile and helps put together Vietnam Independence League. Immediately after World War II, Ho Chi Minh sent his guerillas to help free some captured American pilots from the
Vietnam War A Short Analysis of the Economic Impacts of a War that Changed a Generation The Vietnam War is a very recent conflict. It is remembered not just by grandparents, like World War Two, but many still have living parents who recall with horror the ordeals of this war upon this country, many of which were emotionally exhausting, as well as financially and economically depleting. Many individuals, especially veterans, do not
Vietnam -- Rules of Engagement There are many reasons given for the fact that the United States lost the war in Vietnam, and that America was basically pushed out of the country by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army even though the U.S. had far more firepower. Among the more credible reasons America lost the war was the failure on the part of the political leaders back in Washington
South Vietnam, it believed, could be a base for the desired ability to mount military and economic operations throughout the globe and regardless of the insidious presence of communist influence, a premise which stood in direct contrast to Ho Chi Minh's dream. Indeed, as an official policy, leaders in Washington considered that the fall of South Vietnam to communism would be a pathway to the prevalence of communism in other
Vietnamese people are generally polychromic, in particular with respect to privacy and family relations. They are high-context people who value and gather information about their world to be used later to guide behavior in different situations. Vietnam is a high power distance culture, where roles are formally defined and accepted. The have high uncertainly avoidance. For example, when meeting somebody they will first ask that person's age because age guides
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now