Furthermore, to add to the increasingly uncomfortable situation, they implemented strategic hamlets in the south to keep the communist North from convincing the peasant population to support communism. As a result, this alienated the peasants from their home land and heritage, the forced evacuation was unnecessary as it made the Peasants dislike America even more. This played a significant part in the failure of the USA because communists began to infiltrate the Hamlets by posing as Villagers and therefore turn the peasants minds to communist ideas. It showed how badly the Americans treated the peasants and how understanding the communists were. This therefore shows why the USA failed to prevent their communist victory, on a popular level as there was no political support on a human level.
Another reason why a communist victory couldn’t be prevented was the lack of support from American Allies which links in with the previous point. If America couldn’t receive support from Vietnam then how could they gain support from Allies. They could see the war was unjust and most Allies ceased helping America. They had no support from France, as they decided to pull out when they first lost to Vietnam. All other Allies such as SEATO pulled out due to the anti-war movements from the public in Australia, New Zealand and other countries, this convinced the Allies that the war was very unjust. This was because America was supporting a corrupt and brutal regime in the South. To try and calm matters, America tried to implement the policy of Vietnamisation which trained the Southern troops to fight the war themselves. However, the ARVN were in effective, which rendered their policy futile; as the ARVN were showing signs of poor intelligence and bad leadership. As a result, America had to keep the troops in Vietnam and the war continued.
This shows me their policies were not thought through and implemented correctly. Initially, Vietnamisation seemed like a good idea but the ARVN were not very effective and this failed. Furthermore, it explains why the North were so successful in secretly setting up the Ho Chi Minh trails, which supplied the South with the military aid to fight America, which eventually led to their downfall in 1975. As a result, the Americans failed to prevent a communist victory because the lack of support from the people in the South and tactics from the communists, e.g. Ho Chi Minh trails, meant they couldn’t contain the North and lead to any kind of victory.
Another factor, why the American’s couldn’t prevent a communist victory was the Domestic problems in America. Nixon had to contend with the anti-war movement, with the constant demonstrations and the lack of public support, brought about a reason why they couldn’t prevent a communist victory. The press coverage upset many Americans and reports and photos showed the truth about the war. In addition, with the amount of money injected into the war, people were worried it would mean economic policies would be abandoned and this put pressure on Nixon. In reality, Nixon was having financial problems in the government. This shows me, that the lack of funds meant that the communists couldn’t be fought long term, as America would need to spend more money on military, which caused the retreat and the prevention of a communist victory.
In addition, the lack of support from the American public demonstrated that Nixon could lose before he had even begun. For example, when he bombed Cambodia to clear the Ho Chi Minh trail; many Americans were against this and ended up sympathising with the Communists which is something Nixon wanted to avoid. This has a large significance as the Americans could never prevent a communist victory as they had lots of people against them.
In conclusion, I wrote this essay to discover why the Americans couldn’t prevent a communist victory. All things combined caused the downfall, but the most important aspect was that they couldn’t win the Hearts and minds of the Vietnamese, as this factor mirrored to other countries. With their policies of strategic Hamlets it was no wonder why they never prevented a communist victory.