Explain why the United Sates became increasingly involved in the War in Vietnam.

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History Coursework - Vietnam        Mr Buckley

  1. Explain why the United Sates became increasingly involved in the War in Vietnam.

The United States became involved in the war in Vietnam for many reasons. The main reason of which is the Cold War. No fighting between the two countries actually took place due to both countries owning nuclear weapons which were used as a deterrent but got at each other by involving themselves in the issues of other countries that had a knock on effect on each other. The Cold War was a war that initiated between the US and Russia after World War two. The war started because after the war Russia took over Eastern Europe and turned all of the countries under its control communist. However the US wanted Europe to stay capitalist and took over the west of Europe. Capitalism is the idea of every body working for themselves and making their own way up and having clear divisions between rich and poor. Capitalists have private schools and healthcare etc. Communism is the idea that the workers rule the world; there are no divisions in society and everybody being equal. Communists have public schools and healthcare. After Germany was divided through Berlin by the Berlin Wall the whole of East and West Europe was divided by what Churchill famously called The Iron Curtain. The war in Vietnam started because they didn’t want the same effect in South East Asia.

     Now that the iron curtain had been placed between the two political divisions in Europe the US had to stop the west from turning communist. To do this it used the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was the United States way of keeping the west by loaning them money to rebuild after World War Two as long as the countries that they loaned money to stayed capitalist. In other words they could loan America’s money as long as they adopted their ideals. This was brought about due to the Domino Theory. This was the belief that if one country fell to communism then all of the surrounding countries would also fall, like a line of dominoes. In the end this never happened. Vietnam fell and none of its surrounding countries fell after. These were both backed up by the Truman Doctrine. At this time the US President was Harry S Truman and he pledged to help any country fight a communist take over with US military and governmental support. This was proven in such a war as Korea in the 1950’s where the US tried to stop a communist take over from the north. This was sparked by the cold war and being able to get at Russia by trying to prevent a communist take over in the whole of Korea. These were all containment policies put in place by America to try to prevent a worldwide communist take over and there were all applied in Asia in the 1950’s after China fell to communism to try and prevent the domino theory. However all of these polices were just more and more ways to get at Russia and gain a mental advantage in the Cold War.

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     However these world issues were not the only things causing the US to become more involved in Vietnam but also what was happening in Vietnam itself. We have to remember that the war that America involved itself in was actually a civil war in which they had no right to interfere. The problem that started it off was Ho Chi Minh (bringer of light). Ho Chi Minh was the leader in Vietnam. He studied in Paris and the USSR and learnt communist tactics and politics. He then returned to Vietnam and brought together its communist groups as the ...

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