Explain why the USA withdrew its forces from Vietnam in 1973

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Rayhana Abdin 11EN

Explain why the USA withdrew its forces from Vietnam in 1973?

The US army withdrew its forces from Vietnam in 1973 by several reasons. The main reason was that the USA couldn’t beat the Vietnamese because they had better tactics e.g the guerrilla tactic and another reason is the lack of support from the American public because it was down to them the US forces withdraws from Vietnam.

The USA had got involved with the Vietnam because the US were worried that the Vietnam would become communists and if one country turns communists then the rest will follow this leads to the domino theory. The president Eisenhower said “if one country turns communism then others would also fall like a row of dominos.” They also got involved by the Truman Doctrine and containment because this was Truman’s idea of stopping communism from happening.

The US army withdrew because they were not able to beat the Vietcong. The Vietcong were using great tactics during the war. They used the guerrilla tactics this was when they dug tunnels to take shelter, so they don’t get killed by the bombs. The Viet cong were fighting a guerrilla war this was when they attack the Americans and then disappear into the villages or their tunnels, from source 36 I can see the tunnels were spaced out and the Viet cong were well prepared for the Americans because there are some booby traps in case any enemy’s find them. The aim of the guerrilla tactics was to wreck the enemy’s morale and wear down them. They worked in small groups with limited weapons; they were hard to tell apart from the peasants.

On 7 February 1965 the USA launched Operation Rolling Thunder. This involved the extensive bombing raids on military and industrial targets in North Vietnam, this had lasted until 1972. They had bombed towns and cities in North and South Vietnam also sites along the Ho Chi Minh trail. More bombs were dropped in North Vietnam than the whole of the Second World War. This bombing was effective because it damaged the North Vietnams war effort and it also disrupted supply routes. However this could not defeat the communists this could only slow them down, the Viet Cong continued to use their supply lines.  When the USA was bombing there bombing tactics weren’t working very well against the Viet Cong because they will hide themselves and all their equipment in the dug up tunnels. The tunnels were often mined and booby trapped because in case of enemy’s turning up and they are found. There was estimation that there was 240 kilometres of these tunnels. The USA weren’t able to beat them because the Viet Cong were too clever for them, so that is another reason why they withdrew.

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The USA had very good chemical weapons because they had developed a really powerful chemical weapon called the Agent Orange. This was a highly toxic weed killer. This was used to kill and destroy the jungle where the Viet Cong were hiding. The Americans had used about 82 million litres of Agent Orange to spray thousands of kilometres of the jungle. This chemical weapon was very good to kill the Viet Cong in the jungle. The Americans had also used the Napalm this was also used to destroy the jungles were the Guerrillas were hiding. This chemical weapon burned ...

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