Explain why the USA withdrew its forces from Vietnamin 1973

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Name: Emily Capes                Candidate Number: 5085

Explain why the USA withdrew its forces from Vietnam in 1973

America withdrew its last troops from Vietnam in 1973 but troop numbers were being reduced since 1969 after the election of President Nixon on a pledge of “Peace with honour”.

Eight years earlier in 1965 president Johnson had committed the nation to war with general support from the population who had come to fear communism. America was committed to Truman’s policy of “Containment” of communism thereby hoping to prevent the ‘domino effect’ whereby America feared that if Vietnam became a communist country, other neighbouring countries would follow suit. They entered the war as the world’s richest and most technologically advanced nation with an army that had been victorious in all previous campaigns. Their weaponry was advanced and far superior to the limited resources of the Vietcong whose soldiers were made up in part of untrained peasants and farmers.

When America withdrew its last troops from Vietnam in 1973 it was not as a victorious conqueror but as a humiliated and divided nation. I have attempted to set out below the reasons for the US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973.

Despite its huge technological superiority, America failed to overcome the Vietcong army. This was due to a combination of American weakness and Vietcong strengths.

The US army found itself fighting an enemy it seldom saw. Dense jungle with swamps prevented the use of tanks and high-tech weaponry committing the army to foot patrols while the Vietcong enemy employed ‘guerrilla’ tactics to confront the US troops. Guerrilla tactics is a system whereby a smaller number of soldiers can harass larger forces at their leisure, making use of camouflage, concealment and unconventional tactics such as booby traps. The Vietcong soldiers built elaborate underground tunnel systems both for concealment and to protect them from US bombing. These elaborate tunnel systems served as weapon stores and living accommodation as well as providing hospital facilities. The tunnels were booby trapped to kill any American soldiers who entered them. The Vietcong constructed these complex booby traps along jungle tracks to maim and kill US soldiers. They included concealed pits with sharp stakes tipped with poison or human excrement, as well as land mines and grenades attached to trip wires. The American army constantly suffered casualties from these booby traps without seeing or confronting the enemy.

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Due to the dense vegetation, there was often a sense of being surrounded. With no traditional “front line” it was impossible to know which area or village was controlled by the enemy. The terrain was hostile to the American soldiers who had to march through rice fields in the oppressive heat and rain, attacked by insects and leeches. Some Vietcong soldiers were “part time”, working as farmers through the day and most wore peasant clothes making them impossible to tell apart from ordinary village people. The Vietcong fighters also included women and children which the Americans could not comprehend.

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