How And Why Did The Americans Become More Increasingly Involved In Vietnaam Between 1954 And 1964?

        The Korean War in 1950 was what the Americans believed as a fight between good and evil, communism and non - communism.  America were frightened of communism spreading further to large countries such as Japan and others in the Far - East.  In this the Americans lost over 30000 men fighting communism which created more tension and worry in America that communism would and will spread so they had to stop it and believed after losing so many men that they had no choice but to become more and more involved in Vietnam otherwise communism would spread further and further until it had engulfed the whole world which was the USA's biggest fear.

        In 1947 the Truman Doctrine gave the USA the foreign policy objective of preserving democracy against the spread of communism across the world.  The "domino theory" emerged out of the Truman Doctrine in 1947.  At this time Greece was under great threat of being taken over by communist ways and the American secretary said that if Greece was taken over by communism then Turkey and other close by countries soon might follow the same way and Soviet domination might spread over the middle - east and Asia which is the same as a line of dominos; when one is knocked over it thus knocks the next and they fall one after another until all are fallen to the ground.  The USA also at this time followed a policy of "containment" which was to stop further spread of communism and to contain it where it was at that time.  This did not work however and the USA were forced to think up a different programme and this was the policy of "rollback" which was basically drawing a line against any new communist states in Asia.  However America had to look at their priorites and see what their practical limits were in preventing of rolling back the onward sp[read of communism. The USA's involvement in Vietnam was thus explicable in terms of Cold War world policy and more specifically the failure to stop the spread of communism in Korea.

        The Tonkin Crisis also contributed to America becoming more and more involved in Vietnam.  This was when the USA sent a ship into the Gulf of Tonkin to supposedly gather information however many believe it was just an attempt to lure the Vietnamese submarines to attack it so that America had a reason to retaliate and send in more and more troops to fight the Vietcong.  The supposed plan worked.  The American ship ad underwater torpedos fired at it however it was undamaged and later sank the submarines.  This caused the USA to become more involved in Vietnam however many say it was a planned scheme by the American president.

        So, altogether we see that America became more and more involved in the war in Vietnam because basically they seemed to have no other option but to do it otherwise they faced world spread of communism.  If they did not become greatly involved then communism would spread more and threaten the USA's supremacy and its Capitalist views altogether.