Why did the U.S.A withdraw it's forces from Vietnam in 1973?

Why did the U.S.A withdraw it’s forces

From Vietnam in 1973?

Lewis Stuchbury

Ever since 1861, the French armies held power in Vietnam, keeping a tight rule on their new outpost in South East Asia. The French later branched out and took control of the neighbouring countries Laos and Cambodia, adding each to their list of Asian colonies in the late 1800’s. In the early 1920’s, political rebels began gaining power in the Vietnamese governments, demanding more and more rights to independence and freedom. In 1930, a communist revolutionary known as Ho Chi Minh set up the first Vietnamese communist party originally an ‘Indochinese’ party. In 1940, Japan demanded and received the right to place Vietnam under military occupation, restricting the local French administration to figurehead authority. Realising this new opportunity, the Communists organized the Vietminh Front and prepared to launch a revolution near the end of the war. Their aim was to bring about moderate reforms, rather than exclusively Communist principles like in Russia and China.

When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies in August 1945, the Vietminh forces rose up throughout Vietnam and declared the creation of an independent republic in Hanoi. The stubborn French were not going to give up their prized possession in the pacific so easily, and so decided to attempt to drive out the Communist Vietminh from their territory. For more than a year the French and the Vietminh sought a negotiated solution, but the talks, held in France, failed to resolve differences, and war broke out in December 1946. For nearly eight years, this war raged on, and apparent overthrow tactics were in play by both sides. The Vietminh had retreated to the hills to replenish their numbers whilst the French had decided to set up rival governments under Emperor Bao Dai, the last ruler of the Nguyen dynasty, in populated areas along the coast. Vietminh forces lacked the strength to defeat the French and generally limited their activities to guerrilla warfare. In 1953 to 1954 the French fortified a base at Dien Bien Phu.

After months of siege and heavy casualties, the Vietminh overran the fortress in a decisive battle. Because of this, the French promptly withdrew their forces in 1954, otherwise because of pressure groups back home after an already war-shattered France. At a conference held in Geneva the two sides accepted an interim compromise to end the war. They divided the country at the 17th parallel, with the Vietminh in the North and the French and their Vietnamese supporters in the South. To avoid permanent partition, a political protocol was drawn up, calling for national elections to reunify the country two years after the signing of the treaty.

The United States former president Harry S. Truman drew up the Truman Doctrine, a pact which stated that America would do everything in its power to stop the spread of communism anywhere in the world. Originally, the United States backed Ho Chi Minh’s government, believing that he was a genuine humanitarian, and a suitable leader for his people. Later they realised about his communist ideals, and quickly realised that he must be stopped at all costs, for fear that his power would corrupt nearby nations in what they described as the domino theory. This domino theory symbolised that when ...

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The original action taken by America was to send military instructors into South Vietnam to train up the ARVC (South Vietnamese army) in their own way, providing all other aid possible except sending in soldiers to fight the war for them. Still trying to avoid open conflict between American forces and the North Vietnamese communists (now known as the Viet Cong), whilst still assisting the ARVC in their endeavour to bring freedom to North Vietnam, Lyndon B. Johnson (The President at the time) introduced bombing raids on all North Vietnamese factories that were suspected of aiding the war effort in 1968.

After less than a year of watching the ARVC fall short at doing their job, Lyndon B. Johnson sent the 600,000 American conscripts that would be fighting that year into South Vietnam, by which time 36,000 men had already died. The U.S. interference caused severe problems for the Communists on the battlefield and compelled them to send regular units of the North Vietnamese army into the South. It did not persuade them to abandon the struggle, however, and in 1968, after the North's bloody ‘Tet’ offensive shook the new Saigon regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu to its core, the Johnson administration decided then to pursue a negotiated settlement. In the same year, Richard Nixon was sworn in as the new President of the USA due to Johnson inability to handle the pressure put on him at home from Anti-War protestors and saw he could not run for re-election. Immediately, President Nixon set about removing all troops from Vietnam in a strategy he called ‘Vietnamisation’. This involved removing all American Troops from the jungles of North and South Vietnam, whilst still providing military aid in the form of weaponry to the South Vietnamese ARVC Army. By 1973, the last of the American soldiers in Saigon were pulled out, leaving the ARVC to cope with the Viet Cong. The American government felt that they had failed in their aim to stop the ‘Domino Theory’, believing that Laos, Thailand and Cambodia were all next to fall. In 1975, the Communist North finally broke through into Saigon and claimed victory over South Vietnam, creating a new Communist rule above and below the 17th parallel. What the Americans didn’t expect was that they were successful enough in Vietnam to stop the Domino Theory after only two countries following the fall of Vietnam, meaning the majority of the South Pacific was safe from communist rule.

The United States withdrew their forces from Vietnam for a multitude of reasons. The Military reasons for this were mainly related to what the Vietcong could do on their own territory, which the United States hadn’t trained for, and were as such, unable to adapt to. The main style of combat used by the Vietcong was Guerrilla Warfare, which consisted on stealth like tactics, skulking around in the dense forests of Vietnam, ambushing your opponent at any given time or leaving ingenious booby-traps for the American troops to walk straight into unknowingly. This was a factor to why American pulled out because they were not used to jungle condition, therefore they were easy targets for the Veteran Vietnamese, whereas the Americans preferred open warfare with the use of machine monsters such as tanks and large scale bombers. The moral of the troops worsened as each day went on, knowing they could be the victim of the next ambush at any time, whilst simultaneously being treated like dirt by the officers in command who saw it as a way to ‘battle harden’ them. The American presidency must have seen that their troops would not fight at their best if they were miserable on the field, so that factor must have been an issue. Related to this, the a percentage of American troops stationed in Vietnam were so stressed by their predicament that they became drug addicts, some to hard drugs like heroine, and others to ‘soft’ drugs like cannabis, mainly to take the edge of and to make them forget about where they are for a short while. Knowing the men were killing themselves slowly down there, it had to be another reason why America withdrew its forces.

Vietnamese civilians living in villages nearby to the jungle skirmishes were always at risk from the American invaders. The main reason for this is that Vietnamese civilians felt it patriotic in a way if they harboured disguised Viet Cong troops in their villages. The Americans would interrogate and search the entire village, and if the American troops felt the need to take action against the villagers, they would do so by killing suspected Viet Cong, the people who sheltered them, and burnt down their village to stop it happening again. Seeing that their own troops were killing needlessly (due to the fact that this war was the first ever able to be broadcast around the world on television), the American government may have taken this matter into account when they withdrew all forces. Knowing of the Vietcong Stealth tactics, the Americans set up a counter attack, spraying the trees with a chemical know as ‘Agent Orange’ or ‘Cacodylic acid’, which stripped trees bare and exposed the Vietcong hideouts and ambush points after two or three weeks after spraying. This affected nearby civilians because the spray hit nearby villages, and with this pregnant women miscarried or if they were lucky enough to give birth to a live child, it would be victim to a horrible mutation such as being a Siamese twin or being born without a specific limb. These affected the Americans greatly because pictures of these atrocities were broadcast all over the globe, and the world could not ignore this matter. Another deadly air-based attack strategy was napalm bombing. Napalm is a sticky tar or jelly like substance that sticks to its victim and rapidly burns away the flesh it is attached to and was said to be impossible to remove once it touched you. A famous picture was taken after a napalm raid on a village in Vietnam of a girl (Phan Tu Kim Phuc) running away from her village crying naked because the napalm had burnt her clothes away and killed her family. Shown all around the world, America now seemed to be the enemy, so it could be another reason for American pulling out.

Statistics of the Vietnam War:

By 1971, 10% of American Troops stationed in Vietnam had become Heroine addicts.
The average age of soldiers serving in Vietnam was 19.
In 1971, 350 unpopular officers were fragged (killed by their own men).

Death Rates for all sides:

United States 58,000

Vietcong 900,000

ARVC 250,000

Civilians 1,000,000

The reasons that America withdrew their forces from Vietnam were due to the army in Vietnam, protestors back home and the Vietnamese civilians. The military aspect of this was because the Americans were incapable of fighting the Viet Cong, an army that could melt into a forest one minute, and ambush your platoon the next. This affected the reason for pulling troops out of Vietnam because the American president at the time knew that his men were being killed needlessly and they could not stop that because of their alternate tactics. Another reason for them pulling out because of the military was that the moral of the troops was so low that a lot of them became heavy drug users, meaning they could not fight at their best when they needed to be, so it was seen that the men were killing themselves through drug use rather than let the Vietcong kill them. This was an important factor to why they pulled out because the American conscripts should have never had to be in the position where they had to use drugs, so the American government had to feel responsible for this. The civilian aspects of the pull out were that America was under pressure from humanitarian groups from all over the world who saw them as monsters, dropping napalm on innocent civilians of a foreign country and causing mutations and miscarriages of the unborn children pregnant women with Agent Orange. This pressure caused Johnson to quit his post as President, and Nixon was determined not to follow suit, so he learned from Johnson’s mistakes, and stopped napalm and Agent Orange missions, and promptly removed all forces from Vietnam, so this aspect was very important when it came to the question of why American pulled out of Vietnam. The final reasons for pulling out Vietnam were brought upon back home in the United States where pressure groups, student protests and Anti-War protestors were doing all they could to push the Presidents as far as they could in order to get the result they needed. This pressure seemed to be the last straw, so Richard Nixon brought about Vietnamisation and gave the people their wishes and pulled his troops out of Vietnam.