Why did the United States withdraw it's forces from Vietnamin 1973?

H.Noble

Mr. Marshall

11 Blue

Why did the United States withdraw it’s forces from Vietnam in 1973?

During the Vietnam War the United States was not only undergoing the stresses that war puts on an economy, but the population of the U.S.A was also going under a massive amount of political and social reform. I intend to use this essay to show how these factors, and many more besides forced the United States to pull out of a war that they entered into with such bravado.

There are many issues that I shall discuss concerning the extraction of U.S. troops from Vietnam; the first points that I shall discuss are the tactics that were used. The American troops were forced to play by the rules the NVA and Vietcong set, because they were fighting on terrain and under circumstances unlike anything that any army had ever come across before. This meant that as the Vietcong and NVA knew the terrain better than the U.S. forces they could plan surprise ambushes that the Americans, who were used mainly to the European battlefields of WWII and the straight fighting of the Korean War, were unable to counter, despite their superior technology. This meant that the U.S. had no way to combat the tactics of the Vietcong, which was a major factor to their forced retreat. Next their most potent weapon, i.e. the atom bomb, was unavailable to them; as if they started using nuclear weapons there was always the possibility that Russia and China could retaliate in the same way, which was not even contemplatable. China and Russia also helped the NVA by supplying them with weapons and ammunition, meaning that although the NVA’s technology wasn’t quite up to American standards they still had superior technology than they would have done. Next the communist regime of North Vietnam meant that they were able to pump huge numbers of soldiers into the war, using these vast numbers simply to swamp the Americans by force of numbers rather than superior technology. This only worked because the NVA troops were fighting a war they actually believed in, in contrast however the U.S. troops were disheartened by having to fight a war hundreds of miles away from their homes in a country that they had probably never heard of before. Not only that, but due to the democratic nature of U.S. politics their policies were subject to the will of the people and therefore the military leaders could never have been given anywhere near the number of troops that the NVA could call up. This is because, despite the war being for the good of the free world people are naturally selfish and do not want to lose loved ones e.g. despite losses by Vietcong and NVA in the Tet Offensive being over thirty-five times that of the U.S. these losses were regarded as unacceptable by the U.S. public. The guerrilla warfare used by the Vietcong was deadly to the U.S. forces; as to beat fanatical guerrilla forces you must have two things; the full backing of your people, and the strength of your convictions to carry it through to the bitter end. The U.S. had neither of these things and intended to go in simply as a warning to Russia and China that they could be as easily crushed as North Vietnam and to stop the ‘domino effect’. Unfortunately the U.S. went in ill prepared to use the non-p.c. tactics that would be necessary to take out such an army, as they were restrained by their morals and not the necessity to defeat the communists.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The televisual media in the U.S. had recently become a powerful force in convincing the public of a point of view, right or wrong, so when the Vietnam War erupted the press made it the first television war. Unfortunately this was not the case, as due to the communist rigours of North Vietnam and the secretive nature under which the Vietcong operated it was impossible to show the suffering they went through, and so only the U.S. perspective could be shown. Unfortunately as the war in Vietnam wasn’t measurable by ground captured, as the enemy was everywhere, or enemies killed, as the NVA and Vietcong losses were undeterminable, whether a country was winning or losing the war had to be judged by the state of the nation, which the media turned into turmoil. During World wars One and Two the U.S. government could always rely on the support of Hollywood to show the inspiring deeds performed by the G.I.’s, but during the Vietnam war no really big films featuring the war as their main theme were made, with the exception of John Wayne’s “The Green Berets”. This lack of support was a big blow to the army as cinema had always affected the views of the people.

When events like the My Lai massacre were broadcasted on the evening news worldwide, people finally began to realise the dehumanising effect that the war was having on the pride of the American youth, the politicians began to realise that the people weren’t ready for a war of this magnitude, because so far all the combats of the cold war had been fought in the open battlefields of Korea, where a simple war of basic tactics could win, or over telex machines to Russia. The American public just weren’t ready for the possibility of their “boy’s” massacring dozens of innocent civilians just to kill a twenty odd Vietcong spies and recruiters, but unfortunately that was the only way the U.S. forces could parry the tactics utilised by the Vietcong.

As the televisions at home were showing more and more pictures of the horrors of the war in Vietnam the younger generation assumed that this was the whole truth and began to rebel, in movements such as the hippy movement. These movements forced American politicians to seriously think about their policies regarding Vietnam, as literally thousands of new votes were being poured down the drain. When in May of 1970 a peaceful protest in Kent State University got way out of hand, and the tragic deaths of four over-violent protesters were announced on national news, it became apparent that Vietnam was not only a physical war, but war of morals and conscience that the public were not prepared to commit to. Events such as this pushed more and more people to refuse the ‘draft’ and join the protesters, meaning public opinion was slanted more and more against the war in Vietnam.

Although the Tet Offensive killed off many of the NVA and almost totally wiped out the Vietcong, it was still seen as a failure by the U.S. people when the media told the scale of the offensive to them, the American people assumed that the Army had being lying to them and trying to cover up losses. When in fact as the Vietcong were all but destroyed the NVA had to rely on conventional warfare tactics that the U.S. could have parried much more easily. This was the final straw for the U.S. public and convinced them that the war had to be ended as soon as possible, at all costs.

The cost of any war is a huge sum for any country to cover, let alone a long drawn out war such as that in Vietnam, which is estimated to have costed $200,000,000,000,000, be they an industrial superpower or not this is a huge amount of money, so the U.S. government had to put up taxes, and move funds, from other utilities to the war effort. This caused a great deal of economic fluctuation during the Vietnam war, as some parts of the government were not getting anywhere near the funds they needed.

As relations between Russia, China and the U.S. began to improve the need for the Vietnam War to be a warning to the Communist superpowers became irrelevant and one of the main reasons for the American entry to the war in 1954 was removed. The removal of U.S. troops from Vietnam was also thought of as a gesture by the U.S. government of non-aggression.

Lastly America was going through a social reform whereby black citizens were pushing for acceptance within society and equal rights, this meant that as civil rights heroes like Mohammed Ali (Cassius Clay) refused to accept the draft because of religious opposition black citizens across America took that as a protest against the inequalities of black oppression, that he would not fight a war for a man who did not believe him to be equal, and refused to fight in Vietnam. Which meant another large proportion of the population was against war in Vietnam.

It is my opinion that from the facts I have discussed the most important reason for the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam was simply that the U.S.A. is a democratic country, I think this because the media in a democratic country is free to say whatever they want, whereas the North Vietnamese government could control the press and as such could control the will of the people. Also because the U.S. is democratic it is subject to the will of the people, and can therefore only do what appears best for the people in the short term not the long term, as it is immediate results that win votes. If the U.S. had been communist that would have meant that the people would have to have followed the will of the party, and as such the army could have had as many men as it needed to crush the NVA and Vietcong. Last of all as all the land in a communist country is owned by the people all the profits go to the party so economic cost would not have been as big of a worry as it was.