Aside from the Domino Theory, another main reason why America got involved was because of the French Exit in Vietnam. The main point for this reason is that if the French hadn’t left Vietnam America wouldn’t have to get involved at all. When the French left, it left a void in Vietnam, that USA filled, a Policeman’s role to stop the threat of communism. After the French left, Vietnam was divide in two at the 17th parallel under the Geneva Peace Treaty in 1954. The communist controlled the North and a non-Communist Government controlled the South. Diem was a catholic in a predominantly Buddhist country, this did not stand well with the Buddhists. Diem made his relations with the Buddhist because he persecuted the Buddhists by barring the festivals, destroying their monasteries. Also due to his failings as President, Buddhist monks like Thich Quang Duc would go to Saigon (Vietnam capital) and burn them selves to death in protest to Diem. Diem’s Failure meant that the USA had to increase involvement in Vietnam. Part of the Geneva Peace Treaty said that the Vietnamese should have elections to unite the country in 1956, but the US disallowed the elections agreed in Geneva. This was because the Americans knew that the Vietnamese would vote for Ho Chi Minh instead of Diem because of his corruption and unpopularity. If Ho Chi Minh was elected then the Vietnam Domino would fall to communism. This angered Ho Chi Minh and actively attacked the south through the Vietcong. Diem’s failures to stop communism spreading in the South meant that the USA had to get more involved in Vietnam. The USA had another reason to increase involvement in Vietnam to stop the threat of Communism.
The American’s hoped that the UN (United Nations) would step in and solve the communist problem of Vietnam. But The UN would not do anything because the Russians (who were communist) vetoed the action. America was now unilateral involved in Vietnam. They now saw that they would have to take up a policeman’s role to stop spreading of Communism, which led to the President’s escalating the War.
Another reason for the increased involvement was the influence of the previous presidents. A ‘Bitter Heritage’ where each President followed on the idea of the predecessor escalating the war. Starting with President Truman’s theory of containment, containing communism into one country, which had succeeded in Korea but had failed with China, although the USA did not get involved with communism in China. This theory evolved into Eisenhower’s Domino Theory. Both presidents’ had put money into South Vietnam to help the French and then the South Vietnamese. By 1961 Kennedy took office and maintained the policy of money being sent some troops to help the South Vietnamese government. When Kennedy was in power he set up Strategic Hamlet. This was a method to stop communists from entering a village but had failed, communist support grew to 17000. The troops that Kennedy had sent was said to be advisors, who were not meant to be fighting, this was not always the truth. Once the soldiers were in Vietnam, the USA was fighting against the Vietcong. When Kennedy was assassinated, two weeks after Ho Chi Minh, President Lyndon Johnson was the successor. Johnson poured more money and troops into Vietnam, and finally increased the involvement after 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
In August 1964 two US navel vessels were on patrol off the coast of Vietnam in the Gulf Of Tonkin. An incident happened in where supposedly North Vietnamese patrol boats fired on the American destroyer, The Maddox, in the Gulf Of Tonkin. Both houses of the US government, congress and representatives, that the North had attacked America. Both houses voted in favour of the “Gulf Of Tonkin Resolution”. This was not a major reason in why America became increasingly more involved, the war in Vietnam would have still happened without Tonkin. President Johnson only used the Gulf Tonkin incident as an excuse to get more involved in Vietnam, and to have US forces attack the Vietcong, he famously said “ If we quit Vietnam, tomorrow we’ll be fighting in Hawaii and next week we’ll have to fight in San Francisco”. The Gulf Of Tonkin incident was really the spark that got America increasingly involved. The “Gulf Of Tonkin Resolution” gave the US permission to bomb the North and Hanoi (the Capital) with Operation Flaming Dart and send in Ground Troops and to launch operation ‘Rolling Thunder’, a constant attack of the North.
Despite the help the American’s gave the South Vietnamese Government were unable to defeat the highly organised Vietcong. By 1965 large amounts of South Vietnam was captured to the Vietcong, with the Government ready to collapse. If the threat of communism was to be stopped from spreading to Asia, the US had to get more involved. Using the Domino Theory to explain the USA’s next step to stop communism from spreading. They started sending large amounts of weapons and troops to Vietnam.
Chomsky saw the World as economic. He saw that Vietnam had lots of resources, USA wanted resources, and trade. USA needed to stop the Vietnam Domino falling, otherwise it meant that they lost a country to do trading. The US were competing with Russia and China, if Vietnam became communist then Russia and China had another country to trade with. But Chomsky’s view was only economic, not political like Domino theory, and the French; Military Exit.
In conclusion the US became increasingly more involved in the war in Vietnam due to one small spark that set it off, The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident. But this was only an excuse to get involved more. It was due to the fear of the threat of Communism spreading like falling Dominos. This is linked to the French exit; if the French hadn’t left then the USA would not have to get involved. America wanted to avoid communism being right on their front door, such as the Cuban Missile crisis. Also each of the President’s involved in the Vietnam War all had the choice to not carry on the war, to pull out, but none did. This is due to the influence of the previous president. They got involved by steadily increasing the influence they gave to the Southern Vietnam army. This leading to the failings of the corrupt Diem, leading to the cancelling of the elections, which angered the North, who retaliated by attacking the south, and in response the Americans increased it’s troops to try meet the threats of the Vietcong and Communism. But some factors can be linked to other factors, domino theory and influence of the presidents. Also some of the Factors are more important than others, the most important being the Domino Theory, and the French Exit, but the UN not being as important in the reasons why America got more involved. The Domino theory was the justification for the war. The Gulf of Tonkin was only an excuse , French exit was the void that America filled, and Diem’s failings, all of which linked to the Domino Theory, which is basically the reason why America got increasingly involved in Vietnam.