As a matter of fact the opinions about Americans stopping the Communism from spreading throughout Asia are disparate. Vietnam War statistics WebPages assert that the U.S. commitment in Vietnam prevented some of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asia) countries, like Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand falling for Communism. Conversely some Vietnam Veterans believe the spreading of the Communism was blocked during the wartime. Many of them still believe they did not lose the war. Actually after the Americans withdrew from war the expansion increased and Communism affected such places as Afghanistan, Guinea-Bissau, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and other.
Secondly, President Johnson in his speech named the reasons for the United States’ involvement in Vietnam War. He emphasized that they had to keep their promise to South Vietnam. To support his statement the President noticed that every President had offered support to South Vietnam since 1954.
As far as keeping promises was concerned, it was partially accomplished. The United States did intervene in the conflict between North and South Vietnam thus keeping promise. On the other hand, before the war was over, the U.S. withdrew from it leaving South Vietnam on his own. South Vietnam’s President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned from his post accusing the U.S. of betrayal since South Vietnam was left to face his own defeat after Americans left the country. So, in fact the United States failed to accomplish this goal, as the people they helped were not satisfied with the assistance.
The third reason going to war was that the Americans went to Vietnam “to strengthen the World order”. This statement implies that many nations believe that they could count on the U.S. in case of being attacked. But if they do not save one of these nations, like South Vietnam, the others would lose confidence in the value of America’s commitment, which might lead to an increased unrest and instability, and/or an even wider war.
At this point the United States succeeded in carrying out their aim. When Vietnam needed her help, the U.S. was there to assist. Hence, the United States proved to be a reliable allay at the time of military trouble. However, their withdrawal form the war did not aid much to retain this name, nevertheless the fact that the U.S. came to help when someone needed must have made other countries believe in their support in case of compelling events.
Chapter II
Undeclared Goals of Different Groups in the United States
Perhaps one of the most paramount goals of the United States was to show their strength to the rest of the world and especially Russia. The Vietnam War most probably must be considered as a battle in the war - in the Cold War. The Cold War - the rivalry between the U.S. and the USSR competing for the name of the World greatest power. The intervening in the war that did not seem such a hard task, was a good befalling for the United States to demonstrate their power and win one more round in the fight with USSR.
On the one hand this goal was completely unsuccessful. The United States went to Vietnam as the great conqueror that had not suffered a real defeat for many years. But American dreams of easy victory did not come true and they had to withdraw from the war having not achieved all goals. This made the USSR feel more stable in the Cold War. On the basis of former secret Soviet archives, the Russian historian concludes, “Inspired by its gains and by the decline of the U.S. prestige resulting from Vietnam and domestic upheaval, the Soviet leadership adopted a more aggressive and rigid foreign policy, particularly in the Third World”. He says the lessons the Soviets drew from Vietnam had an effect that was precisely the opposite of that in the United States. On the other hand some of the Vietnam Veterans assert that although the Vietnam War exposed the weak points of the U.S., Vietnam War could have been the trigger cause for the latter collapse of the Soviet Union, since while helping the North Vietnamese, the Soviets increased their economic burden. In either case, the defeat in Vietnam was a big fiasco for the then government of the U.S.
Major McMaster states the real intentions of President Johnson in the Vietnam War. “In 1964 and 1965, Johnson’s principal goals were to win the presidency in his own right and to pass his Great Society legislation through Congress.” Thus the president waged the war just to become more popular and get reelected. But the war did not turn out in the way the President and his successors wished it to be. And seeing that people in the U.S. were more and more dissatisfied with America’s foreign policy Johnson himself decided not to seek reelection in 1968.
Another thing was that the United States had not participated in any important war after the Word War II. The situation in Vietnam, therefore, was also a great chance for them to try out their military power and make use of food and weaponry resources. As the Cold War had began years before the Vietnam War started the U.S. military strength improved: people were trained, guns produced, new stratagems set up etc. But everything had to be tested more than just on an imaginary enemy before it could be adopted in a more exhausting war. Consequently as the U.S. did not think Vietnam would be a difficult task that might have been a chance to test their new military innovations. Besides the accumulated resources had to be used thus creating conditions for the new industry development.
It might be said that this aim was achieved. Although the Vietnam War was not the greatest war of American history, this was a very good lesson that debunked the faultiness of their military stability and thus made room for improvements. The resources must also have been used sufficiently since the war lasted almost twenty years.
The army and the war industry could have also benefited from the war. Generally, when the war starts it is obvious that the state begins investing more money into army and to the related organizations. Thus, the progress is more likely to occur in these spheres. The State itself immerses to debts but certain organizations benefit much from that. And naturally, regardless of the outcome of war, these private institutions get both material and improvement results.
There were some social reasons to go to the Vietnam War. Americans were very proud of their country after the Second World War but as the years passed by, the fame started fading. Hence, men in the U.S. wanted some military action that would have made them proud and America itself more outstanding than other countries.
This goal was a complete fiasco. At the end of the war people were protesting against war, instead of being proud of it. The war had fundamental effect on the U.S. society, which was traumatized by the memory of over 50,000 dead, the brutality of war which left hundreds of thousands physically or mentally injured and the defeat of a hitherto confident, mighty superpower by a small, underdeveloped Communist country.
Concluding the matters mentioned above, although many of the Vietnam Veterans deny losing the war in Vietnam, it is obvious from the analysis above that the United States did lose it. It is self-evident that the vanquished is not the one who lost the least men but the one who failed to achieve its goals. The same situation occurred in the Second World War since the USSR was the one to lose the most men but Germany was the defeated one. So although the U.S. losses were little comparing to those of South and North Vietnam they were actually vanquished. Out of all the pursued goals the U.S. successfully achieved only a few of them that were of the second importance and the US were forced to withdraw from war. America failed to stop Communism from spreading in different countries. It also showed to the World that the great America was not so great after all. This was a big loss in the Cold War, which had been the main target for the U.S. Thus, the USSR, supplying North Vietnam, won this round.
These conclusions make me proceed to the final chapter of my essay where I will analyze the causes of the defeat of the United States in Vietnam.
Chapter III
Why the United States did not achieve their Goals in Vietnam War?
The United States, as mentioned in Chapter II, sought to show for the World their power and to stop Communism form advancing. So firstly, Ho Chi Minh was able to identify the U.S. as another Western power who wanted to colonize Vietnam, even though that was not the U.S. objective and this was a big victory for the locals. The guerilla war started against the U.S. and “Vietcong <…> were experts at guerilla warfare”.
Eric Hoffer in his book “True Believers” made it clear that it is not the men with the most guns, natural resources or money who win the battle. But the men who are true believers in their cause and who will sacrifice anything to make them happen who win in politics, war, or any other arena. This leads us to the second reason of defeat: North Vietnamese and the NLF had been much more motivated in their cause, and hence were able to stand the U.S. attacks and even win the war.
The third major reason was that America was not prepared for such a long war. The authority back in the United States thought to confute Vietnam quickly and leave being outstanding conquers. But the war proved to be as President Johnson said in his speech in 1965 “dirty, brutal and difficult”.
Furthermore what the United States learned from this War was, that you cannot win the war in other country without the support of the locals. But one of the main factors was that the United States soldiers were not able to win the support of the local people what was extremely important in a guerilla war. “The South Vietnamese were certainly not Communists or Communist sympathizers but they were patriots in the best sense of the word. They knew they would not prosper under a Communist government but they also could not bear to see their country being torn apart.” Already in 1967 it was obvious that the U.S. would not be able to win the war. “It was obvious for many of us volunteers who lived and worked with the Vietnamese and were able to see the situation through their eyes.” And in fact, it could have been predicted that the war for the U.S. was doomed from the beginning since there is no way for a foreign power to win the support of the local population. Seeing the sad outcome of war the morale of American troops plummeted. Drug and alcohol abuse became more common and officers giving risky orders became the targets of “fraggings”- attempt murder, often by grenade.
The worsened domestic policies also brought their part to the war. Already in 1964 the opposition to the war developed. People were not satisfied with such a long and futile war especially when every month there were about 500 new casualties among the U.S. troops. They also were infuriated by the cost of $130 billion directly and at least that much of indirect costs. A serious inflation was spurred, constituting to a substantially increased cost of living in the United States between 1965 and 1975, with continue repercussions thereafter.
And last but not least, all the American implements of war were of little use in Vietnam because of the specific environmental conditions there.
Conclusions
In 1954 – 1975 the United States got involved in the Vietnam War. Naturally they had both declared and non-declared goals.
Declared Goals of the United States in Vietnam War:
- To secure the Freedom in the World:
- To thwart the Communism from spreading in the World.
- To keep promises to South Vietnam, that USA would come to help in case of need.
- To maintain other people’s trust in America as the power, that would help to overcome hazardous conflicts with other countries.
- Political:
- The authorities wanted to be reelected.
- Economic – war industry and the related institutions could be developed
- The Army got more investments because of war.
- Military:
- To demonstrate her military power to the World and especially Russia.
- To try out their military strength and to make use of resources.
- Social:
- People wanted to be proud of their country.
Why the United States did not achieve their Goals in Vietnam War?
- The U.S. failed to win the support of South Vietnamese, who did not want to see their country destroyed.
- The guerilla war began soon after the military operations started. The Vietnamese were highly experienced in guerrilla warfare.
- The North Vietnamese and the NLF were more motivated since they were fighting for the independence of their country thus making them even more determined warriors.
- Seeing the sad outcome of war the morale of American troops plummeted and they started sabotaging and making rash decisions.
- American arms were of little use because of difficult environmental conditions.
- After a few years of the war without any result the people back in the U.S. started protesting against fighting and demanded for the army withdraw.
Bibliography
Primary sources:
Reminiscences of:
William Meyers
Jim Hendiss
Rob Ilvaine
Gary Capshaw
Documents:
Excerpts from Speech Given by President Johnson at Johns Hopkins University, April 7, 1965. Public papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, pp. 394 – 397.
Summary of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara’s Memo to President Johnson, July 20, 1965. Gravel (ed.), Pentagon Papers, Vol. 4, pp. 297 – 299.
Secondary sources:
Gaiduk, Ilja V. The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996).
Lowe, Norman. Mastering Modern World History. Third edition (Macmillan Press, 1997)
McMaster, Major H.R., “Declaration of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Lies that led to Vietnam”. (New York, 1997)
Palmowski, Jan. Dictionary of Twentieth Century World History (Oxford , New York, 1997)
Computer, WebPages:
Gorier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1998
- Asian nation. The landscape of Asian America.
- Encarta Encyclopedia
- Vietnam's Knowledge Base
Created and Designed By Tan Le
– Spartacus Education
- History of the Vietnam War 101, Presented by Bob Blackburn, Ph.D. and Edwin Moise, Ph.D
– Statistics about the Vietnam War, made by Gary Roush
- Vassar college site “the wars for Viet Nam 1945 - 1975
Gorier Multimedia Encyclopedia 1998, The Vietnam War
Public papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, pp. 394 – 397.
Statistics of the Vietnam War
Memories of Jim Hendiss from Vietnam War.
Public papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, pp. 394 – 397.
Memories of Rob Ilvaine from Vietnam War.
Ilja V.Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996). P. 250
Memories of Jim Hendiss from Vietnam War.
Major H.R. McMaster, “Declaration of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Lies that led to Vietnam”
Extract from interview with Major H.R. McMaster.
Palmowski, Jan. Dictionary of Twentieth Century World History, The Vietnam War.
Memories of William Meyers, Professor of Iowa State University, from Vietnam War.
Lowe, Norman. Mastering Modern World History. Third edition. P.154
Memories of Gary Capshaw from Vietnam.
Public papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, pp. 394 – 397.
Memories of William Meyers, Professor of Iowa State University, from Vietnam War.
Glorier Multimedia Encyclopedia 1998, The Vietnam War.
Memories of Dan Phariss from Vietnam War.
Glorier Multimedia Encyclopedia 1998, The Vietnam War.