Question 2 - History
Vietnam
There were many reasons for the USA's loss in the Vietnam War. There is no singular reason for the USA's loss; instead there are many, and each of these contributes to the end result. Some historians believe that the USA didn't lose the war at all. The USA first invaded Vietnam on the 8th March 1965, with the first 3,500 US marines landing on Vietnam soil, this seemingly small amount of troops would mass to 525,000 in 1967. America first involved themselves in Vietnam because of the "Policy of Containment" in this policy it made it clear that the USA was to stop the spreading of communism. The Domino theory was also a persuasive element. It suggested in the Domino theory that if one country was to fall to communism then the surrounding countries would also fall. This suggested to the USA that if Vietnam fell to communism then the surrounding countries (Indo-China) would also fall to communism. This meant that the USA would have to take action to stop communism-overtaking Indo-China. The USA's objectives of starting a war in Vietnam were to install security to capitalist countries there and to stop the spread of communism.
The USA's army was a professional army and had little to no experience with Guerrilla tactics. They relied heavily on bombing, this made the Vietnamese only more determined to win. Also the US was used to conventional wars fought on open land. Their superior technology and training was of little use to them as the VC and NVLF used guerrilla tactics. This meant that the VC and NVLF had an advantage as they had experience with guerrilla tactics and so could effectively “nibble at the enemy” – Source E. Many of the troops in the US army had more experience than the officers, this meant that the chain-of-command was not referred to as US marines preferred to take orders from more experienced soldiers. The Search-and-destroy operations undertaken by the US meant that many innocent civilians were killed which also helped to increase the un-popularity of the South Vietnam regime. Many of the Vietcong hid in villages and the US troops didn’t know civilian from VC “You never knew who was the enemy and who was the friend. They all looked alike. They all dressed alike. They were all Vietnamese. Some of them were Vietcong.” – Source F. An Extreme example of this is the My Lai Massacre “We were firing before we hit the ground, we fired into the huts all we could. Then we burned the huts” – Source H. Bombing usually had the opposite effect to what the US desired. The Intense bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder, was mainly directed at the jungle to stop the Vietcong gaining routes to the South through the Ho Chi Min trail. This was largely in effective and until the introduction of chemical weapons. Even the chemical weapons meant the US were not gaining favor as the chemicals they used often meant long-term damage to the communities and also with other chemicals (mainly napalm) serious injury.
