The communist conquest of China in 1949, the Korean War and the communist triumph over France at Dien Bien Phu led to anxiety and America was determined to stop any other country turning communist as they felt this endangered their capitalist society and if communism spreads it was seen as an increasing influence of their greatest enemy the USSR.
American president Truman introduced his doctrine in 1947 to take action against this menace as at the time most of Eastern Europe had been taken over by communism. His aims were to contain and stop the expansion of communism and offer aid to others willing to do the same. His doctrine was made in reaction to the attempted communist take over of Greece which was influenced by the Soviet Union. So Truman’s Doctrine inadvertently led to America’s involvement in the Vietnam War because America offered financial aid and military assistance to France to help fight the communist Vietminh forces in Vietnam which was a former French colony.
Despite America’s help, France lost and Vietnam was divided into two, the communist North which was ruled by the leader of the revolt Ho Chi Minh and the non-communist South, established by the USA, by Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem and his corrupt government was strongly supported by America because he was anti-communist and because with France’s major defeat at Dien Bien Phu meant that there was no one to stand up against the communist Vietminh so the strongly anti-communist USA felt they had to step in. Initially the first American presence in Vietnam was in the form of 100 military advisors but this was increased to 1600 by President Kennedy who also helped equip the South Vietnamese military and in total spent $270m on Diem. Gradually America’s involvement escalated to 150,000 soldiers stationed in Vietnam in 1965 under the order of Lyndon B. Johnson, these were the first official troops to combat the guerrilla Vietcong forces from the North. America’s involvement escalated because the communist Vietcong were proving to de difficult to defeat so America sent more soldiers, dropped more bombs and used chemical weapons such as napalm and Agent Orange which caused birth defects.
America didn’t want the South to fall to the communists because the Domino Theory put forward by president Eisenhower in 1954 stated that the loss of a single country in South East Asia could potentially lead to the loss of all Asia, India, Japan and finally threatening Europe and America. Just as one domino falls it knocks down the next etc until they are all knocked down but if one was stopped from falling the others will remain standing, therefore the theory suggests that if America prevented South Vietnam from turning communist it would stop communism spreading and the USA’s capitalist regime would be secure. France’s defeat, China and the Korean War proved the domino theory to be reasonable and likely to happen, this caused great concern for America and therefore a stronger desire and reason to win the war against communist North Vietnam and to increase their chances against the Vietcong they progressively amplified their forces as they realised they had underestimated their opponents who were demonstrating to be more and more difficult to defeat.
America would still suffer even if they themselves didn’t turn communist but other countries did, this is because communist countries have a reputation for trading little resulting in fewer goods being bought from America, this would negatively impact their trade and economy leaving it devastated. This was another reason for the USA’s endeavour to halt the spread of communism. Ultimately America’s participation in Vietnam originated from an effort to protect their own society and economy and to stop the influence of Russia by restricting communism and remaining a large super power in the world and was determined not to be surpassed by Russia.
