Effects Of Vietnamization In Vietnam

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President Richard Nixon’s main policy was the “Vietnamization”; this policy was based on decreasing involvement in Vietnam and to force the Vietnamese to bear responsibility for the war, without the dependence on the United States. This strategy was opposite of the initially policy of the Americanization and in 1965, the
United States took control of the war in Vietnam. The thought of Vietnamizing the war occurred before President Nixon arrived to office, and the United States Military wanted to take the war in this direction from the beginning. CIA analyst stated, “Unless major military operations sap a substantial proportion of North Vietnam’s effort, a degree in industrial progress is likely to be achieved that may well become a
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President John F. Kennedy also declared this as to, “the threat of a good example”. So mainly, credibility is the main factor why the United States remained in Vietnam and enacted the policies it did. President Nixon’s polices were very contradicting, by implementing the
“Vietnamization” the United States was in reality expanding the war more by invading and occupying Laos and Cambodia. The United States was in Laos and Cambodia before, yet it escalated its involvement much more. The United States entered a “Secret War”, which was against a communist insurgency group called Pathet Lao in Laos. President Lyndon B. Johnson had started an involvement in Laos and through 1964-1969; the United States had released one hundred fifty thousand tons of bombs in Pathet Lao territories. Air attacks were going on while President Johnson was in office; however President
Nixon in fact chose to heighten the air attacks. On the other hand, he was supposedly
Vietnamizing the war by removing American troops in Vietnam. When President Nixon entered office there were five hundred thousand soldiers in Vietnam and by 1971, it was greatly
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After President
Nixon’s implementation of “Vietnamization”, the anti-war protest began to decrease, since more
American soldiers were returning home. In addition, the draft system was changed. Prior to
President Nixon, the system was based on where individuals could get deferments if they were college students or if individuals had connections they could get a medical deferment to not go to war. After President Nixon coming to office, the system was changed to a lottery system that was based on birth dates. The “Vietnamization” and the new draft system helped lessen the anti- war movements significantly. Returning to Laos, the invasion of Laos was based on giving an entrance to the Army
Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) to attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to obstruct the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) from sending supplies, yet the overall invasion of Laos was a failure. The involvement in Cambodia was very vital to the war, Cambodia was more important than Laos, since the invasion of Cambodia was public and announced in the United States. The prince of Cambodia, Sihanouk remained neutral in the war, however he did not halt the

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