French Vietnam War Analysis

Vietnam’s history is rife with foreign aggressors attempting to control the country through military engagement. In the twentieth century this trend continued with two separate, but similar conflicts. First, the colonial French fought Viet Minh forces in an effort to maintain control over their Indochinese colonies. Lastly, the United States would get involved in Vietnam in an attempt to prop up the southern Republic of Vietnam against the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The following will be a brief summary that compares and contrasts the French and American conflicts in Vietnam by looking at motives for the wars, how the territorial boundaries of the war were defined, differences in understanding of why the Vietnamese wanted independence, and if the French and Americans acted as independent actors or simply responding to the actions of the Vietnamese. France’s motives in being embroiled in the war in Vietnam is fairly simple to understand. Vietnam and the rest of what was called Indochina had been a French colony that supplied much needed natural resources to European industry. This is contrasted sharply with the American motives for getting involved in Vietnam. The 1950s and 60s(which made up the majority of …show more content…
Were they independent actors or were they responding to the actions of the Vietnamese? I would argue that the French were more independent and had more free reign in their dealings with Vietnam. They had a clear goal of hanging onto their interests in Cochinchina, and for a good portion of the war dictated the terms. Militarily. the Americans also dictated most of the war just due to the stark contrast in destructive power between the United States and the People’s Army of Vietnam. However, as the war came to a close the Americans became more and more responsive to the actions of the DRVN in political