Vietnam War Containment

Improved Essays
One of the longest and considerably one of the most controversial wars that the United States was involved in was the Vietnam War. The war lasted almost twenty years and arose due to the fear of Communism spreading to other parts of the world. The United States adopted the policy of containment during the Cold War and as a result of the adoption of this policy, the United States felt it was necessary to intervene in Vietnam when it was separated into North and South Vietnam and when it was known that Ho Chi Minh, president of North Vietnam, and his anti-communist allies, the Viet Cong, sought to unify Vietnam under Communism. Ho Chi Minh and his allies had the opportunity to completely unify Vietnam after the anti-communist president of South …show more content…
Their goal to prevent Communism from spreading to South Vietnam had not been achieved. Meanwhile, North Vietnam successfully united the country and gained its independence. Both the United States and North Vietnam desired victory but the definition of victory was different for each. For North Vietnam, victory meant unifying Vietnam and gaining its independence whereas for the United States, victory meant to prevent these events from happening. Although North Vietnam successfully achieved their objective, as of today, there is still a debate as to which nation truly won the war. For example, Lt. George Coker declared that the United States won the war in Vietnam, arguing that “winners never quit and quitters never win”. Despite these claims, the United States lost the Vietnam War, not only because it failed to prevent the spread of Communism, but because the nation and its people were highly impacted by the war and suffered greater losses than …show more content…
Resisting the drafts, however, was controversial as the men who decided to move to Canada or be imprisoned were seen as less courageous and less patriotic by others. Christian Appy illustrates this concept when writing about John Douglas Marshall. Marshall described that after he applied to leave the army as a conscientious objector, his grandfather wrote him a letter in which he told Marshall that he had “simply chickened out [and] didn’t have the guts it takes” (Appy

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    How the Vietnam War had an Impact on the 20th Century The Vietnam War escalated from a Vietnamese civil war into a limited international conflict in which the U.S was deeply involved. The Vietnam War was fought in South Vietnam between government forces, which were aided by the U.S, and guerrilla forces, which were aided by the North Vietnamese. Despite increased American military involvement and signed peace agreements in 1973, the Vietnam War did not end until North Vietnam successfully invaded South Vietnam in 1975. The Vietnam War may have been the longest war in American history. However, after South Vietnam collapsed, America was left to question their highly controversial involvement in a lost cause.…

    • 1135 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Vietnam War Dbq Analysis

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Overall, the Vietnam war was a popular conflict that failed in terms of the defense of S, Vietnam against the communist N. Vietnam, and changed many American’s opinions about the nation’s role in the world and on their lives. The Vietnam War was yet another example of the escalation of the cold war, but his time, American intentions were completely misguided, and the damage done to society was huge. American involvement in Vietnam increased conflict and tension in the U.S. because of the overwhelming unpopularity of the government decisions causing great social unrest and unhappiness especially young people, political corruption in the Johnson and Nixon administrations, and economic mismanagement of the war effort vs. domestic programs. As…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Vietnam War DBQ

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Vietnam War could not have occurred at a worse time in Unites States. PRior to the war, the long, grueling, and strenuous Civil Rights Movement resulted in an “unofficial official” divide within the country. As far back as JFK, U.S. interest in Vietnam was made evident. JFK adopted Eisenhower 's fostered idea of the “Domino Theory”. JFK wanted to prevent the South Vietnamese from spreading Communism throughout the rest of the country.…

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Vietnam War Dbq Analysis

    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial wars of its time. Many americans opposed of the war because they thought it was highly unnecessary with all the trouble that appeared based around how the young felt and the use of brutal weaponry. Even though some government officials thought they were doing the right thing to protect southeast asia's freedom. It wasn’t worth giving up the many of our own people's freedom.…

    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Vietnam War Dbq

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Payton Diaz One of the most controversial wars in the history of the United States is the Vietnam War. The war was originally between North and South Vietnam. But the United States soon got involved to stop the spread of communism to South Vietnam. In the beginning, people supported the war, Americans believed the United States was doing a good thing by aiding the anti-communists in South Vietnam. But as the war went on, issues like draft dodging, the misleading of the public, and an increase in deaths, both military and civilian, began to change people's viewpoint on the war.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Vietnam War is a violent and drastic war that is highly frowned upon. The United States is losing many lives and much confidence from this event. Some still question whether getting involved is a smart decision or a severe mistake. This war is lasting for roughly 20 years and has such a great impact on America. The U.S. wants to protect Southern Vietnam from being under a communist government which escalated to a war with Vietnam and many lives from both countries being lost.…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Vietnam War Dbq

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Vietnam War was one of the bloodiest wars in American history resulting in the death of nearly sixty thousand American troops even though most citizens back home opposed our involvement in the war. This wasn’t always the case though, when the United States joined the war effort in 1965 most Americans supported the decision whole heartedly. Our reason for joining was to stop the spread of communism but as the war went on it seemed like this reason wasn’t good enough for many American citizens. Some reasons the American public felt this way are as follows; corruption of many high ranking government leaders, the opposing Vietcong troops were using primitive dishonorable tactics to gain an advantage over the anti communist forces and the death…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cold War Dbq Analysis

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages

    During the Cold War, communism began to spread like wildfires across the Eastern and Western parts of Europe. Communism played a large role during the Korean War as well with United States forces trying to succeed and keep communism from becoming the overall factor in the leadership ways of government for the Korean people. In the end, the United States would not bring home a victory and Korea would still be divided into two peninsulas: North and South Korea (Document E). Within the “Korean War Armistice”, Korea was separated into two, North and South Korea, by a military demarcation that was led by leaders that supported communism. Once the United States came into the picture and supported South Korea and inched closer and closer to North…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Vietnam War Interview The Vietnam War lasted from 1955 through 1975. Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford each held office during this time period of about 19 years. This war was an effort to halt the spread of communism, the Anti- communist forces consisted of South Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Khmer Republic, Kingdom of Laos and the Philippines. The communist forced consisted of North Vietnam, Viet Cong, Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao.…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With the little we do know concerning the causes of the Vietnam War, it is for sure that it all began due to the works and effects of the Cold War. Before World War Two began, Vietnam was part of the French Realm. During the war, the country had been overrun by the Japanese. After the war had ended, the Allies gave South Vietnam (Viet Cong) back to the French while the North (Viet Minh) continued to be left under non-communist rule. In 1946, the French declared their plan to reclaim the North meaning that the Viet Minh would have to fight for it.…

    • 1098 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The Vietnam War was an unofficial war between the United States allied with South Vietnam against North Vietnam. While some may argue America won because they had less casualties, North Vietnam won because they spread communism, were successful in unifying Vietnam, and they tore America apart. There were roughly 1 million 200 thousand deaths in the Vietnam War. Firstly, the main reason America became involved with Vietnam is to continue the Policy of Containment.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Vietnam War is a war that lasted from November 1st, 1955 to April 30th, 1975 yet the United States of America officially taken upon themselves to join in August 7th, 1964. The major reason why the United States joined the war was to prevent Communistic control over South Vietnam, to stop the establishment of a satellite country; as part of the United States’ Containment Policy, which it’s primary objective is to eradicating the spread of Communism. Many men of the United States have been drafted, enlisted and volunteered to train at the boot camps to prepare themselves in a new setting of war with a new type of warfare, the guerrilla warfare. As the United States gathered the manpower and firepower to fight the Viet-Cong based on the request…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    D. Johnson becomes president after Kennedy’s unfortunate assassination, leaving him responsible to deal with containment efforts in the US, along with the ongoing Cold War. (Grade: C-) Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, leaving vice president Johnson to assume the presidency. The nation was in a state of chaos following Kennedy’s shocking assassination. US containment efforts in Vietnam were still ongoing, costing thousands of American lives in an effort to reduce Communist influence. Americans were growing frustrated with the state of this conflict, which seemed to lack a concrete resolution.…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Vietnam War was a power struggle between communism and capitalism, North Vietnam against South Vietnam respectively with each party wanting different political system. The United States of America aided South Vietnam while North Vietnam was aided by the Soviet Union and the republic of China. The Vietnam War was fought between 1955 and 1975 which fell in the middle of the cold war which was fought between 1947 and 1991. The United States of America as well as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics used the Vietnam War as a way to indirectly fight each other. The involvement in the Vietnam War was very unpopular in America and many movements were made against it.…

    • 2489 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Not long after the proclamation of the Peoples Republic of Vietnam, the French intervened and stated the First Indochina War, which the French lost and was resolved by the 1954 Geneva convention that split the country into the communist, pro-China North and the democratic, pro-US South. This was to create a buffer-state, to prevent communism from engulfing all of Asia. This mix of conflicting ideologies fused more conflict which eventually exploded in 1964 when the North invaded the South and were invaded by the US. The North and the South had been opposed to each other for many hundreds of years which was only fueled by the 1954 split.…

    • 1087 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays