The Vietnam War: The Causes Of The Vietnam War

Improved Essays
The Causes of the Vietnam War Callum Pastuszak

The Vietnam War was one of the bloodiest conflicts post WWII, it is important to understand how it started and learn from our mistakes so nothing like this happens again. It was a war that revolutionised warfare for ever with the first widespread use of Grulla warfare and introduce many new tactics and weapons. It involved some 2.2 Million soldiers and $150 billion ($950 billion in todays USD). It is a war that should be used to learn off for the prevention of situations like this

Vietnam has had a rough divide since the 1600’s, not with defined borders but with geography and opinions. The civil wars were almost always between the North and the South. It gained major western attention with intention of gaining influence over the region.
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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. This mix of opposing forces which was also found in the earlier Korean War is something we need to learn about to ensure a situation like this never arises again. Also this is one of the many ignored facts of the causes of the War as it is overshadowed by

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