The United States intervening in Vietnam represented a foreign policy disaster that created the feud between the US and the Soviet Union first because it costs the US 58,000 lives and billions of dollars. Furthermore, millions of Vietnamese died, including civilians. Due to the US military, Vietnam was devastated. In the short run, Vietnam was devastated in all aspects economically, environmentally, governmentally that the instability of the region left the country to consolidate the north and south. In the long …show more content…
However, we let the conflict expand over almost thirty years and four presidencies. The cohesiveness of American foreign policy was dependent upon the idea that these presidents worked together under the same goal and motivating means. Unfortunately, this was not the case. For example, Kennedy was hell-bent on keeping American domestic policy in order while Nixon was paranoid, worried about his seat as president and this could be seen by his expressiveness and trying to end the conflict as quickly as possible. Then comes Ford, whose presidency was profoundly aimed at the beginning to remove troops from Vietnam. The lessons that we can learn, domestically, are the importance of resolving conflicts in singular presidencies (two presidencies at the maximum). Latently, this is to say a quick conflict is a "good conflict." another limit expressed in the Vietnam war is the fundamental schematic to understand the conflict you are plunging your country into. This can be seen by the mass erratic use of the draft and chaotic, general intelligence gathered prior to entering this …show more content…
On the other hand, our involvement in Vietnam showed the Soviet Union a clear and concise stand against communism. In some sense, this can be seen as communist containment, thus not allowing the "domino theory" to move forward. In reflection to today’s foreign policy, as well as the Vietnam War, an underlying variable is that the United States, in large, refuses to fight conflicts on domestic soil and therefore we are only left to fight on foreign soil, in which the population density of these countries provides an illusive determinant of