Why Was The Vietnam War Successful

I do not believe that the Vietnam War was successful for the United States. I believe that it was not successful because cost many American lives, unpopular war for public, and did not stop communism from spreading. Our involvement in Vietnam started during Kennedy’s presidency. At the beginning of his presidency, President Kennedy wanted to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam. With this intention, he increased the number of American military advisors in Vietnam. President Kennedy hoped that with the increase of military advisors, communism would not spread from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. At this point, the issue with Vietnam was relatively peaceful and pointed toward political issues. Unfortunately, after this point an chance of a …show more content…
With this event, President Johnson wanted revenge on North Vietnam and passed an attack plan. Additionally, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin which gave President Johnson the power to do whatever he wanted to do concerning North Vietnam. After many years of fighting, President Johnson and American forces believed the enemy was on verge of defeat; but, unfortunately, that was not case. On January 30, 1968, during the Vietnamese New Year North Vietnamese forces launched an offensive attack against American and South Vietnam forces. In addition, this offensive was also televised in America. After seeing the condition of the war, Americans began to question the state of the war. Following this, other incidents swayed the American public’s opinion, such as the My Lai Massacre. These incidents caused many anti-war protest and most American began to demand the return of American troops. Due to the public’s unapproval and increasing amount of dead American soldiers, Johnson did not run for President again and Richard Nixon stepped in. During Nixon’s presidency, he used a strategy called Vietnamization to allow thousands of troops to