Vietnam - reasons USA
Evaluate the reasons for the USA's involvement and the changing role in what was to be an unwinnable war in Indochina.The USA initial involvement in Indochina was merely and investment in monetary form but as the war escalated it slowly increased it's involvement with placing troops in the region until it could not escape. The USA's fear of the Cold War and loosing it reputation as The Superpower kept it from relenting. Domestic policies and the presidential election cycle also withheld the USA's ability to withdraw until it became too late.In 1947 the USA developed a policy of 'containment' and Vietnam became part of the Cold War. Global dominance was at stake as the USA and USSR battled it out in Indochina and with the arms race. It was the Cold War that produced President Eisenhower's Domino theory "You have a row of dominos set up, you knock over the first one and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly." The USA was afraid of the social, economic and political expansion of the USSR. The insecurity the USA incorrectly perceived lead them to use the Cold War to gain control after WWII.The USA was fiercely anti-communist and that communism was an international monolith cont
LBJ however was at a disadvantage from the start he was left with JFK's legacy and when the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred he saw it as an opportunity to get congress to give him total military control. At the 1954 Geneva Convention the then Senator J. These were the opposite of the majority of the population whom were non-catholic. So the USA began to give 500 million dollars in monetary aid to support the French. I want them to think I'd be willing to do anything. The Conference agreed that Vietnam would be divided in half at its narrowest point, the 17th parallel and that elections would be held before 1956 to determine who held power. The battle between the USA with its conventional tactics and the North Vietnamese with there guerrilla warfare continued. The USA's involvement in the Indochinese region began as a Cold War threat but the USA's involvement in the region escalated so much that they could not escape. Three decades after the USA first became involved in the region they left the region worse for ware and communist. The USA did not agree to the Geneva Convention and so did not have to support it. He increased support for the Diem government but when he saw that there was no way the USA could win and the aid being given to Vietnam started affecting his 'Great society' policy he resigned. If the USA had instead chosen to withdraw troops at this time there would never have been a war and the outcome would have been the same. The USA was afraid of loosing its reputation as a superpower and so tried to undermine the accords with subtle interference.
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