y things would pan out in Southeast Asia. The domino theory was also incorrect because the United States' relationship with China and the Soviet Union would have a much greater impact on the world than the outcome in Vietnam.
             The United States' main reason for entering the war in Vietnam was to contain Communism. Their main reason for containing Communism was that it would fuel the fire in such monolithic, expansionist countries like China and the Soviet Union. However, this was an inaccurate assumption. This argument will be divided into 2 parts: China and the Soviet Union. The US military and economic aid programs, the US's choice of allies, the US's priorities and commitment to oppose Communism in Vietnam were all directly related to the central goal of containing the expansion of Communist power. First, China's power in Asia depended more on factors other than the outcome in Vietnam. China was more concerned with her ability to develop a modern industrial power, her capacity to influence the policies of other Asian countries by non-military means and her opportunities to exploit interstate rivalries in Asia. China was having a lot of trouble internally and needed to concentrate on those issues first and foremost. China's economy had been growing at three percent per year, a rate not much higher than India's, which was far from impressive. Also, there is much evidence suggesting that opposition to Mao Zedong wanted to attach greater priority to modernizing China's economy then to frittering away China's resources in external adventures like Vietnam. China found it impossible to do perform a balancing act. They could not woo underdeveloped countries towards Communism while supporting anti-government oppositions in the same places. China also made it clear that revolutionaries would have to come to power only through their own efforts without help from China. China had realized that in the past their greatest gai...