Vietnam War

[Homer55]

Can anyone give me a short explantion of the cause of the vietnam war. ive looked on wikipedia but its a bit too much in depth, and i just wanted a summary.

thanks

[jno]

very briefly, a civil war between the communist north and the south. The USA entered on the side of the south because it feared that if the south lost it would go communist and then other countries all round it would do the same (the 'domino theory'). The south, and the USA, lost, so Vietnam is reunified and still communist, though the south is notably freer; but other nations did not go communist.

In fact the roots go much deeper than that, as Wikipedia will tell you. It was all part of the cold war, west v east, which basically ended with the collapse of communism, though there are still some communist countries like Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea - and China.

[vehelpfulguy]

Excellent answer from jno.

There was a fear, after the second world war, that Russia planned to take countries one by one and turn them communist.

They had already done this with Eastern Europe by going into countries near the end of the war and not leaving when the war ended. Hungary is one example.

The same applies with the south east of Asia.

After the defeat of Germany the Russians offered to come and "help" the Americans fight in the far east (Japan etc).

The US were terrified that this would give Russia the chance to go into all sorts of countries and they would never leave.

So the US wanted to end the war in Asia quickly to stop Russia "helping".

It is said this is one of the reasons they dropped the atom bombs, to end the war quickly and stop Russia coming into the area.

This then led to the cold war in the 1950s, with Russia giving aid to countries to try to turn them communist (Korea for example) and the USA giving aid to STOP them turning communist.

It could be said the Korean war ( remember MASH) was a forerunner of the Vietnam war (and was fought for the same reasons).

[andy-hughes]

American military powers (the people who run the country in other words) did not learn the valuable lessons that were taught to them at great expense, financial and physical, namely -

if you fight a nation who'se only desire in life is a bowl of rice, a pair of shoes and political independence, you will loose.

if you send a load of 'career' soldiers to fight a nation in its own back yard when they have the ability, the background, and the willingness to die for their freedom, you will loose.

if you try and enforce your own views of 'freedom' on other nations who do not share your opinion, and would prefer to sort out their own issues - you will loose.

It used to be Viet Nam - now it's Iraq, but the lessons have not changed - just the geography.

[jno]

one difference from Iraq: during the Vietnam war, the US army conscripted soldiers. That was one reason for the strong antiwar movement at the time: young people thought thye risked being sent there unwillingly (as many were), and older people feared this would happen to their children. I suspect if conscripts were being sent to Iraq, opposition to the war within the USA would have grown much more quickly, even though the death toll is very much lower (in Vietnam I think more than 50,000 US soldiers died; much lower in Iraq).

[andy-hughes]

Fair point jno - but if one soldier has died in Iraq, that's one soldier too many - conscripted or not.

[jno]

I'm not disagreeing with a word you've said, andy!

[andy-hughes]

Nor I with you jno -

I think your point about conscription is a valid historical perspective, and one that is often overlooked in the comparisons between the two conflicts.

Isn't a definition of insanity performing the same task over again in the hope of a different outcome? Seems appropriate with US foreign policy I think.

[Count_Emmup]

Verhelpfulguy:-
It could be said the Korean war ( remember MASH) was a forerunner of the Vietnam war (and was fought for the same reasons).

That's not strictly true - the late forties Franco-Indo China (i.e. Vietnam) war was the true begetter of the US-Vietnam war. China was the the main sponsor of that conflict, more than Russia.

It should be said that Frances enemies were the 'Viet-Minh', as they were for the US; but they Yanks changed the name to Viet-Cong, as they feared that fighting a force with such a wet sounding name was humiliating!

[Count_Emmup]

It's important to recall that the first US president to send "Military Advisors", to Vietman was the beloved peacemaker, St John F Kennedy.

[jno]

I never heard anyone call Kennedy a peacemaker - he served in WW2 and was a liberal interventionist type, I think - but he handled a potential nuclear conflict adroitly in Cuba