Why The United States Sent Troops To

Vietnam Essay, Research Paper

At the end of World War II in 1945, The United States government was, seemingly, intent on eradicating Communism from the world. The government was, in a Machiavellian but sometimes inept way, using any means necessary to achieve this goal. In the process, the United States nearly engaged in nuclear war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, sacrificed over 58,000 American lives and some 300,000 causalities (not to mention the untold millions of Asian lives), and created “feelings of disillusionment among many Americans who believed that they had been betrayed by their leaders” (Opposing Viewpoints, pg. 17). Despite these costs, the United States government constantly reaffirmed its anti-communist stance. Throughout the nearly two decades of United States involvement in Vietnam, the United States government entered into, and remained in, the Vietnam War, due to the fear of Communist world domination, and the resolve to halt the spread of Communism before it was too late, something not done to Nazism prior to World War II.

Following WWII, France found itself in another war, this time in an attempt to regain Imperialist control over its former colony of Vietnam. The Western World, wary of the possibility of Communist control of Asia and the domino effect, committed to help the French in their effort against Ho Chi Minh and his regime. Truman and Eisenhower both agreed to spend exorbitant amounts of money on France’s war, but refused to send troops. In 1954, the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu and agreed to withdraw from Indochina. After the French defeat in Vietnam, an agreement was struck in Geneva. Vietnam was to be divided into two sections, the North going to Ho Chi Minh and his Communist regime, while the South was placed under control of Ngo Dinh Diem. Furthermore, the Geneva conference established that by July 1956, an election was to take place, unifying the north and south under one government. However, Diem denounced the agreement, and was supported by the United States’ refusal to sign the agreement. As then Senator John Kennedy states in his speech before the “American Friends of Vietnam,” on America’s stakes in Vietnam the refusal to hold the election is due to the fact that the odds were heavily in favor of Minh and the Communist party. And although his logic is that we can’t have democracy by holding an election if the election will result in anti-Democracy and rigged elections for years to come, his statement is one of the most ridiculously un-democratic statements ever made by anyone in the United States government.

Kennedy, of course, had valid reasons not to want to lose Vietnam to Communism, he saw it as the “cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia” (Podhoretz, pg. 19). Secondly, Kennedy saw Vietnam as a testing ground for Democracy is Asia, an alternative to Communist and Totalitarian dictatorship. Kennedy knew that if South Vietnam’s non-Communist government had worked, it would have created an optimistic view of Democracy in many Asians’ minds, as opposed to the pessimistic view held by most Asians toward Democracy at the time. That is why he could not allow Ho Chi Minh to unify Vietnam under Communist control, he needed it as an example of Democracy to the rest of Asia. Still, Kennedy went on and voiced more reasons for the United States involvement in Vietnam. Kennedy also saw Vietnam as a test, a test to show the rest of the world that America could still be looked on for leadership, commitment, and help. Kennedy stated that he saw the United States and its people as the parents of South Vietnam. We created it, we nurtured it, we shaped its existence, and for this Kennedy knew that the failure of South Vietnam for any reason would reflect poorly on the United States and our reputation would forever be tarnished. His final reason for our involvement was related to the lessons learned following World War II. Those who had lived through World War II and the rise of Hitler felt that they had learned a great lesson. This lesson is known as the “Lesson of Munich.” That lesson was that, “an expansionist totalitarian power could not be stopped by giving into its demands and that limited resistance at an early stage was the only way to avoid full scale war later on” (Podhoretz, pg.11). In other words, “a relatively limited degree of resistance then would have precluded the need for massive resistance afterward.” (Podhoretz, p. 11). They arrived at this conclusion after looking at their reaction to Hitler in the early and mid 1930’s. Hitler invaded the Rhineland, as well as other places. He started off small, and the Allied Powers, mentally and physically exhausted from “The Great War,” tried desperately to avoid conflict. Hitler kept making demands, and we kept giving in, figuring, this will be the last thing he asks for. Hitler’s demands grew and grew, when, next thing we knew, he was invading Poland, Czechoslovakia making his way outward. So we analyzed our mistakes from that time, and vowed to never let that happen again. This is a problem societies have run into throughout history. They analyze and discover what they feel is the lesson of their previous war, and then decide that the lesson shall forever hold true and attempt to apply it to their next war, and the one after that, and the one after that. Unfortunately, war is not math. You can’t apply the same formula to a new equ