The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War (2nd Indochina War)
(1959-1975)
Causes and Processes
After the First Indochina War ended with the defeat of the French Army by troops from North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French relinquished Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The Geneva Accords of 1954, a political compromise brokered between the US and USSR blocs, split Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with the DRV, founded by Ho Chi Minh, ruling Vietnam north of the 17th parallel and Emperor Bao Dai ruling South Vietnam.

In 1955 Ngo Dinh Diem established the RVN with himself as Head of State and deposed Bao Dai. The Geneva Accords stated that elections for Vietnamese reunification were to be held by July 1956; these were never held during Diem’s rule. The DRV initiated massive land reforms, distributing lands to peasants for free. The South’s attractiveness dimmed in relation to the DRV, which was becoming increasingly popular with Southerners, as Diem’s regime was corrupt and favoured bourgeois landowners.

The US, fearing a spread of ‘the red plague’ from the DRV to the RVN, provided money and advisers to South Vietnam as early as 1950. This continued even after Diem took power. However they did not act willingly as Diem’s government was tainted by corruption and nepotism. It is of general consensus that the US, following its doctrines of containment and adhering to the “domino theory”, tried to back non-Communist states to counter Communist influence in the SE Asia region.

In response to Diem’s moves to eliminate Communists in the South, the North launched an insurgency in 1956. By 1959, hundreds of South Vietnamese local leaders and civil servants had been murdered. In January 1959 Hanoi authorized an escalation of the already violent situation to a full war, and sent large numbers of troops to RVN through Laos. The National Liberation Front (NLF), a pro-Communist fighting force, was formed by combining anti-Diem factions in the RVN, but was not largely influenced by the Central Committee in Hanoi, as the US believed.

Following the Vienna Conference in June 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev of the USSR had used aggressive tactics to make back down on issues including Berlin, Kennedy was convinced that he had to show American determination to counter Communism by participating in Vietnam's war.

Despite US backing, Diem’s corrupt regime had proved incapable of dealing with the insurgency, which grew worse, and the populace lost confidence in Diem. To further bolster Diem’s government, Kennedy sent armed forces to the RVN in May 1961, initiating a flow of massive numbers of American troops into South Vietnam in an effort to bring the US' full power to bear.

With the war intensifying, by August 1966 the US had over half a million US troops. It soon became clear that US tactics, such as attrition (slowly wearing down the enemy through protracted war), were failing. Communist forces were using guerrilla tactics successfully, and they used the terrains advantageously. They were also highly motivated, ready to make the biggest sacrifice and determined to drive the US army out of Vietnam.

In Jan 1968, the North launched the Tet Offensive in the South, with more than 80,000 troops striking nearly at all urban areas in the South. The South and the US were only able to recapture most urban areas after sacrificing many men and resources.

The Tet Offensive scored a political victory for the North in the US, where the US government and public were shocked and many called for the war’s end. Following the inauguration of a new President, R. M. Nixon, in 1969, the US began to “Vietnamise” the war, by transferring operations and war duties to South Vietnam’s armed forces, and slowly pulling US troops out of Vietnam.

After the US Army’s exit, Saigon was taken in 1975, and the RVN government collapsed. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam was founded thereafter.

A BRIEF REVIEW OF AMERICAN POLICIES IN THE WAR
Throughout the tenure of US involvement in Vietnam, it had largely acted without much knowledge and understanding about affairs and their dynamics in Vietnam. This would lead to eventual US failure.

Sources show that the US, over time, increasingly viewed the Vietnam War as an "American war" and an "American problem". To the US it was a diplomatic, geopolitical and military problem that was more than just a Vietnamese war, and therefore something that should be dealt with directly by the US, and not solely through a weak client state like the RVN.

The US mainly acted unilaterally, often sidestepping the RVN government and placing less importance on the RVN government, which by now was largely seen by the Vietnamese populace as “a puppet deprived of all national prestige, lacking in a national mandate and thus being untrustworthy”. Worse, the US occasionally intervened in RVN politics. A notable event demonstrating this would be the assassination of Diem during a coup. The US Department of State had prior knowledge of the coup, but had tacitly agreed to not intervene. The US CIA even funded the coup organisers. The US’ decision to allow the coup led to the death of Diem, which sparked off major problems with respect to future RVN leadership.

The US Presidents, being Commanders-in-Chief, held much influence over the war; Kennedy sent US troops into Vietnam, thus sparking the conflict; Lyndon B. Johnson escalated the war; and Nixon oversaw US withdrawal from the war. The Presidents' personal beliefs, considerations and individual actions thus had magnified effects on the overall war.