The Vietnam War

The Cold War was one of the most protracted conflicts in world history, especially in American history. For 44 years from 1947 to 1991, Soviet Leninists and American Lockeans glared at each other, accumulating more and more anger toward one another with each irritant in their already-torn and unstable relationship. With each new country to become a puppet state of Moscow and Beijing, Washington DC's rage gained additional scope. With every movement to single out and persecute American communists, Moscow's rhetoric against the policies of the West became more vicious and determined. There were a few moments of diplomatic growth, like Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the US in 1959 under Dwight D. Eisenhower, but they were generally usurped by new matches of geopolitical brawling soon after. Greece, Turkey, South Korea, Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Afghanistan, Grenada, Libya, and many other nations were converted into arenas, where the respective soldiers of the United States, Soviet Union, and China engaged in violent spats against one another, jockeying for international dominance. One of the longest, most controversial of these fights was the one that took place in Vietnam. The United States showed unmatched brutality and cruelty, as the Soviet Union and China refused to let go of their desire to make Vietnam one of their many pawns in this decades-long chess game.

In order to fully understand what happened in Vietnam and why the US intervened, it's important to understand some Vietnamese history, even going all the way back to 1883, before the Soviet Union or People's Republic of China were founded in 1917 and 1949 respectively. In 1883, France, citing the supposed persecution of Vietnamese Catholics, annexed Vietnam and transformed it into a French colony. The people of Vietnam were rightfully outraged and, when Japan invaded Vietnam amidst WW2, finally decided that they had had enough of being a colony. On May 19, 1941, Ho Chi Minh founded the Viet Minh to fight against both French and Japanese imperialism in Vietnam. With the surrender of the Axis throughout the spring and summer of 1945, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh were able to establish control over the northern half of Vietnam, establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945. The capital of this new government was based in Hanoi.

Desperate to both maintain control over Vietnam and quell the influence of Ho Chi Minh's socialist ideas, France set up a puppet government in the southern half of Vietnam, with its capital being located in Saigon. Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, while French Vietnam was controlled by a monarch named Bao Di, who was educated in Western nations, particularly France. With the establishment of French Vietnam, the forces affiliated with these two governments began combatting one another in a bloody civil war. This crisis marked the start of American involvement in Vietnam. Dwight D. Eisenhower, terrified of the spread of Soviet influence and using Harry S. Truman's Truman Doctrine (which provided for the acceptance of Soviet control where it already existed but fierce opposition to its expansion) to fight against it, began supporting France. However, Eisenhower was determined to make his involvement seem anti-communist, rather than merely pro-Paris. He tried to convince other capitalist nations to intervene on behalf of France and wanted Paris to promise independence to all of Southeast Asia, thus attempting to dispel accusations of neo-colonialism.

However, Eisenhower's efforts at defeating Ho Chi Minh would largely be in vain. On March 13, 1954, Bao Di and Ho Chi Minh's troops began fighting one another at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which ended on May 7, 1954, in a victory for the north. Then, in the summer of 1954, delegates from both French Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam met at the Geneva Conference. There, they concocted an agreement through Vietnam was split into a north and south still controlled by Ho Chi Minh and Bao Di respectively. The accords also scheduled an election for 1956 where the people of both North and South Vietnam would decide on whether or not they wanted to become one nation again and, if so, which leader they would be reunited under. Before long, Bao Di was removed from office and replaced by Ngo Dinh Diem, a dictator with staunchly anti-communist and pro-Western views. Despite Ngo Dinh Diem's tyrannical legislation hardly differing from what could be expected under Stalin, Lenin, or Mao, Eisenhower began supporting his regime on November 1, 1955. This is generally cited as the start of the Vietnam War.

Eisenhower, a Republican, won reelection in 1956, but Democrat John F. Kennedy secured the presidency in 1960. As president, Kennedy embarked on a number of anti-communist projects, such as approving the Bay of Pigs Invasion - an attempt at overthrowing Fidel Castro in Cuba using an army of Cuban immigrants to the US - and creating the Alliance for Progress, a government agency that promoted better living standards in Latin America as a way of deterring Soviet influence in that region. These anti-communist projects included the deployment of numerous military advisors to Ngo Dinh Diem's government, thus expanding US influence in Vietnam. Kennedy later came to regret this but died at the hands of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963. Remarkably, Ngo Dinh Diem was killed just 21 days earlier, on November 1, 1963. Some have rumored that Kennedy, mourning his role in the Vietnam War, helped aided in Ngo Dinh Diem's murder. With Kennedy's death, Lyndon B. Johnson became president.

Kennedy was murdered by Oswald while he, Kennedy, was traveling through Dallas, Texas, for a rally affiliated with his 1964 reelection campaign. Kennedy may have died, but the Democrats' desire to win the 1964 election did not perish with him. Johnson became the Democratic nominee in 1964 and in the generals, he had to go up against Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater was an anti-communist, just like Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, but was so deranged and unhinged that he proposed using nuclear weapons against North Vietnam. He also denounced Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal as socialist - despite socialism having nothing to do with government aid programs or financial regulations and everything to do with worker management of the means of production - and lambasted Eisenhower for not doing enough to repeal Roosevelt's policies. Goldwater eagerly accused Johnson of being a Marxist. To dissuade these rumors, Johnson, on August 2, 1964, sent the USS Maddox to the Vietnamese coast, doing so to scare North Vietnam away from invading the south. 2 days later, on August 4, 1964, he accompanied the USS Maddox with the USS Turner Joy.

On August 5, 1964, Johnson gave a speech in which he claimed that the USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy had been attacked by North Vietnamese naval forces. Using this as an excuse, Johnson, on August 10, 1964, signed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Before its repeal in 1971, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution provided the president with a broad permit to take any action the White House considered necessary toward protecting US interests and/or maintaining peace in Southeast Asia. In November, Johnson, capitalizing on Goldwater's insanely far-right positions, easily obtained a new term, winning nearly every single state in the Union. He was inaugurated to begin his first - and, as it turned out, only - full term in office. Citing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and attacks on the USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy (attacks that, it is important to note, were likely heavily exaggerated by Johnson to sound even more outrageous), Johnson launched Operation Rolling Thunder on March 2, 1965. Through Operation Rolling Thunder, Johnson attacked the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a network through which Marxists in other Southeast Asian countries like Laos and Cambodia funneled resources into North Vietnam.

Just under a week later, on March 8, 1965, Johnson deployed the first American combat forces to Vietnam. He sent a collection of troops to the Southeast Asian country, ordering them to defend a South Vietnamese airfield and only to fire if fired upon. The war would not remain defensive forever. Throughout the spring and summer of 1965, Johnson continued to direct more and more troops to Vietnam, quickly swapping their role from a defensive one confined to the status of reinforcement or protection for South Vietnam to an offensive one encompassing American-planned and American-executed attacks. Despite this, Johnson tried to be as tame as he could be while still waging an offensive war, doing so not to provoke a war with Mao Zedong's China or Leonid Brezhnev's Soviet Union. He also launched a propaganda campaign to convince Americans to support the war. However, the increased US morale did not seem to help things. William Westmoreland, the general leading American forces fighting in the Vietnam War, continued to request record numbers of troops, and yet the war still saw little progress. Before long, Johnson was looking to end the war as quickly as he could.

On June 29, 1966, Johnson launched a campaign to bomb oil facilities and lotion factories located in North Vietnam, hoping that would produce enough economic pressure to force Ho Chi Minh into surrendering. This did not work, and Johnson needed to find other ways of ending the war. On Christmas Day 1966, Johnson suspended the bombing of North Vietnam - much like the Christmas truce seen in World War 1 - as a way of demonstrating his cordial, diplomatic side and making North Vietnam more comfortable with the idea of surrendering. This still didn't work! Eventually, the desire to end the war as quickly as possible became one held by North Vietnam as much as it was held by the United States. In the autumn of 1967, North Vietnamese troops surrounded various US military bases scattered across the south, isolating them and preventing them from resisting northern attacks. Soon after, on January 21, 1968, they attacked Khe Sanh, a South Vietnamese settlement with many US soldiers inhabiting it, in order to open up a new front - a new distraction - for Western forces.

10 days later, on January 31, 1968, North Vietnam used the isolation of US forts and the diversions at Khe Sanh to their advantage: They launched the Tet Offensive, a massive campaign to capture South Vietnamese villages, towns, and cities. The fact that it was the Vietnamese New Year - or Tet, hence the name - certainly helped matters, as South Vietnamese forces were away celebrating the holiday. Over the next few months, they captured hundreds of settlements across South Vietnam, and while they never held these towns for more than 2 or 3 days, the stream of losses humiliated the West. On March 31, 1968, Johnson appeared before national television giving a speech in which he announced 3 things. One, he would not run for reelection in 1968 (he took over past the halfway point in Kennedy's administration, allowing him to serve 2 full terms). Two, he would begin peace talks incorporating American, South Vietnamese, and North Vietnamese delegates in Paris, France. Three, he would prohibit all bombings of North Vietnam beneath the 90th parallel.

Richard Nixon became the Republican nominee in the 1968 election, while Johnson's vice president Hubert Humphrey was made the Democratic nominee. Humphrey, who had pretended to support the Vietnam War in public but privately expressed his skepticism, was now able to publically admit to his disdain for the war. This made him a very popular candidate, thus making Nixon extremely nervous. Nixon's fortunes were helped by his status as Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president, as the name Richard Nixon reminded Americans of the peace and economic prosperity enjoyed during the 1950s. However, since both he and Humphrey had massive positives in their favor, Nixon began using dirty tricks to advance his odds of winning the election. He met with Anna Chennault. Born in 1923 in China with the name Chen Xiangmei, Anna Chennault was the widow of WW2 hero Claire Chennault, whose 1958 death placed her in control of a warplane manufacturer that helped arm South Vietnam. Chennault was asked by Nixon to meet with South Vietnamese officials and convince them that, under Nixon, the peace agreement reached in Paris would be much better for Saigon. Thus, Nixon would draw out the war and add yet more baggage to Humphrey's name. This event, known as the Chennault Affair, likely helped Nixon defeat Humphrey in November.

Nixon replaced Johnson as president on January 20, 1969. Nixon knew that the war was unwinnable, but he also didn't want to deal with the international humiliation of losing. So, on January 28, 1969, he launched a campaign known as Vietnamization. Using Vietnamization, Nixon trained the South Vietnamese military to fight North Vietnam just as the US had been doing since 1965. This would allow for American forces to leave Vietnam while also providing for the continuation of the anti-communist war effort. Vietnamization worked, with the war continuing for over half a decade just as American soldiers began to withdraw from Vietnam on July 7, 1969. However, the war soon began to lose what little popularity it had left. In September 1969, an incident known as the My Lai Massacre, where residents of the titular My Lai village were mercilessly slaughtered by psychotic US soldiers, was revealed to the public. This spurred a massive wave of anti-war activity, with the largest protest against a war in all of American history taking place later that autumn. In May 1970, students at Kent State University protesting the war were also killed by the national guard.

Despite these events, Nixon was able to win the 1972 election. This was due to 2 main factors: George McGovern, the Democratic nominee, was seen as a far-left extremist, just as Goldwater was seen as a far-right extremist back in 1964. This basically made anyone other than Goldwater appealing, and Nixon happened to be that alternative option. Americans were also still living in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, where Soviet-American tensions nearly caused a world war. Nixon, who reduced Cold War hostilities by meeting with the Mao Zedong of China and Nicolae Ceausescu of Leninist Romania and who signed an important arms limitation deal with Brezhnev known as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, was seen as a dove in an era defined by hawks. Because of these facts, Nixon easily defeated McGovern, winning everything except Massachusetts and Washington DC. On January 20, 1973, Nixon was inaugurated to begin his second term. Just 1 week later, on January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed, beginning America's withdrawal from Vietnam.

On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned due to the Watergate Scandal, being replaced by Gerald Ford. About 9 months later, on April 30, 1975, the final American forces left Vietnam on the same day that Saigon fell to northern control. With this, the Vietnam War ended in an American loss, the first time ever that the US truly lost a war. It wouldn't be until the fall of Kabul to Taliban forces in 2021 that the United States would lose another war. The Vietnam War has become one of the most nightmarish, traumatic events in history, especially for Cambodia, Laos, the US, China, and, above all, Vietnam itself. In the final analysis, the Vietnam War is a tragic tale showing the legacy of Western imperialism in Asia. Vietnam was an independent nation that once didn't exist due to the carnivorous, expansionist appetites of France and Japan, the latter of which only became imperialist due to the impact of coercion by the US during the Perry Expedition. Vietnam then was split in half, becoming at a Soviet and Chinese puppet at one pole and an American and French puppet at the other. It became a chess pawn drenched on the top in red and on the bottom in the Franco-American tricolor. The Vietnam War is the story of how this exploited nation tried to overcome imperialism, reuniting not under a democratic government fueled by the consent of its people, but off of a dictatorship born from colonizers and foreign interference.