Vietnam War Institutional Affiliation
Introduction
In current conditions, the international situation remains quite complicated, and the relationship between the various regions of the world is so close that any armed conflict can turn into a large-scale war. This threat is because armed conflicts are, as a rule, a coalition in nature, where significant human, material, technical, and financial resources are involved in the conduct of hostilities, and the danger of the use of weapons of mass destruction is continuously present. The analogs of current problems can be found by turning to a detailed study of the experience of individual countries. This is a comprehensive analysis of one of the most protracted and violent armed conflicts over the past sixty years - the US military intervention in Vietnam. As history has shown, ignoring other people’s mistakes, someone else’s, sometimes bitter experiences, leads to their no less severe miscalculations.
The US aggression was a violation of international law, a flagrant violation of the UN Charter, which prohibits not only an aggressive war but also a threat of force. The adventure undertaken by the ruling circles of the United States has turned Indochina into the most dangerous center of danger to world peace. The hostilities unleashed by the ruling circles of the United States in Vietnam in 1950-1975 by putting the American armed forces into operation were intended to suppress the national liberation movement in South Vietnam, prevent the building of socialism in North Vietnam, and preserve South Vietnam as a military-strategic base in Southeast Asia (Black, 2018). They became the most significant conflict after World War II.
The Reasons for the War in Vietnam
Starting from 50s of the 19th century, Vietnam was part of the French colonial empire (Wiest, 2009). After the end of World War I, the country began to grow in national identity, underground circles started to appear, advocating the independence of Vietnam, and several armed uprisings occurred. The labor class led by its communist avant-garde took the lead in the national liberation movement. Since the beginning of WWII, the role of Japan in this matter has become essential. On March 9, 1945, the Japanese occupation authorities abolished the French colonial apparatus in Vietnam (Asseline, 2018). In this regard, the French authorities capitulated before the Japanese aggressors, giving almost the whole country to them without resistance. However, the Vietnamese people did not want to change the French domination to the Japanese. They wanted freedom and independence.
The interest of the superpowers in Vietnam was due to its extremely favorable geographical and geopolitical position, which, in many respects, made it possible to control Southeast Asia as a whole. It should be specified that in the context of global confrontation, small countries also sought to solve their problems, trying to play on the contradictions between the great powers, and repeatedly pulled the great powers into local conflicts. Vietnam was not an exception: the communist government of North Vietnam sought to unite the country under its authority, and the government of South Vietnam tried to maintain power by relying on external forces. The Vietnam War lasted almost 20 years.
On March 6, 1946, a preliminary agreement was signed between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in Hanoi, according to which the French government recognized the republic as a free state with its government and army belonging to the Indochinese Federation and the French Union (Herring, 1991). It was then that France took the step, which later became a cross over the bridge from the 1st Resistance War to the 2nd. The French government turned to the United States for help, which created favorable conditions for the intervention of American imperialists in the internal affairs of Vietnam. The people of Vietnam took a crucial step towards independence - freed from the colonial oppression of France. It was expected that the further step should be the unification of the country, which was supposed to take place after the general free elections, which should take place no later than mid-1956.
Washington’s intervention began shortly after World War II. The US ruling circles did not want to come to terms with the victory of the August Revolution and the creation in September 1945 of the DRV of the first socialist state in Southeast Asia (Herring, 1991). Economic and financial investments in South Vietnam made it possible for the United States to turn this territory into a kind of experimental field, where the system of social, economic, cultural, ideological, and other programs developed by American experts, such as pacification, strategic villages, zones of prosperity, social reforms, administrative changes, etc. (Black, 2018). As a result of all these activities, the Americans achieved that the military and political leadership in South Vietnam finally passed from Paris to Washington. Step by step, the southern part of Vietnam turned into a colony of the United States and the Pentagon military base.
The Role of the US in the Military Conflict
Within 1965-1968, the US Army played a significant role in this war. The Americanization of the war was proceeding at a rapid pace. Over two years, the number of American expeditionary corps, which included almost all types of troops, increased nearly 18 times - from 30 thousand in early 1965 to 400 thousand people in 1966 and 540 thousand in 1967 (Tonnesson, 2011). Besides, the soldiers of some US allies participated in this war. Additionally, the United States assigned an essential role in the implementation of its plans to the Saigon Armed Forces.
Along with the continuation of the destructive war in South Vietnam, the Johnson administration launched an air war against North Vietnam. To deliver the first strike on the DRV, the United States staged the so-called Tonkin incident. Therefore, one of the early manifestations of the new US strategy in Vietnam was provocative actions taken to conceal and justify its essence, and then to direct armed intervention against the DRV.
The consideration of the conceptual approach of the United States to Southeast Asia in the mid-60s shows that it was based on exaggerated ideas about economic and military power, the subjective understanding of America’s national interests, tendentious assessments of international reality, and the domestic political situation in the country (Wiest, 2009). Reflecting, in aggregate, the class approach of the American leadership to the problems of foreign policy, these distorted ideas about the US role in the world to a certain extent contributed to the over-involvement of the American state in the affairs of Vietnam (Black, 2018). In deciding on military intervention, Washington hoped that a thriving local military operation in South Vietnam would be a sufficient warning to the national liberation revolutions of the entire Third world. In addition to that, it would encourage the allied US Asian countries and regimes that were concerned about the successes of the liberation movement in Asia and Africa. The ideological rationale for this US approach to the situation in Indochina was given in the Pacific Johnson Doctrine, proclaimed in July 1966 (Asseline, 2018). It also said about the readiness to fight in Vietnam, no matter how much time it took. At that time, the country did not doubt victory.
The US Failure in the Vietnam War
On January 15, 1973, the US Army and its allies ceased to conduct military operations in Vietnam. The offensive of 1968 was a turning point in the war and played a decisive role in the defeat of the United States, although it was the liberation forces that suffered purely from the military side (Herring, 1991). All their attacks were repulsed, they suffered huge losses - more than half of the people involved in the attack were destroyed. On March 31, Johnson announced a restriction, and soon a complete cessation of the bombing and shelling of the territory of the DRV from the sea, and, at the same time, declared the US readiness to negotiate with the representatives of the DRV on a political settlement (Tonnesson, 2011). On April 3, 1968, the DRV leadership agreed to join the negotiations.
The US position during the negotiations caused outrage of the North Vietnamese side. Both sides ignored each other’s demands and insisted on their opinion: America rejected the DRV’s proposal to create a coalition government in the SE and refuse to support the Thieu regime, and the DRV declined to solve the SE’s problems by holding elections under the auspices of the Saigon military junta (Tonnesson, 2011). On January 27, 1973, in Paris, the Agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam was signed (Tonnesson, 2011). On March 2, 1973, the Act on the International Conference in Vietnam, which expressed the approval and support of the Paris Agreements, was signed as well. The cease-fire in Vietnam and the American-Vietnamese negotiations also made it possible to reach a truce in Laos, and, in February 1973, a process of peaceful political settlement began in that country (Black, 2018).
Despite the overwhelming superiority in armaments and forces (the number of the US military contingent in Vietnam in 1968 was 540 thousand), they did not succeed in defeating the partisans. The losses of the US Army and its allies grew steadily. During the war years, Americans lost 58 thousand people killed, 2300 missing, and over 150 thousand wounded in the jungle (Wiest, 2009). Most of the Vietnamese were on the side of the partisans. They provided them with food, intelligence, recruits, and labor. Additionally, the soldiers and officers of the Vietnamese army were much better prepared for the war in the jungle than the Americans because they fought for the liberation of Indochina since World War II (Asseline, 2018). First, Japan was their adversary, then - France, and then - the USA.
The events of the Vietnam War found extensive coverage in the American press. Initially, the war in a foreign territory was perceived by a significant part of American society as a natural position of defending democracy against the communist threat. One of the most critical positions of the American geopolitical doctrine is control over the order in questionable territories. Indochina was classified as such territories. The military defeat of Japan during World War II intensified the national liberation movement in Burma, Laos, and Vietnam (Wiest, 2009). This could not disturb the United States. French political influence in these countries weakened, so the Americans sought to fill the geopolitical vacuum created by their presence.
However, the victory for the US in the Vietnam war did not happen. Thanks to the military support of the USSR and China, American and South Vietnamese troops suffered heavy losses. As a result, Richard Nixon, who replaced Lyndon Johnson as the President of the United States, was forced to withdraw American forces from Vietnam (Tonnesson, 2011). Along with that, South Vietnam could not resist the North without the support of American troops. The long-term presence of US troops in Vietnam was ambiguously estimated by public sentiment inside America. The amplitude of the fluctuations of ordinary US citizens and the press during the Vietnam War was from pride in American parties fighting for democracy in distant Indochina to bitter disappointment in reporting enormous losses.
Thus, the Vietnam War showed the inconsistency of the policy from a position of strength, which is the basis of the entire US foreign policy. The country, which was significantly inferior to the United States in terms of its resources, caused them enormous damage, which resulted in significant human losses for Americans, reducing their economic well-being, losing superpower status, and the formation of the Vietnamese syndrome in the public life of Americans. All this has put the need of the American foreign policymakers to conclude a peace treaty in Paris.
Conclusion
The US war in Vietnam was the largest military action in the history of the American state and, moreover, it became the culmination of the policy of the United States government aimed at suppressing the national liberation movement in Vietnam. Relying on the half-million expeditionary corps, equipped with the latest technology (napalm and chemical weapons, homing laser bombs, heat sensors, etc.) and using the most different tactics and methods of conducting military actions of the automated battlefield system, carpet bombing), the USA could not defeat the Vietnamese people (Wiest, 2009). The result of the Vietnam War was the aggravation of the internal political problems of the United States. It severed the country.
One of the most brutal consequences of this war was the Vietnamese syndrome. According to the observations of American scientists, most of the soldiers, who returned from Vietnam, could not find their place in life (Tonnesson, 2011). The reasons for this were mostly not of the material part, but the socio-psychological one: the fact that society consciously or unconsciously rejected the Vietnamese from themselves, who returned to it differently, not like all the others (Asseline, 2018). They behaved independently in relation with their superiors and were very demanding towards their subordinates. In their interaction with peers, they did not tolerate falsehood and hypocrisy, were too straightforward. Thus, the American Vietnamese were in the position of uncomfortable people for everyone, who surrounded them, and were forced to close in on themselves, became alcoholics, and drug addicts often committed suicide. Thus, the adventure undertaken by the ruling circles of the United States has turned Indochina into the most dangerous center of a threat to world peace.
References
Asseline, P. (2018). Vietnam’s American war: A history (Cambridge Studies in US Foreign Relations). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Black, J. (2018). The Vietnam war: A lesson in the geopolitics of Southeast Asia. Retrieved from https://www.fpri.org/article/2018/03/the-vietnam-war-a-lesson-in-the-geopolitics-of-southeast-asia/
Herring, G. C. (1991). America and Vietnam: The unending war. Foreign Affairs, 70(5), 104-119.
Tonnesson, S. (2011). Vietnam 1946: How the war began. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wiest, A. (2009). America and the Vietnam war. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge.
Bibliography
Asseline, P. (2018). Vietnam’s American war: A history (Cambridge Studies in US Foreign Relations). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The book is devoted to the analysis of the Vietnam war. The author divided the war into several periods, starting from the importance of Vietnam and ending with the civil war. Asseline explained the experiences and opinions of the communist participants of the war.
Black, J. (2018). The Vietnam war: A lesson in the geopolitics of Southeast Asia. Retrieved from https://www.fpri.org/article/2018/03/the-vietnam-war-a-lesson-in-the-geopolitics-of-southeast-asia/
The article relates to the research of the Vietnam war, its main reasons, stages, and consequences. The author paid particular attention to the role of the US in the war. Also, Black pointed out to the significance of the Vietnam war to the world.
Herring, G. C. (1991). America and Vietnam: The unending war. Foreign Affairs, 70(5), 104-119.
The author raised the issues of the Cold War and the dissolution of colonial empires as the prerequisites of the Vietnam war. The author discussed the role of the US, China, and Soviet Union in the conflict. The contribution of the US presidents was provided as well.
Tonnesson, S. (2011). Vietnam 1946: How the war began. Berkeley: University of California Press.
The author was among the first scientists, who deeply analyzed the role of the French, British, and US government in the Vietnam War. The author described a series of events, which made the country so interesting for researchers.
Wiest, A. (2009). America and the Vietnam war. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge.
