Vietnam why did the war start

In Depth. How did the Syrian Civil War start? How the First World War began. How did the US intervene? History Vietnam War.

How did World War One end? What do the different coloured poppies mean? The National Trust: a cultural battleground. In Focus. For the next ten years the USA's involvement increased. The elections were never held and the country remained divided: North Vietnam was a communist republic led by Ho Chi Minh.

South Vietnam was a capitalist republic led by Ngo Dinh Diem. Reason two - Civil war. Ho Chi Minh. National 5 Subjects National 5 Subjects up. If the U. He believed the South Vietnamese should fight for themselves with American aid and advice. Publicly, though, he and members of his administration, especially Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, emphasized the strategic importance of South Vietnam.

A Hanoi victory in the war, McNamara argued, would place Vietnam that much closer to Chinese control, and then all of Southeast Asia would be in danger. His successor, Richard Nixon, entered the presidency in a world that looked much different than it had in Americans across the political spectrum opposed the Vietnam War, the U. The changing conditions of the context surrounding Vietnam made what happened there seem less strategically important to the U. Additionally, Nixon was more pragmatic than idealistic in his foreign policy worldview.

He believed that the U. Regional alliances in Southeast Asia and superpower tensions between the U. Historians may never agree about when the war actually started, but all of these factors informed U. Asselin, Pierre. Chapman, Jessica. Herring, George. New York: McGraw-Hill, Lawrence, Mark Atwood. Lind, Michael. New York: Free Press, A coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November , three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Congress soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution , which gave Johnson broad war-making powers, and U. The bombing campaign was meant to disrupt the flow of supplies across the Ho Chi Minh trail into Vietnam and to prevent the rise of the Pathet Lao, or Lao communist forces. The U. In March , Johnson made the decision—with solid support from the American public—to send U.

By June, 82, combat troops were stationed in Vietnam, and military leaders were calling for , more by the end of to shore up the struggling South Vietnamese army. Despite the concerns of some of his advisers about this escalation, and about the entire war effort amid a growing anti-war movement , Johnson authorized the immediate dispatch of , troops at the end of July and another , in In contrast to the air attacks on North Vietnam, the U.

Westmoreland pursued a policy of attrition, aiming to kill as many enemy troops as possible rather than trying to secure territory. Heavy bombing by B aircraft or shelling made these zones uninhabitable, as refugees poured into camps in designated safe areas near Saigon and other cities. Even as the enemy body count at times exaggerated by U. Additionally, supported by aid from China and the Soviet Union, North Vietnam strengthened its air defenses.

By November , the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching ,, and U. The later years of the war saw increased physical and psychological deterioration among American soldiers—both volunteers and draftees—including drug use , post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD , mutinies and attacks by soldiers against officers and noncommissioned officers.

Between July and December , more than , U. Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the home front turned against the war as well: In October , some 35, demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon. Opponents of the war argued that civilians, not enemy combatants, were the primary victims and that the United States was supporting a corrupt dictatorship in Saigon.

On January 31, , some 70, DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive named for the lunar new year , a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than cities and towns in South Vietnam. Taken by surprise, U. Reports of the Tet Offensive stunned the U. With his approval ratings dropping in an election year, Johnson called a halt to bombing in much of North Vietnam though bombings continued in the south and promised to dedicate the rest of his term to seeking peace rather than reelection.

Despite the later inclusion of the South Vietnamese and the NLF, the dialogue soon reached an impasse, and after a bitter election season marred by violence, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency.

In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization : withdrawing U. In addition to this Vietnamization policy, Nixon continued public peace talks in Paris, adding higher-level secret talks conducted by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger beginning in the spring of The North Vietnamese continued to insist on complete and unconditional U.