The Vietnam War

1
The Vietnam War

• Session 3

2
Study Questions

• What caused the Vietnam War?
• Was Vietnam just another cold war problem?
• What was the balancing and bandwagoning dynamics
  in the Vietnam War?
  
• How did perceptions determine the war?
• What did we learn from the Vietnam War?

3
The Cold War

• Started 1947 Truman Doctrine -- containment
• 1949 the Birth of PRC, USSR 1st nuclear bomb
• Maos revolution from the country-side
• Vietnamese communists received support from PRC.
• Cominform communist revolution in Indochina led
  by the Vietnamese
  
• The Domino Theory communist expansionism /
  conspiracy

4
Before the U.S.-North Vietnam War

• During WW II, U.S. assisted Vietminh against the
  Japanese
  
• U.S. assisted the French in the 1st Indochina War
  (1946-54).
  
• After the fall of Dienbienphu and the 1954 Geneva
  Accords, U.S. supported Ngo Dinh Diem as PM and
  then the President.
  
• The Diem regime was repressive -- North Vietnam
  stepped up Viet Cong support through the Ho Chi
  Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia.
  
• CIA secretly fought the war in Laos against the
  Pathet Lao, also through Kmong people

5
The 2nd Indochina War (1961-75)

• Both U.S. and North Vietnam charged each other
  aggression in South Vietnam.
  
• U.S. claimed North Vietnam brutal campaign of
  terror
  
• North Vietnam called U.S. intervention
• Vocabulary Vietminh and Vietcong
• the strategic and economic importance of
  Southeast Asia for U.S. and Japan
  

6
U.S. Objectives and Strategies

• U.S. containment, esp. toward PRC
• to assure the survival of noncommunist South
  Vietnam
  
• U.S. the sense of mission, superiority,
  optimism
  
• Johnson that little piss-ant country
• First, U.S. gradual escalation -- to minimize
  intervention from USSR and PRC
  
• Operation Rolling Thunder bombing North
  Vietnam
  
• but later 500,000 troops Americanization of
  the war
  

7
North Vietnams Strategies

• Strategy of protracted war
• prepared civilians and soldiers for a long
  conflict
  
• prepared repair crews to recover damages from the
  Rolling Thunder
  
• used water transportation and the Ho Chi Minh
  Trail
  
• gained support of the rural population in the
  South
  
• played off USSR and PRC for supports
• stirred public opinion in the U.S.

8
What the U.S. should have known

• The Vietnamese strengths Nationalist legitimacy
  
  
• the tradition of foreign resistance
• Vietnamese antagonism toward China
• Rolling Thunder worked better at an
  industrialized country
  
• how to flight fragmented war with countless small
  actions
  
• U.S. as source of disenchantment bombing,
  declining morale from infusion of American
  troops, destruction of rural self-contained life

9
As war dragged on

• 1968 Tet Offensive more of repercussions in
  America
  
• Americans became confused about the objectives of
  the war and the effectiveness of the U.S. forces
  
• 1969 the Nixon Doctrine -- Vietnamization of the
  war
  
• But increased bombing and invasion in Cambodia
  and Laos -- spillover effects
  
• 1970 the topple of Prince Sihanouk in Cambodia,
  replaced by Gen. Lon Nol (aided by U.S.)

10
Toward the Settlement

• U.S. bombings in Cambodia created a pretext for
  the Khmer Rouge Victory
  
• Kissinger secretly negotiated with North Vietnam
  -- 1973 Peace pact
  
• 1975 the Fall of Saigon, also the victories of
  Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the Pathet Lao in
  Laos
  

11
The Vietnam War and IRs- Big Powers -

• U.S. containment of communism
• - the perception that USSR direct influence on
  Hanoi
  
• - the Asia-wide communist revolution modeled on
  PRC
  
• -- not lose an inch to communism in Vietnam
• USSR first more interest in Europe, later to
  assist NV
  
• China supported communist revolution, but not
  unified Vietnam
  
• USSR-PRC fragile relations -- U.S.-PRC
  rapprochement
  

12
The Vietnam War and IRs- Small States -

• Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines U.S.
  close alliances
  
• Thailand fear of communist insurgency supported
  by Vietnam and China, regime maintenance,
  economic benefits, traditional rivalry with
  Vietnam
• Indonesia non-aligned under Sukarno, but later
  leaned to the West under Suharto (since 1967)