why did the u.s. become involved the vietnam war?

Answer 1

After WW2 the US adopted a policy of "containment" meaning that we would contain the spread of Communism around the world.

Vietnam, along with Laos and Cambodia was once known as French-Indochina, and controlled by the French. They had lost control of the area during WW2 and wanted it back. They used the policy of containment to involve the US, citing that communists, influenced by the Chinese were going to take over the country.

Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy sent "advisers" to Vietnam to work within the policy of containment. President Johnson escalated the war in the mid-1960s by sending thousands of troops to Vietnam. President Nixon, publicly called for the recall of the US forces from the area, while privately he had plans for further escalation. By the early 1970s, troops began to pull out and by 1975 the conflict was over. Vietnam fell to the communists, as did Laos; and Cambodia so destabilized by the whole conflict fell to the Khmer-Rouge.

In the end communism was not contained, the French did not get their colony back, many men and women lost their lives and all nations which participated were ruined.

Answer 2

To answer that question you need to look back at what had happend before hand. We were in the middle of a cold war, fighting the communist nation of Russia. The communist occupied North Vietnam and the democratic leaders occupied South Vietnam. We were aiding the southern people to prevent an invasion of the country and a complete take over of the country by the communist party. Our leaders were so scared that communist were going to take over the world. But another thing to remember is the last declared war before the war in iraq and Afganistan was WW2. Vientnam was not a declared war.

Answer 3

Who is conscious the actual fact; I certainly have study that u . s . of america promoted France to "combat " for it truly is colonial rule over Vietnam, (which it misplaced sometime around WWII), genuine after WWII. France did no longer pick to be in touch in any further conflict and "misplaced" the conflict. u . s . of america no longer wanting to be a ingredient of the dropping part began throwing funds on the concern. And on it went from there. I certainly have additionally study that some "effective" persons in a boardroom sat sown dividing up Vietnam as they did Europe after WWI. source for that (on recollection basically) is Oscar Himplewitz of Yahoo solutions. I certainly have additionally study that u . s . of america had substantial tin mining hobbies in South Vietnam and this grew to become into an influencing element. So the actual motives for protection tension action in Vietnam may well be very disguised, and many times unknown to the final public. the biggest reason for political conflict at abode grew to become into the finished volume of yank troops being killed for little or no earnings and the great mounting toll of ineffective harmless Vietnamese.

Answer 4

The Military Industrial Complex needed a war so they could make huge profits selling weapons the the US Government.

Sadly, a lot of very brave people died at their profiteering.

Solders are Heros. The leaders were zeros.

Answer 5

Mainly to control the spread of communism, just like in the korean war.

Answer 6

That time-honored tradition we have of sticking our nose into other people's business. We were fighting "communism" ... that was the buzz-word of the 50s and 60s ... much the way terrorism is today.

The real answer is that Republicans (Eisenhower) just like to stir up the pot and flex the military muscle --- at any cost.

Answer 7

To avoid the communist government taking over surrounding countries. Kinda like when we went to Iraq the first time in desert storm.

Answer 8

One word {Politics} ; "Poly" meaning MANY. And "Tics" meaning blood sucking creatures.

Answer 9

From Colonialism to U.S. intervention
France had gained control of Indochina in a series of colonial wars beginning in the 1840s and lasting into the 1880s. At the Treaty of Versailles negotiations following the armistice that ended World War I in 1919, Hồ Chí Minh requested participation in order to obtain the independence of the Indochinese colonies. His request was rejected, and Indochina's status as a colony of France remained unchanged. During World War II, Vichy France cooperated with the occupying Imperial Japanese forces. Vietnam was under effective Imperial Japanese control, as well as de facto Japanese administrative control -- although the Vichy French continued to serve as the official administrators until 1944. In that year, the Japanese overthrew the French administration and humiliated its colonial officials in front of the Vietnamese population. The Japanese then began to encourage nationalist activity among the Vietnamese. Late in the war, Japan granted Vietnam nominal independence.

After the Japanese surrender, the Vietnamese nationalists, communists, and other groups hoped to finally take control of the country. The Japanese army in Indochina had assisted the Viet Minh -- Hồ's resistance army -- and other Vietnamese independence groups by imprisoning French officials and soldiers and handing over public buildings to the Vietnamese. On September 2, 1945, Hồ Chí Minh spoke at a ceremony in which he announced the formation of a new Vietnamese government under his leadership. In his speech he cited the U.S. Declaration of Independence and a band played "The Star Spangled Banner." Hồ, who had been an agent of the Third Communist International since the early 1920s, hoped that the Americans would ally themselves with a Vietnamese nationalist movement, communist or otherwise. He based this hope on speeches by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt against the continuation of European colonialism after World War II. Roosevelt, however, had moderated his position after the British -- who wanted to keep their own colonies -- objected. In the end, U.S. policy was to make no objection to France taking back its colonies in Indochina, but to offer no material or military support to France if it encountered difficulties in so doing. In other words, U.S. policy was that France had to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people in keeping with Roosevelt's vision of the self-determination of Third World peoples. This policy would later change at the beginning of the Korean War, when the U.S. would equate Hồ's communism with that of the North Korean communists the U.S. was fighting in the Korean War.

The question of who would control Vietnam was complicated by the disposition of the various allied occupation forces at the end of World War II. Control of Indochina at the end of the war was divided between British and Chinese areas of occupation. The Chinese army arrived in the north a few days after Hồ Chí Minh's ceremony in September 1945, and took over areas north of the 16th parallel. The British arrived in the south in October and supervised the surrender and departure of the Japanese army from Indochina south of the 16th parallel.

In the South, the French prevailed upon the British to turn control of the region back over to them. French officials, when released from Japanese prisons at the end of September 1945, also took matters into their own hands in some areas. In the north, France negotiated with both the nationalist government of China and the Viet Minh. By agreeing to give up Shanghai and its other concessions in China, the French persuaded the Chinese to allow them to return to northern Vietnam and negotiate with the Viet Minh. The Việt Minh, Hồ's resistance army, agreed to allow French forces to land outside Hanoi, while France agreed to recognize an independent Vietnam within the French Union. However, negotiations to work out the details of this arrangement collapsed. The Chinese left, France seized Hanoi, and the Viet Minh fled to the countryside to organize an insurgency, setting the stage for the First Indochina War in which France attempted to reestablish Vietnam as part of a French overseas domain. In the meantime, Hồ took advantage of the period of negotiation to liquidate competing nationalist groups in the north.

In a gradual process — accelerated by the establishment of the communist People's Republic of China — the Viet Minh transformed themselves into a well-equipped, modern conventional army. While they could not defeat the French in populated areas of the north, they did manage to gain control over the border with China and remote areas in places like Laos. After the Việt Minh's victory over the French at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ, France decided to negotiate a withdrawal from Indochina. All of Indochina was granted independence, including Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. However, Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel, above which the Viet Minh established a socialist state, (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam or DRV) and below which a non-communist state was established under the Emperor Bảo Đại (the State of Vietnam). Bao Dai's Prime Minister, Ngo Dinh Diem, shortly thereafter removed him from power, and established himself as President of the Republic of Vietnam.

As dictated in the Geneva Accords of 1954, the division was meant to be temporary, pending free elections for a national leadership. The agreement stipulated that the two military zones, which were separated by the temporary demarcation line, "should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary," and specifically stated that "general elections shall be held in July 1956."

However, the Diem government refused to enter into negotiations to hold the stipulated election, encouraged by the United States' determination to prevent a communist victory in an all-Vietnam election. Questions were also raised about the legitimacy of any poll held in the communist-run North. Diem's South Vietnamese government had not signed the Geneva Accords, so he felt no obligation to comply with them. On the communist side, even before the Geneva Accords were signed, Hồ Chí Minh had prepared to attack South Vietnam in case unification failed to take place through elections. His preparations included communication with thousands of covert communist agents in the south and the hiding of numerous weapons caches.

Beginning in the summer of 1955, Diem launched a 'Denounce the Communists' campaign, during which communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned or executed. Also at this time, people moved across the partition line in both directions. It is estimated that around 100,000 Vietnamese moved from South Vietnam to North Vietnam, while perhaps 1,000,000 Vietnamese moved from north to south. One of the leading Communists in the South, Lê Duẩn, returned to Hanoi to urge that the Vietnam Workers' Party (VWP) take a firmer stand on national reunification. In January 1959, under pressure from southern cadres who were increasingly being successfully targeted by Diem's secret police, the Central Committee of the VWP issued a secret resolution authorizing the use of armed struggle in the South.

In December 1960, under instruction from Hanoi, southern communists established the National Liberation Front in order to overthrow the government of the South. The NLF was made up of two distinct groups: South Vietnamese intellectuals who opposed the South Vietnamese government and were nationalists, such as Truong Nhu Tang; and communists who had remained in the south after the partition and regroupment of 1954, such as Nguyen Thi Binh, as well as those communists who had come from the north. While there were many non-communist members of the NLF, they were subject to the control of the VWP cadres and increasingly side-lined as the conflict continued; they did, however, enable the NLF to portray itself as a primarily nationalist, rather than communist, movement.

The North Vietnamese occupied large parts of eastern Laos and supplied the NLF with weapons via the Hồ Chí Minh Trail. The Ho Chi Minh trail ran from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia (a violation of the neutrality of those countries by North Vietnam) into South Vietnam. In 1965, Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia made a deal with China and North Vietnam that allowed North Vietnamese forces to establish permanent bases in the country and to use the port of Sihanoukville for delivery of military supplies. The Prince was later deposed and the supply route closed by Cambodian Premier, Lon Nol, in 1970. In the meantime, the Hồ Chí Minh Trail had been steadily expanded to become the vital lifeline for communist forces in South Vietnam, including the Vietnam People's Army, and as a result it later became a target of U.S. air operations.

The Diệm government was initially able to cope with the insurgency with the aid of U.S. advisers, and by 1962 seemed to be winning. Senior U.S. military leaders were receiving positive reports from the U.S. commander, Gen. Paul D. Harkins of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. U.S. President John F. Kennedy had increased the number of American "advisers" in the belief that he could duplicate the success of British counterinsurgency warfare in Malaya. However, in 1963, a communist offensive that began with the Battle of Ap Bac inflicted major losses on South Vietnamese army units. This was the first large-scale battle since Dien Bien Phu, a major departure from the assassinations and guerrilla activities that had preceded it.

Ap Bac was a sign that the insurgency was escalating as a result of the increasing supplies of men and weapons from the North. Diem was already deeply unpopular with many of his own people because of his administration's nepotism, corruption, and its apparent bias in favor of the Catholic minority -- of which Diem was a part -- at the expense of the Buddhist majority. Policy-makers in Washington began to believe that Diem was incapable of defeating the communists, and even feared that he might make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. They began to entertain the idea of changing the leadership of South Vietnam.

In November, 1963, the U.S. embassy in Saigon indicated to coup plotters that they would not oppose the removal of Diem from power. The South Vietnamese President was overthrown by a military coup and was later executed (to the horror of President Kennedy.) Chaos ensued in the security and defense systems of South Vietnam, while Hanoi took advantage of the situation to increase its support for the insurgents in the South. South Vietnam then entered a period of extreme political instability with a succession of different military rulers; the United States' involvement in South Vietnam dramatically increased; and the 'Americanization' of the war began.