How did the Cold War lead to US involvement in Vietnam?

Question

How did the Cold War finally end?
Who helped end it?
What are relations like between the two countries now?

Answer 1

It wasn't really the Cold War that led the US into the Vietnam Conflict.
Vietnam represented an excellent source of revenue to the US and an even better opportunity to showcase new weapons and fighting techniques while the enemy watched what they could do.
That's why 'Nam was such a great failure for the U.S.
It proved they, the self-proclaimed best armed forces in the world, could be beaten, not only by 'inferior' forces, but by all who watched, such as the U.S.S.R. and China.
That is another reason as to why they stuck it out so long. They had (the political machine of the U.S.) to at least show determination and toughness so to send a message to anyone wanting to 'take them on'.
People have called me nuts for my ideas, but I have always believed that the U.S. MUST fight in wars to keep it's massive budget demands afloat.
Think aout it. Hundreds of thousands of war machines, planes, ships, and people, and the huge glut on supplies. Doesn't that in itself necessitate an intense need for manufactured goods, thereby creating thousands and thousands of jobs in everything from steel refining to fuel to food manufacture to weapons making?
My point to this is that Vietnam was just another project to keep the massive manufacturing demands of the U.S.A. working.
The Cold War had some effect of course, but not nearly the effect that the politicians of the Vietnam era would have you believe.
I use to work in weapons systems manufacturing. During the 1st Gulf War, us, as well as our suppliers, were never so busy nor did we ever have such a massive net profit.
War = money for the U.S.

Answer 2

Most concisely: The U.S. wanted to contain the spread of communism and the Soviet Union wanted to spread communism.

Ronald Reagan and Mikail Gorbachev (sp?) primarily ended the cold war.

Russia and the U.S. (the Soviet Union is more or less disolved) are more friendly, but I would classify the relationship as strained because the Soviet Union is not in effect as much of a democracy as they are on paper plus they are very friendly with many nations we are at direct odds with, such as Iran, Cuba, China, Syria, some of whom we classify as terrorist states - supporting terrorism. They were bitterly opposed to the invasion of Iraq.

Answer 3

The Cold War was the period of protracted conflict and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies from the late 1940s until the late 1980s.

consise reading on the cold war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_war#End_of_the_Cold_War

Explanation of the coldwar and communism in the vietnam war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

additional reading:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/11/script.html

Answer 4

One word: "Containment". The coverage of many presidential administrations interior the chilly war replaced into based on the imperative of conserving Communism constrained to it quite is modern borders.