What were the reasons of why the Americans did not want the Domino Theory to happen during Vietnam War?

Question

why was the United States influenced by the domino theory to join in the Vietnam War

Answer 1

The "Domino Theory" was this idea that if communism was allowed to prevail in Southeast Asia, it would precipitate the fall of all those countries in it's vicinity. The actual truth was, the Vietnamese were struggling for Independence against the French, and Russia offered to help them.
The "Viet Mihn" (later known as the "Viet Cong") managed to break the French resolve after their victory at Dien Bien Phu (not sure if I have the spelling right).The Viet Mihn decimated a "crack" French unit (Groupment 18?) Anyway, so the French pretty much "gave up".
Then we step in.
Well...we "had to"....didn't we? We could not very well let the "commies" win....could we? Not to mention the vast natural resources available, I mean why do you think the French were there in the first place?
Gives one pause...dont it?

Answer 2

America viewed the Communist countries as a monolithic movement to build an empire with much searching for conspiracies and secret influences with fiascos like the Communist witch hunts of Joseph McCarthy and House Unamerican Activities Committee.
Under the Domino Theory, if we did not fight the communists in one country, it would allow them access to the next country, and the next, while we could block this process at the border if we could also keep Communist agents from infultrating. In other words, it wasn't local, it was international and the Communists were creating the problem.
In Southeast Asia this attitude was applied to the people fighting the French in their colonial holdings. The problem was the theory totally ignored whether the driving force was the nationalism of the countries with an accompanying dislike of any foreigners, communist or not. The communists were involved and favored because that was the only other help available.

Answer 3

Actually the United States was involved in Vietnam before the Gulf of Tonkin Innocent. You actually have several good answers already. There was an attack on the USS Maddox on August 2, 1964. It was patrolling in international waters. The North Vietnamese suspected it had helped South Vietnamese commandos pull off a raid on the coast a few days earlier, and attacked it in retaliation. The attack was fought off with the help of several air craft sent to strafe the Vietnamese gunboats. On August 4th the USS Turner Joy was in rough seas and got radar returns they thought were gunboats. They called for air support, and the possibility the Turner Joy was under attack was reported to the White House. The planes could find no evidence there were any gunboats in the vicinity of the Turner Joy, and it was concluded the radar returns were from wave tops in the heavy seas. However the Turner Joy thought it was under attack. It was not a lie or any kind of false flag stunt. But the White House was looking for an excuse to deploy American ground troops in South Vietnam and jumped on the report before it could be confirmed. Once it was confirmed there had been no attack on the Turner Joy it was to late, LBJ and Robert McNamara had used the supposed attack to justify air raids on North Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave them permission to deploy ground troops to South Vietnam. So, people that claim there was an attack are right...the USS Maddox was attacked. However, those that claim it was a lie or false flag operation also have a good argument. The USS Turner Joy was not attacked, and that was the incident that was used as the excuse for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The Johnson administration knew the second attack had not taken place when the Resolution was passed, so deployed American combat troops to South Vietnam based on misinformation if not an outright lie.

Answer 4

Economics.

After the Chinese Civil War, China became Communist,then followed by Korean War and US intervene than China joined in the party and they have a stalemate.

In the Indochina, the French were kick out by the Viet Minh after Dien Bien Phu. The Viet Minh decides to reunite with South Vietnam thru civil war and the Americans were worried that the communist will overrun SV and therefore they send in troops to help stem the Communist from NV.

Meanwhile, communist activities are also occuring in Laos, Cambodia (both later overrun by communist), Thailand and Malaysia (they fought an insurgency from 1948 to 1960 ending with a resounding victory for Malaysia).

If US did not act to aid SV, then most probably SEA will become communist and they will have no place to sell their technologies and machineries.

Answer 5

communism
america's main motive for for fighting in this war was to stop the ultimate spread of communism as they believed in free enterprise and to be self sufficient. they did not want their government to take away some of their rights. communist parties spread the money of the people evenly so there would be no rich and no poor. they tried to stop the ideas of germany and japan from spreading (domino theory) as they knew that communism would eventually reach them.
of couse communism would seem like a good thing, however, if a plumber would be recieving the same high wage of a lawyer, there would be less incentive for the plumber to work very hard - this was the flaw in communism as the industries exposed to it lacked in work quality.