What was the cause for the Vietnam war?

Question

Thanks!

Answer 1

Communist agression and Vietnamese Nationalisim

The Vietnam War was in two parts. First was Ho Chi Mihn's war against the French. That ended at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The French agreed to pack up and go home. The Communists got the Northern Part of the Country (North Vietnam) . Since the Communists made a point of killing Christians, the Christians moved into South Viet Nam, where the French set up a more or less free governement.

I say more or less because it wasn't perfect. The elections were corrupt...(but then again so were the ones in Louisiana and Mississippi and Chicago at the time) and later on they had military coups, but it was still a lot more free than the Communist Government.

The North Vietnamese weren't satisified with just having half their country. They wanted all of Vietnam to be a Communist dictatorship. They started a terrorist group in South Viet Nam called the Viet Cong, and supported it with weapons and money, but it wasn't really very popular in the South so they started sending their own troops South pretending to be Viet Cong... then they just said the heck with it and started sending their toops South wearing their own uniforms and with their own equipment.

The South Vietnamese didn't appreciate being invaded and having their people killed, so they fought back.

The U.S. started supporting the South Vietnamese, first with the CIA then with Army training teams ("advisors") and with supplies and weapons. Then with air support. Then we needed Marines to guard the air bases where the planes were, and as time went on we got more and more involved.

In 1965 we had some U.S. destroyers off of North Vietnam. They may have been listening to North Vietnamese radio reports, they may have been supporting a South Vietnamese commando raid, they may just have been on patrol in international waters. Accounts differ. North Vietnamese patrol boats came out and shot at them. There was a confused sea battle. Accounts differ about what happened.

In any case the USA got most annoyed that our navy ships were getting shot at, and the President went to Congress and asked for permission to deploy U.S. Troops to fight in South East Asia. It was called "The Tonkin Gulf Resolution." This gave the President permission to send U.S. troops to Vietnam.

And from there on in things sort of took on a life of their own.

Answer 2

Northern Vietnam was in a communist state and South Vietnam wasn't. There became a civil war between the two to decide whether the country would be a communist or a capitalist country. Russia was helping the North fight the south so the United States helped the South

Answer 3

J.S. is correct! Lots of rubbish up here! (Stay away from Wikipedia to start!).
I'll add a couple of sites ... this one young people really like ...
http://www.vietnampix.com/
This one is more detailed ... better for HS/college.
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index.html
As a good read, I also highly recommend James N. Rowe, "Five Years to Freedom."

Answer 4

Fall of the French Empire in Asia.

Answer 5

Too many biased and uninformed answers here, you might try reading someone who has done scholarly, obective research - see Gabriel Kolko's book 'Vietnam'.

Answer 6

Vietnamese nationalism clashing with French colonialism, and the consequences of that.

Answer 7

Communist North Viet nam was trying to force South Viet Nam to become communist. We got involved trying to help them stay a democracy.

Answer 8

stupidity