What were the U.S and allied reasons for both early political and later military, involvement in Vietnam? 10p?

Answer 1

Policy of containment, and the domino theory. They wanted to prevent communism from spreading to other Southeast countries in Asia or any other countries in Asia, and they fear it might spread to the Philippines. U.S. saw that North Vietnam is being supported by China and the Soviets. While South Vietnam only has the U.S. to help them.

Answer 2

The main concern was the possibility of Communism spreading through all Asia.

Vietnam, as part of French Indochina, had been embroiled in a war against French colonial rule since 1947 when it was allowed to separate into Laos, Cambodia, and North and South Vietnam in 1954.

The U.S. supported all of these except North Vietnam, which was Communist. In 1954 we were five years out from the Communist takeover of China, and one year out from the end of the Korean War. We were concerned that spread of Communism could endanger the Philippines, Thailand, Japan and Taiwan.

At that time it was believed that Communism was a monolithic world movement, led by the Soviet Union. We did not anticipate the rise of nationalism in Communist countries or the collapse of the Soviet Union.

We sought prevention of Communism from spreading beyond North Vietnam into Laos, South Vietnam and Cambodia. With the eventual collapse of South Vietnam we were unable to avoid Communist takeovers of all three countries, and much of the human suffering we had feared did occur.