The Vietnam War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

The Vietnam War - Essay Example In their attempt to prevent Vietnam from being a Communist country, the United States opted to help France in defeating Vietnam and its revolutionaries. US, therefore, sent military aid to the French in 1950. US troop’s quantity continued increasing over time until April 1969, when they reached a climax of 5434000. There were a total of 2.7 million Americans serving in South Vietnam. 58000 of them died or went missing, while 300000 others were wounded. It has been documented that the American government spent over 140 billion dollars on this war. Despite this gigantic military effort by the US, its objectives were not achieved by the end of the war. That failure has led, to date, searching answers to why the war was actually fought, and whether better military and diplomatic outcome was possible for America (Lawrence 129). After suffering a significant defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, French decided to leave Vietnam. A number of countries met at the 1954 Geneva Conference in t heir effort to determine how French would have withdrawn from Vietnam peacefully. From the conference, came an agreement that has been referred to as the Geneva Accords. It stipulated a composed extraction of French forces and a momentary splitting up of Vietnam across the 17th parallel (Wiest 23). This 17th parallel ended up splitting Vietnam into non-communist South Vietnam and communist North Vietnam. In addition to this, the conference agreed that a general independent election would be held in 1956 in order to bring back together the nation under a single government. Fearing that the communists would win during the election, the United States was against the election. South Vietnam, with the help of America, carried out the election within South Vietnam, rather than the entire country. Ngo...As the war between the South Vietnamese and the Viet Cong progressed, the United States, on the other hand, sent more guides to South Vietnam. On August 2nd, 1964 the North Vietnamese fired straight on two American vessels in global waters. This firing has been known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The Congress acted in response with what has been referred to as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. US president, President Johnson’s intention for the US taking part in the Vietnam War was not for America to prevail in the war, but for the US to reinforce South Vietnam’s defenses so that South Vietnam would take over leadership. Critics have argued that by getting involved in the Vietnam War without a goal to come first, President Johnson set a weak foundation for later open and military troop disappointments for America. This is one of the greatest impacts that the Vietnam War had on the Cold War, as far as American’s success was concerned. The Vietnam War was a turning point for the Cold War, as Americans realized that their military troops were not comparable to others in strength and not able to win in any war. They needed better modus operandi and org anization. Between 1965 and 1969, the Americans were majorly involved in a restricted war in Vietnam. Even though aerial bombing was still present at the North, President Johnson intended the fighting to be limited only to the South. This limitation ensured that the United States troops would not perform severe ground physical attacks at the North to directly attack the communists.