What was the Vietnam War?
The Vietnam War took place between 1959 and 1975 and was a conflict between two established governments fighting for the unification of the country under his leadership. The conflict in Vietnam began a few years after a first conflict ended: the WargivesIndochina.
In the course of the Vietnam War, the United States became directly involved in the conflict and, in 1969, it sent more than 500,000 soldiers to the Asian country. The American participation and the ideological motivation of the conflict are consequences of the tensions of the bipolarization of the period of Cold War, in which the ideologies of communism and capitalism disputed the hegemony of the world.
After years of war, it is believed that 1.5 million to 3 million people have died in Vietnam. In addition, the conflict was marked by scenes of violence against civilians that shocked the world and use of chemical weapons by the United States, which caused serious contamination of the soil and even today affects the country, as it increased the number of cases of diseases such as cancer.
How did the Vietnam War start?
The Vietnam War is a direct consequence of the Indochina War. During this conflict, which took place between 1946 and 1954, Vietnamese (usually communists) fought against French colonial rule in French Indochina – a colony of France that grouped Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. After that war, Vietnam secured its independence in two ideologically distinct entities.
Vietnamese independence was established during the Geneva Conference in 1954, which also defined that Vietnam would be divided into two distinct nations. O VietnamofNorth, of communist orientation, would be ruled by hoChimy and would have Hanoi as its capital. already the VietnamofSouth would be governed by GoodSo (replaced for noDiemmoney in 1955) and would have Saigon as its capital. Each government would be supported by Unitysoviet and StatesUnited, respectively.
At the Geneva Conference, it was also defined that Vietnam would be reunited from elections scheduled for 1955, however, the Diem Dinh's government refused to participate in the elections on the grounds that it did not believe it was possible to conduct free elections in the North of the Vietnam. Both existing governments in Vietnam were characterized by human rights violations.
As tensions between the two governments were high, the Ho Chi Minh government called on thousands of communist guerrillas in South Vietnam to rebel against Diem Dinh's government. Thus, numerous attacks began to take place and led to the outbreak of war in 1959. The Northern government built a series of roads linking north and south to support the guerrillas, known as vietcong.
How was the American participation in the conflict?
President Richard Nixon signed the ceasefire that ended American participation in the Vietnam War *
Since the Indochina War, the United States has viewed with concern the growth of communism in the region. As a result, the US government began taking steps to prevent this from happening in Vietnam as well from 1949, when the China became a communist nation. The likely influence of the Chinese in Vietnam led the United States to support the French in the Indochina War.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
With the defeat of the French and the division of Vietnam, the United States started to support the dictatorial government installed in South Vietnam. With the outbreak of war in 1959, the Americans began to provide armaments and military training to the South Vietnamese armies. This situation persisted until 1965.
The change in the American posture in the war resulted from transformations that took place in the presidency of the United States, allied to the inability of South Vietnam to contain the communist advance. In 1963, American President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in the city of Dallas and the American presidency was occupied by LyndonJohnson.
With Lyndon Johnson, the role of the United States in the war changed, especially after the IncidentofGulfinTonkin, used as a pretext for the country to participate directly in the conflict in 1965. In that incident, an American vessel called USSMaddox it was allegedly attacked twice by a North Vietnamese torpedo boat in August 1964.
The American participation in the conflict was marked by controversy, with the combat scenes shocking the American and world public opinion. The US military has been heavily criticized for carrying out massacres against civilians in small Vietnamese villages on the grounds of harboring Communist guerrillas.
Also, the use of napalm it's from weaponschemical it also generated criticism of the Americans. These items were the United States' strategic response to the guerrilla tactics adopted by the Vietcong. Napalm set fire to large tracts of forest, and agent orange (herbicide) was used to defoliate tracts of forest. The purpose of this was to prevent the Vietcong from using the dense forest as a hiding place.
Images of the violence of the fighting, such as those that took place during the Tet Offensive (attacks organized by the Viet Cong against some cities in South Vietnam), and the growth in the number of US soldiers killed led to intense protests in the United States over the end of the war. These protests were mainly organized by the movements of counterculture.
These factors pressured President Richard Nixon to negotiate a ceasefire with the North Vietnamese government. This agreement was signed on January 27, 1973 and made the United States' exit from the Vietnam War official. the American army had 58,000 dead soldiers in this war.
The United States' exit from the war intensified the weakening of South Vietnam, which, in 1973, was ruled by Nguyen Van Thieu. With the American exit, the communist forces began offensives that resulted in the conquest of the city of Saigon, in 1975, and the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government. This ended the conflict, and Vietnam was unified and ruled by the communists from 1976 onwards.
*Image credits: nephthali and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
