The Vietnam War was an armed struggle in which Communist forces, composed of Viet Cong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese Army, fought against the South Vietnamese Army and the United States and Australian troops. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were the theaters of operations of this major conflict, which took place from November 1, 1955, to April 30, 1975, when the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, fell in the hands of the communists. The Vietnam War had been preceded by the French Indochina War, which had been fought between the French Army and a leftist insurgent army called the Viet Minh. As it was the case with this latter guerrilla group, both the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army were backed by the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, who armed the insurgents with modern weoponry such as jet fighters and surface-to-air missiles (SAM).
Background to the Vietnam War
Vietnam had been a French colony since the late 19th century. With the outbreak of World War II, the Japanese Army had temporarily taken over the country. During this time, clandestine insurgent movements arose against this foreign occupation of the country and began fighting the Japanese Army. The biggest guerrilla force was the Viet Minh, which was led by the communist leader Ho Chi Minh. After the war, this guerrilla army continued their struggle, but this time against the French government, which had returned to Office.
After the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, at which the French lost the war to the Viet Minh, the Geneva Accords had divided Vietnam into two zones at the 17th parallel, a northern zone would be ruled by the leader of the Viet Minh, Ho Chi Minh, and a southern zone would be governed by the State of Vietnam, headed by former emperor Bao Dai. But as soon as South Vietnam became an independent country, a new communist guerrilla force emerged in the south: the Viet Cong. This new insurgent force would militaryly be backed and supplied by North Vietnam thorough a complex network of jungle trails known as the Ho Chi Minh trail. In 1955, South Vietnam’s prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem became the President of the Republic, replacing Bao Dai. As Diem was a staunch anti-communist politician, he received support from the Eisenhower Administration.
Summary of the Vietnam War
The United States of America had been providing aid, military equipment and training to South Vietnam since 1954. This support increased when Ngo Dinh Diem took office in 1955. As the Viet Cong’s military build-up gained strength and the number of terrorist attacks rose, so did the US aid to South Vietnam; more US helicopters, armed personnel carriers and thousands of military advisers landed in South East Asia. In 1961, the new US Administration assured Diem of more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the communists. Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by special forces such as the Green Berets would be effective in a "brush fire" war in Vietnam.
Nevertheless, corruption was rampant in South Vietnam, and, by 1963, Diem’s government was so discredited that the United States did nothing to stop a military coup orchestrated by dissident generals. Then, a series of short-lived and unstable governments followed, proving no more effective against the insurgency. The catalyst for deeper US involvement came in August 1964, when north Vietnamese torpedo boats shot at a US destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin. This is known as the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident." As a result, President Lyndon Baynes Johnson began a series of air strikes on naval bases in the north. By the end of 1964, there were 23,000 US military advisers in Vietnam.
US involvement escalated in 1965, when the first US combat units were sent to fight in Vietnam. The conflict would eventually spilled over the borders of Laos and Cambodia, when undercover bombing operations were authorized by the US government to destroy the North Vietnamese Army secret camps from which the Viet Cong launched attacks against South Vietnamese and American military bases and villages. Stretches of land on the borders with Cambodia and Laos had become jungle-covered guerrilla sanctuaries where the North Vietnamese Army hid their military build-up.
American involvement in this protracted war peaked in 1968, when the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive. Although this communist offensive in South Vietnam failed to achieve its objectives, suffering a great number of casualties and losing the ground they had gained, a biased US media at the time reported it otherwise, and the Vietnam War became even more unpopular. As a consequence of the hippies demonstrations, the Nixon Administration was forced to apply a new policy in South East Asia: the Vietnamization of the war, which consisted in the withdrawal of US troops in stages, training and supplying the South Vietnamese Army personnel so they could take over the war. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.
On August 15, 1973, US Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment, which prohibited use of American military unless the president secured congressional approval in advance. On April 30, 1975, after 20 hours of heavy fighting, the North Vietnamese Army captured Saigon. This final battle marked the end of the Vietnam War. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year under a communist/nationalist government headed by Ho Chi Minh.
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