Reasoning Behind Vietnam War By: Tyler Igo

French Conflict Before World War 2, French empire controlled Vietnam During World War 2 they lost control After the War Allied forces gave Southern Vietnam back to France They later then tried to retake control of the entire country which led to a conflict in October 1946 which led to 6000 Vietnamese dead. The French later tried to take the country again by the use of a special parachute regiment in November but also ended badly and caused the French to pull out of Vietnam

The Divide Once the French withdrew, the Chinese saw their moment to take control of Vietnam, but the attempt failed because of how poorly the Chinese treated the local populace. The Vietnamese pushed out the Chinese and then put Ho Chi Minh in charge of the Northern part of Vietnam After this conflict Allied forces met at Geneva and divided Vietnam officially into two parts at the 17 th parallel

Domino Theory The domino theory, which governed much of U.S. foreign policy beginning in the early 1950s, held that a communist victory in one nation would quickly lead to a chain reaction of communist takeovers in neighboring states. In Southeast Asia, the United States government used the domino theory to justify its support of a non-communist regime in South Vietnam against the communist government of North Vietnam, and ultimately its increasing involvement in the long-running Vietnam War ( ). In fact, the American failure to prevent a communist victory in Vietnam had much less of a global impact than had been assumed by the domino theory. Though communist regimes did arise in Laos and Cambodia after 1975, communism failed to spread throughout the rest of Southeast Asia.

American Support Once Vietnam was divided, the country was controlled by two different powers. Ho Chi Minh in the north and Ngo Dinh Diem in the South North was communist, South was more like a dictatorship Americans supported the South even though Diem was an awful man who cared more about himself than others He was later assassinated by his own generals It was said that the CIA had an influence in his assassination

American Conflict Americans sent in troops after the Tongking incident in 1964, 150,000 troops were sent and then a total of 500,000 was sent from American troops weren’t used to fighting in the jungle and against soldiers trained in Guerilla Warfare

End Result Both sides suffered heavy losses. Americans had 58,000 dead and hundreds of thousands wounded or missing Many civilians were killed as well due to a lack of trust from both sides or cross fire