vietnam war explained
[351], Vietnamese victims affected by Agent Orange attempted a class action lawsuit against Dow Chemical and other U.S. chemical manufacturers, but the District Court dismissed their case. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. [258] An estimated 26,000 to 41,000 civilian members of the PRG/Viet Cong termed "VC Infrastructure" were killed during the Phoenix Program, by US and South Vietnamese intelligence and security, with an unknown number being innocent civilians. The Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America (Vietnamese: Kháng chiến chống Mỹ) or simply the American War, was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. 100 years 3. Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions became widely accepted by scholars at the time. Low estimates calculate 110,000 combat KIA and a half-million wounded. There had also been reports of Catholic paramilitaries demolishing Buddhist pagodas throughout Diệm's rule. "[176] Between 1969 and 1971 the U.S. Army recorded more than 900 attacks by troops on their own officers and NCOs with 99 killed. There is substantial evidence that the birth defects carry on for three generations or more. Once again, Hanoi was surprised by the speed of their success. Major allies, however, notably NATO nations Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington's troop requests.[141]. In 1967, all Viet Cong battalions were reequipped with arms of Soviet design such as the AK-47 assault rifle, carbines and the RPG-2 anti-tank weapon. [64] Operations crossed national borders: Laos was invaded by North Vietnam early on, while Cambodia was used by North Vietnam as a supply route starting in 1967; the route through Cambodia began to be bombed by the U.S. in 1969, while the Laos route had been heavily bombed since 1964. In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the "danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did. While Hanoi's support for the Viet Cong played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis.[75]:369. [110], Following the coup, chaos ensued. [30]:714 After having appealed unsuccessfully to Congress for $700 million in emergency aid for South Vietnam, President Ford had given a televised speech on 23 April, declaring an end to the Vietnam War and all U.S. aid. The United States also reduced support troops, and in March 1971 the 5th Special Forces Group, the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, withdrew to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Polish People's Republic had played a substantive role in brokering and serving as an intermediary for peace-talks between Hanoi and Saigon, as part of a delegation under the International Control Commission established under the Geneva Accords. These advance warnings gave them time to move out of the way of the bombers, and, while the bombing runs caused extensive damage, because of the early warnings from 1968 to 1970 they did not kill a single military or civilian leader in the headquarters complexes. As the PAVN launched their attack, panic set in, and ARVN resistance withered. This time, Trà could travel on a drivable highway with regular fueling stops, a vast change from the days when the Ho Chi Minh trail was a dangerous mountain trek. The unified Vietnam fought insurgencies in all three countries. But revelations of the 1968 My Lai Massacre,[30]:518–21 in which a U.S. Army unit raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 "Green Beret Affair", where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, were arrested for the murder[171] of a suspected double agent,[172] provoked national and international outrage. The ethnic minority peoples of South Vietnam, like the Montagnards (Degar) in the Central Highlands, the Hindu and Muslim Cham, and the Buddhist Khmer Krom, were actively recruited in the war. Over time, this policy damaged the public trust in official pronouncements. [336] An estimated 125,000 Americans left for Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft,[337] and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted. [30]:33–5, Military advisors from the People's Republic of China (PRC) began assisting the Viet Minh in July 1950. [30]:287 U.S. and South Vietnam forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. After two clashes that left 55 ARVN soldiers dead, President Thieu announced on 4 January 1974, that the war had restarted and that the Paris Peace Accords were no longer in effect. "[298] The issue was solved in early 1968 with the issuance of the M16A1, featuring a chrome-plated bore, which reduced fouling, and the introduction of a cleaner-burning powder. North Vietnam had also invaded Laos in the mid-1950s in support of insurgents, establishing the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply and reinforce the Việt Cộng. Johnson ordered the deployment of combat units for the first time and increased troop levels to 184,000. Some mines were set only to go off after heavy vehicle passage, causing extensive slaughter aboard packed civilian buses. [329] General record-keeping was reported to have been sloppy for government spending during the war. At the Geneva Conference, the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh, and independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The invasion of Cambodia sparked nationwide U.S. protests as Nixon had promised to deescalate the American involvement. Phase 1. Before he left for the South, Dũng was addressed by Lê Duẩn: "Never have we had military and political conditions so perfect or a strategic advantage as great as we have now."[197]. [221], There are numerous allegations by former U.S. prisoners of war that Cuban military personnel were present at North Vietnamese prison facilities during the war and that they participated in torture activities. The U.S. and its allies mounted complex search and destroy operations, designed to find enemy forces, destroy them, and then withdraw, typically using helicopters. Leave a Comment / First Indochina War, Vietnam War. [149]: In 1971, Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers and U.S. troop count was further reduced to 196,700, with a deadline to remove another 45,000 troops by February 1972. [127] The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the Viet Cong by threatening to destroy North Vietnamese air defenses and industrial infrastructure. The negotiations became deadlocked when Hanoi demanded new changes. [222], The Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam (Bộ Công An) states that there was special interest towards the Stasi of East Germany in establishing an intelligence and security apparatus, particularly since the Stasi was well-regarded and considered as "industrial, modern, and (with a) scientific working-style". The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. [243] Officially, Canada did not have state-sanctioned combat involvement in the Vietnam War, and diplomatically, it was "non-belligerent", though the sympathies of the state and many of its citizens were well-understood by both sides. They received some Japanese arms when Japan surrendered. The deputy military commander of the Viet Cong, was a female general, Nguyễn Thị Định. [153]:[154]:104 In Saigon, Viet Cong/PAVN fighters had captured areas in and around the city, attacking key installations and the neighbourhood of Cholon before US and ARVN forces dislodged them after three weeks. With the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, the United States ended its direct involvement in the Vietnam War. Among the internal refugees were many young women who became the ubiquitous "bar girls" of wartime South Vietnam, "hawking her wares—be that cigarettes, liquor, or herself" to American and allied soldiers. Within the U.S, the war gave rise to what was referred to as Vietnam Syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvements,[67] which together with the Watergate scandal contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s. Please read the, Ousting and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, ARVN taking the lead and U.S. ground-force withdrawal, Easter Offensive and Paris Peace Accords, 1972, Opposition to U.S. involvement, 1964–1973, United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO), Due to the early presence of U.S. troops in Vietnam the start date of the Vietnam War is a matter of debate. The circumstances of the attacks were murky. Officials expected a foreign intervention to fail, were concerned that they would be supporting a corrupt regime, and did not want to further stretch their country's small military (which was already deployed to Malaysia). Franco was even more cautious in committing himself to the US cause and finally decided to send a medical team of around thirty people, and under strict secrecy. 1973. They faced a plethora of challenges, one of which was the relatively small number of female soldiers. [145] Up to the war's end, the Viet Cong and PAVN would initiate 90% of large firefights, of which 80% were clear and well-planned operations, and thus the PAVN/Viet Cong would retain strategic initiative despite overwhelming US force and fire-power deployment. The campaign also focused on the Bình Xuyên organized crime group, which was allied with members of the communist party secret police and had some military elements. The two countries fought a brief border war, known as the Sino-Vietnamese War. Northern forces, their morale boosted by their recent victories, rolled on, taking Nha Trang, Cam Ranh and Da Lat.[30]:702–4. [85]:341 There was also persistent instability in the military, however, as several coups—not all successful—occurred in a short period of time. Thousands of refugees streamed southward, ahead of the main communist onslaught. It was gradually replaced by the M16 rifle, designed by Eugene Stoner, between 1964 and 1970. [30]:517 On 27 October 1969, Nixon had ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union, in accord with the madman theory, that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War. Political turbulence there and two alleged North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. naval vessels spurred Johnson to demand the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. U.S. and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. 5, pp. After lengthy debate between his ministers, Franco took the advice of veteran General Agustín Muñoz Grandes. Although Diệm was publicly praised, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles privately conceded that Diệm had been selected because they could find no better alternative. [334] Vietnam veterans suffered from PTSD in unprecedented numbers, as many as 15.2% of Vietnam veterans, because the U.S. military had routinely provided heavy psychoactive drugs, including amphetamines, to American servicemen, which left them unable to process adequately their traumas at the time. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Opposition to the Vietnam War tended to unite groups opposed to U.S. anti-communism and imperialism,[200] and for those involved with the New Left, such as the Catholic Worker Movement. [30]:227, The National Security Council recommended a three-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. Open refusal to engage in patrols or carry out orders and disobedience began to emerge during this period, with one notable case of an entire company refusing orders to engage or carry out operations. At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China. [160] Public approval of his overall performance dropped from 48 percent to 36 percent, and endorsement for the war effort fell from 40 percent to 26 percent. The war also saw depiction in another genre, in the form of third-person shooters, MMORPG, real-time strategy and role-playing, such as Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Caliber .50 (1989), Made Man (2006), Gunboat (1990) and Strike Fighters 2: Vietnam (2009). [66][15]:770 The war exacted an enormous human cost: estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 966,000[25] to 3.8 million. [15]: Many songwriters and musicians supported the anti-war movement, including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Barbara Dane, The Critics Group, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, John Fogerty, Nina Simone, Neil Young, Tom Paxton, Jimmy Cliff and Arlo Guthrie. It was a prolonged struggle between nationalists aimed at unifying the territories of South and North Vietnam under a communist government and the United States with the South Vietnamese assistance aimed at preventing the spread of communism (Friedrichs 131). [151]:495 During that time, they had executed approximately 2,800 unarmed Huế civilians and foreigners they considered to be enemy's spies. The M14 was a powerful, accurate rifle, but it was heavy, hard-recoiling, and especially unwieldy in jungle fighting, as it was unsuited for the combat conditions, often suffering from feed failure. On 13 December 1974, North Vietnamese forces attacked Phước Long. [207], The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. But some saw these steps as leading only to a wider war in Asia, with no end in sight. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, 62 percent of Americans believed it was an unjust war. By 1970, over 70% of communist troops in the south were northerners, and southern-dominated VC units no longer existed. [15]: In a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam on 23 October 1955, Diệm rigged the poll supervised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu and was credited with 98.2 percent of the vote, including 133% in Saigon. "[106] By November 1963, 16,000 American military personnel were stationed in South Vietnam. In 1968, the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was established by the Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai Massacre, to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War period. Learn why a country that had been barely known to most Americans came to define an era. The United States had provided funding, armaments, and training to South Vietnam’s government and military since Vietnam’s partition into the communist North and the democratic South in 1954. The defeat marked the end of French military involvement in Indochina. Bulgarian military aid had already been provided to the latter since 1967. In the 1960 U.S. presidential election, Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard M. Nixon. [224], Romania was also among primary supporters of North Vietnam during the war in political, economic and military terms. In addition, Soviet military schools and academies began training Vietnamese soldiers—in all more than 10,000 military personnel. [30]: Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communist officials always won at least 99% of the vote in North Vietnamese "elections". Oct. 15, 1969: The first Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, a series of … U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. On 15 October 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium attracted millions of Americans. [343]:373 According to Kuzmarov, Richard Nixon is primarily responsible for creating the drug myth. As the media's coverage of the war and that of the Pentagon diverged, a so-called credibility gap developed. New Zealand was, however, a reluctant participant. It began on 29 April, in an atmosphere of desperation, as hysterical crowds of Vietnamese vied for limited space. ", According to the Pentagon Papers, however, from 1954 to 1956 "Ngô Đình Diệm really did accomplish miracles" in South Vietnam: "It is almost certain that by 1956 the proportion which might have voted for Ho—in a free election against Diệm—would have been much smaller than eighty percent. Included among their ranks were "about 90 percent" of Laos's "intellectuals, technicians, and officials. [151]:388–91 In addition, large numbers of women served in North Vietnam, manning anti-aircraft batteries, providing village security and serving in logistics on the Ho Chi Minh trail. [158][159] By then it had become the bloodiest year of the war up to that point. Meanwhile, the one-year tour of duty of American soldiers deprived units of experienced leadership. By 28 March 35,000 PAVN troops were poised to attack the suburbs. [30]:284–5 These tactics continued in 1966–1967 with operations such as Masher, Thayer, Attleboro, Cedar Falls and Junction City. The costs of the war loom large in American popular consciousness; a 1990 poll showed that the public incorrectly believed that more Americans lost their lives in Vietnam than in World War II. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. In areas they controlled, the Viet Minh had confiscated large private landholdings, reduced rents and debts, and leased communal lands, mostly to the poorer peasants. During the war, the South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem began a program to settle ethnic Vietnamese Kinh on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands region. [68], Various names have been applied to the conflict. Ground forces also had access to B-52 and F-4 Phantom II and other aircraft to launch napalm, white phosphorus, tear gas, chemical weapons, precision-guided munition and cluster bombs. This effort to highlight the positive aspects of a nursing career reflected the feminism of the 1960s–1970s in the United States. [citation needed] In early 1957, South Vietnam enjoyed its first peace in over a decade. As of January 15, 2018, 1,601 American soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War remained unaccounted for. [75]:353 Westmoreland outlined a three-point plan to win the war: The plan was approved by Johnson and marked a profound departure from the previous administration's insistence that the government of South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the guerrillas. [239] Nevertheless, Australian forces were generally the most capable at counter-insurgency, and they helped to train Regional Forces despite being under significant doctrinal constraints. By 1975, they had fully transformed from the strategy of mobile light-infantry and using the people's war concept used against the United States. He argued that with two months of good weather remaining until the onset of the monsoon, it would be irresponsible to not take advantage of the situation. The Wall), Center for Electronic Records, National Archives, Washington, DC, Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Royal Government of the National Union of Kampuchea, Arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, Reaction to the 1963 South Vietnamese coup, Role of the United States in the Vietnam War § John F. Kennedy (1961–1963), 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing, commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group, Joint warfare in South Vietnam, 1963–1969, Role of the United States in the Vietnam War § Americanization, September 1964 South Vietnamese coup attempt, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, United States news media and the Vietnam War, United States presidential election in 1968, Four students were killed by National Guardsmen, International Commission of Control and Supervision, Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, fatal shooting of four students at Kent State University, Bibliography of the Post Stalinist Soviet Union, Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War, International Commission for Control and Supervision, United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races, List of war crimes § 1955–1975: Vietnam War, Viet Cong and People's Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War, torture was employed to extract confessions, Timeline of American women in war and the U.S. military from 1945 to 1999 § 1965, Military history of African Americans § Vietnam War, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Republic of Vietnam National Military Cemetery, The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag, League of Wives of American Prisoners in Vietnam, National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War, proclamation commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War, Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina, Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, "Chapter Three: 1957–1969 Early Relations between Malaysia and Vietnam", "Name of Technical Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon to be added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial", "Chapter 5, Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954–1960", The Paris Agreement on Vietnam: Twenty-five Years Later, Military History Institute of Vietnam 2002, "China admits 320,000 troops fought in Vietnam", "The colorful history of North Korea-Vietnam relations", "Vietnam War Allied Troop Levels 1960–73", "Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate", "Chuyên đề 4 CÔNG TÁC TÌM KIẾM, QUY TẬP HÀI CỐT LIỆT SĨ TỪ NAY ĐẾN NĂM 2020 VÀ NHỮNG NĂM TIẾP THEO", "Công tác tìm kiếm, quy tập hài cốt liệt sĩ từ nay đến năm 2020 và những năn tiếp theo", "Table 6.1A. [209][30]:364–71 From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces. [270] According to Rummel, PAVN and Viet Cong troops killed 164,000 civilians in democide between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam, from a range of between 106,000 and 227,000 (50,000 of which were reportedly killed by shelling and mortar on ARVN forces during the retreat to Tuy Hoa). At Binh Gia, however, they had defeated a strong ARVN force in a conventional battle and remained in the field for four days. The reaction to the incident by the Nixon administration was seen as callous and indifferent, reinvigorating the declining anti-war movement. [278] Female combat squads were present in the Cu Chi theatre. "This article", noted Peter Church, "proved… to be the only one of the Paris Agreements which was fully carried out. [285], Women also played a prominent role as front-line reporters in the conflict, directly reporting on the conflict as it occurred. pp. South Vietnam was inundated with manufactured goods. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. [236], Australia, with decades of experience from both the Malayan Emergency and its AATTV role in 1962, recognised the necessity of a true counter-insurgency, which relied on providing village-level security, establishing civilian trust and economic incentives and improving ARVN capabilities. [133]:94, On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were landed near Da Nang, South Vietnam. In April–May 1970, many North Vietnamese forces entered Cambodia in response to the call for help addressed to Vietnam by Nuon Chea. Following Vietnamization many Montagnard groups and fighters were incorporated into the Vietnamese Rangers as border sentries. It began in 1954, after the country of Vietnam was split into two parts, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Forces was characterised by lowered morale, lack of motivation, and poor leadership. [199]:10 When surveyed in 2000, one third of Americans believed that the war was a noble cause. [295], After the Tet Offensive, many PAVN units incorporated light tanks such as the Type 62 Type 59 tank., BTR-60, Type 60 artillery, amphibious tanks (such as the PT-76) and integrated into new war doctrines as a mobile combined-arms force. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment. Facts About the Vietnam War. [28][29] The Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the more lengthy period of 1955 to 1975. [149]:90–4 He reasoned that this could be achieved through sparking a general uprising within the towns and cities,[149]:148 along with mass defections among ARVN units, who were on holiday leave during the truce period. [289] Webb would be the first Western journalist to be captured and released, as well as cover the perspective of the Viet Cong in her memoir On The Other Side. [60]:58 Despite this, the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956. Although Kennedy stressed long-range missile parity with the Soviets, he was also interested in using special forces for counterinsurgency warfare in Third World countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Neither the United States government nor Ngô Đình Diệm's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. "[326], Hanoi had persistently sought unification of the country since the Geneva Accords, and the effects of U.S. bombings had negligible impact on the goals of the North Vietnamese government. [327], Between 1953 and 1975, the United States was estimated to have spent $168 billion on the war (equivalent to $1.38 trillion in 2019). Over the following years, additions to the list have brought the total past 58,200. At this phase they were outfitting the Viet Cong forces and standardising their equipment with AK-47 rifles and other supplies, as well as forming the 9th Division. “Cameras belonged to the country, so they would give them to only a few journalists to take pictures of battle,” explained Nguyen Dai Co Viet, a professor at Vietnam National University. It was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war, and the U.S. raised the readiness level of Strategic Air Command (SAC) forces to DEFCON 2. Hanoi wished to avoid the coming monsoon and prevent any redeployment of ARVN forces defending the capital. On 21 August 1963, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Lê Quang Tung, loyal to Diệm's younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, raided pagodas across Vietnam, causing widespread damage and destruction and leaving a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds. However, Thieu outmanoeuvred and sidelined Ky by filling the ranks with generals from his faction. In January 1950, China and the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam, based in Hanoi, as the legitimate government of Vietnam.