Why Did The U.S. Enter The Vietnam War?

Dozens of books have been written on this subject and some of them have been able to provide at least part of the answer. Some of the books are political, some are strictly military. There are books, films and magazine articles (not to mention academic studies) that dig deep into the reasons why the United States of America took steps to become involved in a war halfway around the world.

One the surface, the reason was political. During the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations in Washington D.C. there was great concern with the social and political phenomenon called Communism. This form of governing and administering a nation was, in many ways, exactly the opposite of what the United States and many European nations stood for.

The U.S. government leaders of the time stated that the country could not stand idle while the leaders of the Communist states moved into South Vietnam from the north. Before the United States became involved, the French were firmly established in the country of Vietnam. Of course, during the French period, this small nation was a colony of France. Vietnam was generally referred to as French Indochina. France eventually recognized the futility of trying to control and govern the area and left.

But the fear of Communism was so strong in the U.S. that government leaders there began to see Vietnam as a test case for stopping the spread of Communism from the Soviet Union and China. A similar situation occurred in Korea in the early 1950s.

Part of the political explanation for U.S. involvement in Vietnam from the late 1950s until about 1975 focused on the supposedly “friendly” regime in South Vietnam. That section of the divided country was reportedly open to the capitalist methods of government and commerce from the United States.

At first, the U.S. sent advisers to help the South Vietnamese military hold back the Communist forces from the north. But over a period of ten years, the U.S. sent more than half a million soldiers into Vietnam. Almost 60,000 of them were to die there.

After 16 years of fighting, most of the world believed that the United States had lost the war in Vietnam. The southern part of that small country eventually came under control of North Vietnam and its Communist government. The goal of stopping Communism in Vietnam had not been reached.

There are others who say that stopping Communism was only a front for the profits to be made by military suppliers, aircraft and ship builders. The long war had a cost measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, most of which was spent on military hardware and ammunition.

The era of the Vietnam war was one of the most divisive in United States history. Thousands protested U.S. government actions. Many young men and women left the country rather than fight in what they felt was a unnecessary war. The debate about Vietnam and the reasons for the war continue 50 years after the battles began.

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