The Vietnam War

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Gawthorpe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Mass Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
Communist State ◽  
The North ◽  
South Vietnam ◽  
North Vietnam

From 1965 to 1973, the United States attempted to prevent the absorption of the non-Communist state of South Vietnam by Communist North Vietnam as part of its Cold War strategy of containment. In doing so, the United States had to battle both the North Vietnamese military and guerrillas indigenous to South Vietnam. The Johnson administration entered the war without a well-thought-out strategy for victory, and the United States quickly became bogged down in a bloody stalemate. A major Communist assault in 1968 known as the Tet Offensive convinced US leaders of the need to seek a negotiated solution. This task fell to the Nixon administration, which carried on peace talks while simultaneously seeking ways to escalate the conflict and force North Vietnam to make concessions. Eventually it was Washington that made major concessions, allowing North Vietnam to keep its forces in the South and leaving South Vietnam in an untenable position. US troops left in 1973 and Hanoi successfully invaded the South in 1975. The two Vietnams were formally unified in 1976. The war devastated much of Vietnam and came at a huge cost to the United States in terms of lives, resources, and political division at home. It gave birth to the largest mass movement against a war in US history, motivated by opposition both to conscription and to the damage that protesters perceived the war was doing to the United States. It also raised persistent questions about the wisdom of both military intervention and nation-building as tools of US foreign policy. The war has remained a touchstone for national debate and partisan division even as the United States and Vietnam moved to normalize diplomatic relations with the end of the Cold War.

Vietnam War in Hollywood Feature Films

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Luhrssen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
Box Office ◽  
South Vietnam ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
North Vietnam ◽  
North And South

Vietnam was the focal point of a larger set of conflicts that broke out in Indo-China in 1945 and resulted by 1975 with Cambodia and Laos as well as Vietnam falling under the rule of various Communist parties. The first Vietnam War (1945–1954) pitted French colonists and their local allies against Vietnamese Communist rebels. It ended with the French withdrawal from Indo-China and the partition of Vietnam into two states, Communist North Vietnam and pro-Western South Vietnam. In the second Vietnam War (1955–1975), North Vietnam and Communist rebels in the south fought against the US-backed South Vietnamese regime. No conflict in American history since the Civil War was as divisive as Vietnam, yet the war was widely supported until US ground forces entered the fray (1965). Mounting casualties and the threat of conscription fueled a growing antiwar movement that forced Washington to find a way out of the war. After the United States withdrew in 1973, Communist forces overran South Vietnam and reunited the country under their rule in 1975. Films about the Vietnam War were produced in both North and South Vietnam, the Soviet Union (which armed the North) and South Korea and Australia (both dispatched troops to support the South). With few exceptions, many were seldom seen outside their lands of origin. With Hollywood’s dominance of movie markets in much of the world, American stories about the war dominated the imagination of moviegoers in the United States and most other countries. Hollywood took only slight interest in Vietnam during the war’s early years. The first major motion picture about American combat in Vietnam, John’s Wayne’s pro-war The Green Berets (1968), was a box-office hit but universally derided by critics. With the war’s increasing unpopularity and unsuccessful conclusion, the subject was deemed “box-office poison” by the studios for several years. By the late 1970s a rising generation of filmmakers embraced Vietnam as material for displaying American heroism, explaining the US defeat or exploring the ethical basis for war. The commercial breakthrough for Vietnam War movies was achieved by director Sidney Furie’s The Boys in Company C (1978), Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978), and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979). Each reflected in different ways America’s disillusionment and the physical and psychological toll charged to the men who served in the conflict. The theme continued with Platoon (1986), directed by a Vietnam combat veteran, Oliver Stone. A counter-trend appeared with Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo series (1982–2019), which amplified the resurgent nationalism that began under the Reagan administration. Providing a third perspective, Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) presented the war unemotionally as a fact of history. In the 21st century, movies on the Vietnam War continue to be made, if in diminished number. Characteristic of recent films, We Were Soldiers (2002) validates the experience of US servicemen while honoring the heroism of the enemy.

scholarly journals La politique de neutralité. L’Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk

Milli mála ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-61
Author(s):  
Irma Erlingsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Khmer Rouge ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Political Works ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
North Vietnam

The article explores Hélène Cixous’s 1985 play The Terrible Unfinished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia (L´Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk roi du Cambodge) by focusing on Cixous’s portrayal of Sihanouk and her interpretation of Cambodia’s history with references to the country’s civil conflict, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War. The article seeks to historicize the play by placing it within the context of contemporary political works on Cambodian history. As embedded in the play’s metanarrative and its contemporary metaphor of human suffering, special attention is paid to Cambodia’s power struggles, both internationally and within its own borders. The emphasis is on the tension between Cixous’s portrayal of Sihanouk as the paternal protector of Cambodia’s “eternal cultural heritage” and his political compromises with internal (the Khmer Rouge) and external (the United States, China, North Vietnam) actors. From a broader perspective, an additional focus is on the conflict between traditionalism and modernization, imperialism and resistance, and territoriality and exile.

scholarly journals Foreign Policy During the Vietnam War

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syeda Menebhi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The North ◽  
South Vietnam ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
The 1960S

<p>The United States became deeply involved in Vietnam during the 1960s largely due to America’s desire to assure that developing countries modernize as capitalist and democratic. Thus, American involvement began with economic and social support in South Vietnam. Yet slowly, throughout the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, the goal of modernizing South Vietnamese society and containing communism became increasingly implemented by military means. Further, it seems clear that, regardless of how much effort the United States geared towards Vietnam, American defeat was inevitable. By Richard Nixon’s presidency, the initial modernization goals in Vietnam mattered only in so far as they could preserve American credibility. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all failed to realize that while U.S. time was limited in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese had all the time they needed to fight for the independence of their country. The South Vietnamese forces could not defend themselves and the United States had to withdraw eventually.</p>

Postwar Transformation and New Geopolitics

2019 ◽  
pp. 154-177
Author(s):  
Xiaobing Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Military Training ◽  
The United States ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Air Defense ◽  
Chinese Military ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
North Vietnam

Chapter 7 explains Mao’s Cold War theory, in which a clash between China and the United States would inevitably occur sooner or later. The Chinese military should thus have its priorities and preparations established prior to this inevitable conflict. After the Indochina Settlement was signed at Geneva in July 1954, China continued to provide weaponry, equipment, and military training to North Vietnam. This chapter points out that, in June 1965, China began to send its troops to the Vietnam War. Between 1965 and 1968, China sent twenty-three divisions to Vietnam, including ninety-five regiments, totaling some 320,000 troops. Beginning in 1968, China also sent 110,000 troops to Laos to provide air defense, construct and repair highways, and maintain transportation and communication along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Nevertheless, the Vietnam War seriously tested the limits of the Communist alliance. Rather than improving Sino-Soviet relations, aid to North Vietnam created a new competition as each superpower attempted to control Southeast Asian Communist movements.

The Republic of Vietnam, 1955-1975

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
South Vietnam ◽  
States Government ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Imagined Nation

Through the voices of senior officials, teachers, soldiers, journalists, and artists, this book presents us with an interpretation of “South Vietnam” as a passionately imagined nation in the minds of ordinary Vietnamese, rather than merely as an expeditious political construct of the United States government. The moving and honest memoirs collected, translated, and edited here describe the experiences of war, politics, and everyday life for people from many walks of life during the fraught years of Vietnam's Second Republic, leading up to and encompassing what Americans generally call the “Vietnam War.” The voices gift the reader a sense of the authors' experiences in the Republic and their ideas about the nation during that time. The book reveals that far from a Cold War proxy struggle, the conflict in Vietnam featured a true ideological divide between the communist North and the non-communist South.

scholarly journals UNITED STATES DURING THE COLD WAR 1945-1990

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Novita Mujiyati ◽  
Kuswono Kuswono ◽  
Sunarjo Sunarjo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Cold War

United States and the Soviet Union is a country on the part of allies who emerged as the winner during World War II. However, after reaching the Allied victory in the situation soon changed, man has become an opponent. United States and the Soviet Union are competing to expand the influence and power. To compete the United States strive continuously strengthen itself both in the economic and military by establishing a defense pact and aid agencies in the field of economy. During the Cold War the two are not fighting directly in one of the countries of the former Soviet Union and the United States. However, if understood, teradinya the Korean War and the Vietnam War is a result of tensions between the two countries and is a direct warfare conducted by the United States and the Soviet Union. Cold War ended in conflict with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the winner of the country.

Breaker of Armies: Air Power in the Easter Offensive and the Myth of Linebacker I and II in the Vietnam War

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 139-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Haun ◽  
Colin Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Air Power ◽  
The North ◽  
South Vietnam ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
North Vietnam ◽  
Air Control

Most traditional accounts identify the Linebacker I and Linebacker II campaigns as the most effective and consequential uses of U.S. air power in the Vietnam War. They argue that deep interdiction in North Vietnam played a central role in the defeat of the Easter Offensive and that subsequent strategic attacks on Hanoi forced the North Vietnamese to accept the Paris accords. These conclusions are false. The Linebacker campaigns were rather ineffective in either stopping the Communist offensive or compelling concessions. The most effective and consequential use of U.S. air power came in the form of close air support and battlefield air interdiction directly attacking the North Vietnamese Army in South Vietnam. The success of these air strikes hinged on the presence of a U.S.-operated tactical air control system that incorporated small numbers of ground advisers, air liaison officers, and forward air controllers. This system, combined with abundant U.S. aircraft and a reasonably effective allied army, was the key to breaking the Easter Offensive and compelling Hanoi to agree to the Paris accords. The effectiveness of close air support and battlefield air interdiction and the failure of deep interdiction and strategic attack in the Vietnam War have important implications for the use of air power and advisers in contemporary conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

scholarly journals Performance of Landscape Roses Grown with Minimal Input in the North-central, Central, and South-central United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 718-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Zlesak ◽  
Randy Nelson ◽  
Derald Harp ◽  
Barbara Villarreal ◽  
Nick Howell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
Flower Number ◽  
North Central ◽  
The North ◽  
South Central ◽  
Central United States ◽  
Plant Hardiness

Landscape roses (Rosa sp.) are popular flowering shrubs. Consumers are less willing or able to maintain landscape beds than in years past and require plants that are not only attractive, but well-adapted to regional climatic conditions, soil types, and disease and pest pressures. Marketing and distribution of rose cultivars occurs on a national level; therefore, it is difficult for U.S. consumers in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Plant Hardiness Zones 3 to 5 to identify well-adapted, cold-hardy cultivars. Identifying suitable cultivars that have strong genetic resistance to pests and disease and that will tolerate temperature extremes without winter protection in the USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 3 to 5 is of tremendous value to consumers and retailers in northern states. Twenty landscape rose cultivars, primarily developed in north-central North America, were evaluated at five locations in the United States (three in the north-central United States, one in the central United States, and one in the south-central United States) using the low-input, multiyear Earth-Kind® methodology. Six roses had ≥75% plant survival at the end of the study and were in the top 50% of performers for overall mean horticultural rating at each of the three north-central U.S. sites: ‘Lena’, ‘Frontenac’, ‘Ole’, ‘Polar Joy’, ‘Sunrise Sunset’, and ‘Sven’. Five of these six roses met the same criteria at the central United States (exception ‘Lena’) and the south-central United States (exception ‘Polar Joy’) sites. Cultivar, rating time, and their interaction were highly significant, and block effects were not significant for horticultural rating for all single-site analyses of variance. Significant positive correlations were found between sites for flower number, flower diameter, and overall horticultural rating. Significant negative correlations were found between flower number and diameter within each site and also between black spot (Diplocarpon rosae) lesion size from a previous study and overall horticultural rating for three of the five sites. Cane survival ratings were not significantly correlated with overall horticultural rating, suggesting some cultivars can experience severe winter cane dieback, yet recover and perform well. Data from this study benefit multiple stakeholders, including nurseries, landscapers, and consumers, with evidence-based regional cultivar recommendations and breeders desiring to identify regionally adapted parents.

scholarly journals LBJ, LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Ignore Today?

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-143
Author(s):  
Rory Fidler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Military ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
American System ◽  
Actual Effectiveness ◽  
The Government ◽  
North Vietnam

The actual effectiveness of the American anti-war movement from 1964-68 and its attempts to sway the policy of President Johnson's administration on the topic of the Vietnam War is debatable. While popular myth has exaggerated the role of protestors in stopping the war, the movement failed to alter state policy on the war in any serious fashion. The anti-war movement could not develop a universal policy of their aims, differing from a gradual exit from Vietnam to a complete anarchist overthrow of the American system, and as such were unable to lobby the government effectively. Within the war itself, however, the Johnson administration and the United States Military encountered a stronger stimulus to reconsider their involvement: the inability to adapt to a guerilla war, the immense man power and resources required to ensure victory, and ultimately the communist Tet offensive of 1968 pushing American forces back. When President Johnson did seek to negotiate with North Vietnam at the end of his term, it was because America had simply failed to beat the Vietcong.

Historical Research in Vietnam: A Tentative Survey

1995 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyên Thê Anh
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political System ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The South ◽  
Complete Collection ◽  
The North ◽  
South Vietnam ◽  
The Government ◽  
North Vietnam ◽  
Civil Government

The communist take-over of South Vietnam in 1975 presents a certain resemblance to what happened two hundred years before, when the Trinh lords in the North overran the Nguyen's polity in the South by 1775, seizing the territories that had been separate from their control for over two centuries. The similitude of the two situations did seem highly symbolic to the Institute of Historical Studies in Hanoi, which on the pretext of publishing a complete collection of the eighteenth-century scholar Le Quy Don's works, reprinted a former translation of his “Miscellaneous chronicles of the government of the frontiers” as the first volume of this collection. This work was originally composed in 1776, after its author had been ordered south, as a member of the Trinh lords’ bureaucracy, to help restore civil government in the “recovered” areas, and facilitate their reincorporation into the north-centred political system. In its detailed description of the different aspects of southern administration, economy and society, it is tantamount to a survey of the affairs of what the author considered as an irrevocably defeated Vietnamese enemy government. This account of the southern regions at that very moment of national reunification seems also, to some extent, appropriate for the justification of the Tightness of the ideology of a North Vietnam that has just then triumphed over its adversaries.

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