Vietnam - reasons USA essays

Vietnam - reasons USA essays Evaluate the reasons for the USAs involvement and the changing role in what was to be an unwinnable war in Indochina. The USA initial involvement in Indochina was merely and investment in monetary form but as the war escalated it slowly increased its involvement with placing troops in the region until it could not escape. The USAs fear of the Cold War and loosing it reputation as The Superpower kept it from relenting. Domestic policies and the presidential election cycle also withheld the USAs ability to withdraw until it became too late. In 1947 the USA developed a policy of containment and Vietnam became part of the Cold War. Global dominance was at stake as the USA and USSR battled it out in Indochina and with the arms race. It was the Cold War that produced President Eisenhowers Domino theory You have a row of dominos set up, you knock over the first one and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. The USA was afraid of the social, economic and political expansion of the USSR. The insecurity the USA incorrectly perceived lead them to use the Cold War to gain control after WWII. The USA was fiercely anti-communist and that communism was an international monolith controlled by Moscow. They did not believe that the revolution lead by Ho Chi Min was a nationalist organisation and the beginning of the decolonisation of the Asian region. So the USA began to give 500 million dollars in monetary aid to support the French. When this did not stop the Viet Minh the USA decided to send in troops as well. At the 1954 Geneva Convention the then Senator J.F.Kennedy said Vietnam is the central cornerstone of the South East Asia. The security of other Asian nations is at risk if Vietnam was to become communist. Vietnam represents a test of the USAs responsibility and determination in South East Asia. If we are not the parents then w...