Reasons for US involvement in Vietnam

The French
1. Vietnam had originally been a French colony before Japan invaded it and took it during WW2
  1. French rule had been strict and brutal for the Vietnamese and very few people had liked Vietnam being a French colony
  2. The Vietnamese had already been deploying geurilla tactics against the Japanese before they had to surrender after WW2
  3. Many of the Vietnamese saw the Japanese invasion as a chance to get independence from the French.
2. When WW2 ended and Japan surrendered and left Vietnam, Vietnam declared itself independent.
  1. The French decided that they wanted their colony back in Indo-China and sent French troops to attempt to regain control of Vietnam
    1. The Vietnamese started geurilla warfare against the French - little surprise raids against them. These tactics were successful against the French
    2. They underestimated the amount of resistance they would meet from the Vietnamese.
  2. America was originally sympathetic to their cause - it did not want to see colonialism rise again.
    1. It switched it's support over to the French, however, when communism started to become a major issue in Vietnam
      1. The USA was spending close to $1 Billion supplying the French with aid in Vietnam
    2. Vietnam being independent was originally good for America for this reason - it was one less colony for the British and French and was one step closer to bringing about an end of colonialism
3. The French lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu and decided to leave Vietnam
  1. America threatened no more aid if they did, but the French had made up their minds
  2. America knew that Vietnam would become communist if they didn't stop them ; no other countries were willing to get involved
    1. This caused America to get involved themselves as the USSR's spreading influence (and the spread of communism) was an extreme worry for the USA.
The Cold War
1. America was (and still is) an extremely capitalist country
  1. Communism was against it's basic structure - capitalism v communism
  2. The majority of the American public was staunchly anti-communism
  3. Other capitalist countries, in part, expected it to help Vietnam avoid becoming communist
2. America had pledged to stop communism spreading to different countries
  1. It feared a domino effect would happen, where, if one country became communist, so would others around it.
  2. It also pledged to give aid to any countries trying to stop communism (apart from Balitc states already communist as it feared it would start a war between America and the USSR)
3. It knew that if another country became communist, then the USSR would gain more power due to it having more natural communist allies like China and Cuba
  1. America did NOT want the USSR to gain any power as long as it could stop it, as it believed the USSR was evil.
4. China was already communist, meaning if Vietnam fell to communism as well, that would be two asian countries already communist.
  1. America knew China could easily supply Vietnam with aid due to it's close proximity

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Reasons for US involvement in Vietnam

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	Created by Khara Aldridge almost 5 years ago