Vietnam War example essay topic

The Significance of The Vietnam War Within one generation, The United States have experienced The Second World War, The Korean War and fifteen years of The Cold War crisis. The Vietnam War was the last drop into the cup of American patience. The costs of The Vietnam War were intolerable, because they contravened traditional American values and hopes. In the year 1965, American government announced, with public support, that America is going to win the guerilla war and defeat the "global communist conspiracy". It also promised to build free institutions in South-East Asia. Two years later, in the year 1967, the same affair was considered not only as unsuccessful, but also as a gruesome action of the politicians.

In one moment, the intellectuals glorified the arrival of a young and freethinking new president, but almost immediately, they blamed his successor of cruelty, continuous lies and desire of war, although the new president's strategy was basically the same as of his mourned-for predecessor. Richard Nixon's governing season did not bring much serenity either. Heated resistance against war became even stronger. Nixon wanted to negotiate an honorary departure, which he considered to be almost anything - apart from leaving millions of people, to whom America promised help, to North Vietnamese communists. He took reliability and honor seriously, because he knew that American ability to create peaceful international order depended on them.

Nixon and his special advisor claimed that they had a secret plan how to reach "honorable peace". But peace came slowly, and when it finally arrived, no one could talk about honor. The longest war in the history of The United States ended and left a bitter heritage behind. The war, commenced as a noble quest for democratic ideals showed that it is not easy to bring democracy to the region of the third world, which lacked any historical experience with liberal values. The war, which was supposed to be a parade of American military power, harmed her dignity so seriously, that many young Americans started to see the army as a completely rotten and wrong institution. The war, that was supposed to show the world how strong the United States are in their conviction, actually divided America more than any other event in the twentieth century.

The wounds were so deep that even the peace did not bring much joy. The Vietnamese War had cost 57 000 dead Americans and 150,000,000,000 dollars. No wonder that the most perceptible view after the end of the war was to forget about Vietnam and incline to a un-intervention al foreign policy. On March 29 in 1973, the last American troops left Vietnam, leaving thousands of missing behind.

The same day, a few hundreds of war prisoners were released in Hanoi. Within a couple of months, the war between the North and the South was restored and it was soon apparent that the communists are more unified and have a military dominance. In Cambodia and Laos, where the fights were not so strong, the communist victory also seemed unavoidable. In March 1975 the northern Vietnam commenced a complete military invasion in the South. Southern president Thieu asked Washington for help, but the democratic majority in the Congress refused and on March 30, the Americans could watch on TV how North-Vietnamese tanks enter Saigon, which was soon renamed to Ho-Chi-Min's town.

Scenes in American embassy in Saigon, where thousands of scared Vietnamese fought for places on board of last American helicopters were a sad ending of the biggest American foreign policy catastrophe. The Vietnam War caused one of the great shifts in U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. would no longer be the 'world's policeman,' which was how she viewed herself since the Second World War. She would no longer recklessly jump militarily into the affairs of other countries, even if major problems occurred, including Communist uprisings or human rights violations. The U.S. government would make more careful analysis before entering political theaters. America learned that stopping wars requires settling the political questions over which they are fought.

Strategic bombing, limited war, search-and-destroy strategies, supporting the corrupt indigenous governments - all proved useless in Vietnam. From than on, America would fight only where U.S. goals were clear, public support assured, power overwhelming, and thus victory certain. The Vietnam War also caused American economic instability - Johnson's government financed the war without heightening the taxes, which increased the deficit. The government enlarged amounts of money in circulation and therefore started a strong inflation of prices.

The growth of inflation has begun in year 1967, when it reached three percent. In the year 1973 it was already nine percent and it exceeded twelve percent only one year later. The unemployment was, in the beginning of Nixon's governing season, 3.3 percent, but it grew to six percent in the year 1970. The economy was being destroyed for the rest of the decade.

Another new phenomenon, which The Vietnam War had brought to America, was student's disturbances and riots; at the end of the sixties, protests of the students became a world trend. In America, this trend was to be seen firstly in 1960 and 1961, when a noticeable number of students took part in peaceful - at least for the time being - strikes. Later, more and more young people felt disappointed with the government's attitude towards the contemporary situation. The pervasive deception by the government about the war created a huge increase of skepticism by citizens of every level of government. A related effect was in journalism: it became acceptable to practice aggressive, skeptical journalism when covering wars. In the past, reporters were expected to be 'on the team", which means that they shared an opinion and attitude about social issues.

It is a test of any country to forget its disagreements in the quest for a collective success and to remember that societies prosper on the basis of reconciliation, not conflict. Vietnam was this kind of test for America, and America failed it. The peace agreement was welcomed with lukewarm happiness and the same cynicism that welcomed the beginning of the war. However, the agreement did not bring end to the suffering.

As soon as the war ended, dissensions broke out: what right does America have to promote peace and democracy? The Congress had to decide, whether to keep the containment policy even after the departure of American soldiers from Indochina - and it decided against it. The consequences of American loss in Indochina were gruesome: new Cambodian leaders murdered at least fifteen percent of the population and hundreds thousand Vietnamese were sent to "re-educational" camps. In 1977, communist government declared to be holding fifty thousand political prisoners, while most of the independent observers claimed that the real number is around two hundred thousand. The government of South Vietnam was now in the hands of local armed committees led by communist officials. In July 1975, the Hanoi leaders and press commenced propaganda for unification of the country, which was finished within one year.

Although the only countries that "fell" were Cambodia and Laos, anti-western officials in many other areas on the planet gained confidence and courage. We can assume that Fidel Castro would not start his intervention in Angola, or Soviet Union in Ethiopia if they did not get an impression that America was defeated in Indochina, that it was demoralized by the Watergate affair and that it than turned back to its policy of. However, it is also possible that if Southern Vietnam fell in the beginning of the sixties, the communist attempt for revolution in Indonesia could have led to another strategic catastrophe. At any rate, America definitely paid for its "Vietnamese adventure" a price that was incomparable to any profit imaginable. It was apparently a mistake to bet on such insufficiently defined aims. America got engaged mostly because of application of its successful European policy of persecution of radically different political, social and economical conditions.

America was too idealistic to base its policy on national interests. In its strategic doctrine, it concentrated too much on demands of general war. That is why it could not deal with the unknown strategic problem, which connected political and military aims. America was fulfilled with faith in universal appeal of its values and underestimated the obstacles standing in democracy's way in a society shaped by Confucianism and fighting for political identity while being attacked from the outside.

For understanding Vietnam, it is important to understand American conviction of her own uniqueness, which led her to proclamation of moral superiority. In Vietnam, America embroiled with war that became morally problematic and in which American material superiority became almost irrelevant. Vietnam was the First and Only Controversial War in U.S. History. The question left is if the world history would take the same course, if America remained passive a relied on historical development to deal with the communist threat. Would this passivity stimulate communist world and ensured it about its victory, which would delay collapse of The Soviet Union, or even avert it? Whatever the answer to this question is, passivity as a principle of policy is unacceptable.

It is possible to control excessive self-confidence and to take into consideration unforeseen factors. However, political passivity does not offer any consolation to millions of immediate victims and it changes political decision-making to irresponsible hazard based on intuition. The greatest loss caused by the Vietnam War was probably the togetherness of the American society. American idealism led to an opinion that the Vietnamese society can be relatively easily transformed to democracy. When this optimistic thesis fell down, it unavoidably led to disillusion.

The prevailing phenomenon was also the misunderstanding of the military problem. Looking at the complex problem brings me to the following conclusion: Before The United States (and this applies to any other nation) decide to enter any war, they should be clearly aware of the nature of the threat they will confront and of the nature of the aims they can reach. They must have a clear military strategy and a clear definition of what they will consider a successful military result. And if America decides to commence any military action, it should not accept any other alternative but victory. America can recover from Vietnam only by learning from its wounds.