who won the vietnam war?who won the vietnam war?

How did the United States become involved in the Vietnam War? Turnbull, C.M. Almost all veterans were haunted by memories of friends who had been blown up, of picking up body parts, and of burying them without knowing which part belonged to who. This would be a war without a front or a rear; it would involve full-scale combat units and individuals carrying out terrorist activities such as the Brink Hotel bombing. One day in October 1969, fifteen members of the Americal Division wore black armbands while they were on patrol, the symbol antiwar protestors wore in the states. Regionalism and Nationalism, in Nicholas Tarling (ed.) Obviously, from the American perspective, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong women fighters were enemy combatants. Financial costs had risen to $30 billion a year. NLF forces were fighting against U.S. and South Vietnamese government forces opposed to the reunification of the country promised in the 1954 Geneva Accords that ended the First Indochina War (19461954). The will of the US government, and the people, was definitely waning by 1970 as the public became increasingly opposed to the war. North and South Vietnam were combined into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976. However, the economic performance of Vietnam since reunification has been poor, and the country remains one of the poorest in the world as the result of the destruction caused by the war, and subsequent economic sanctions placed against the Communist nation. The Vietnam War, Basingtoke, 1998. But the war news was hopeful. It ended with communist victory in April 1975. The South Vietnamese Army was showing improvement, winning 37 of their last 45 major engagements. In April 1995, Vietnams communist government said 1.1 million combatants had died between 1954 and 1975, and another 600,000 wounded. For the first time, MACV worked with South Vietnams government to create annual plans. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Better armed than ever before, thanks to increased aid from the Soviet Union, they employed tanks for the first time. Dec 10, 2015 Depends on how you define "lost" - but the general consensus is that the U.S. did indeed lose. Frustrated, Nixon ordered the big bombersB-52sto strike Hanoi, beginning December 16 (Operation LINEBACKER). Party officials have never understood the need for rational development. The world won the war. Learn about Vietnam War protests, the Tet Offensive, the My Lai Massacre, the Pentagon Papers Nguyn Th Kim Hu remembered the April 1966 bombing when more than half her team perished. The South Vietnamese government they attempted to bolster through vast amounts of aid, clearly lacked leadership and commitment of their troops and almost inevitably seemed doomed to lose against their northern countrymen. As we grow our technologies we have to become more careful how we handle conflicts. Hi, Im Claire. What is the relationship between Commerce and economics? This is only a measure in American lives; it does not count the number of South Vietnamese lives - the people we went in to help in order to preserve democracy - and those of other allied forces in this war. Which country agreed to give up its claims to the Oregon territory in the Adams-onis treaty? What are the Dholera SIR development status and future planning development? For protection, when the U.S. began dropping people-sniff bombstree-like heat-sensor bombs that detected body movements in the jungle they built individual bomb shelters by the roadside. However, from a constitutional perspective, this conflict did not technically count as a war. Population in the south was mostly clustered in a few areas along the coast; the north always enjoyed a larger population. Most historians, journalists and commentators who covered and wrote about the Vietnam War from our side are men. American involvement began to escalate under President John F. Kennedys administration (January 1961November 1963). Tensions between blacks and whites had been intensifying for years as African Americans sought to change centuries-old racial policies. The photo was published worldwide under the title The Ultimate Protest, raising (or in some cases reinforcing) doubts about the government that the democratic United States was supporting. Youth Volunteer brigades were in charge of decommissioning unexploded bombs to keep the truck convoys moving south. A further 1.7 million women over 24 joined Womens Union militias to defend their homes, villages, and towns. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress sole authority to issue declarations of war. An expert markswoman, Nguyn Th Kim Hu was stationed with her platoon on the Mu Gia Pass, the most dangerous stretch of the Trail network. In South Vietnam, women helped defeat of U.S. and South Vietnamese ground and air forces. A different feeling prevailed among many within the U.S. government. North Vietnam defeated South Vietnam; the North won the war. The insurgency was called the National Liberation Front (PLF); however, its soldiers and operatives became more commonly known by their opponents as the Viet Cong (VC), short for Vietnamese Communists. After the bombings, she searched for teammates buried in the explosions to give them a decent burial. Michael Honey: Eig's MLK Bio Needed to Engage King's Belief in Labor Solidarity, Blair L.M. WebAnswer (1 of 19): North Vietnam defeated South Vietnam in 1975 with the Fall of Saigon. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. In addition, just about every North Vietnamese offensive was crushed. A third Vietnam War began between Others: 80,000 plus, 200,000400,000 civilians The ceasefire allowed Nixon to declare peace with honor, but no provisions existed for enforcing the terms of the accords. As noted above, a number of sources warned U.S. leaders against becoming embroiled in Southeast Asia. The following February a strategic hamlet program began; it forcibly relocated South Vietnamese peasants to fortified strategic hamlets. Buddhists, who comprised South Vietnams majority, claimed Diem, a Catholic, favored citizens of his religion in distributing aid. We had to rebuild the road every day because there were so many bombs The worst B-52 attacks were in 1966. 166864 views Emphasis switched to Vietnamization, preparing South Vietnams military to take over responsibility for continuing the war. There is considerable debate over whether he was primarily nationalist or communist, but he was not especially anti-Western. Troop Strength: South Vietnam: 850,000 United States: 540,000 South Korea: 50,000 Others: Along with the best of them, they were brave, they were expert markswomen, they performed heroic acts rewarded with honors and medals by their government, and displayed exceptional leadership qualities. On January 30, 1968, during Vietnams celebration of Tet, the lunar new year, VC and NVA units launched a massive attack in every province of South Vietnam. Though a congressional investigative committee the previous year had warned that America could find itself slipping into in a morass that would require more and more military participation in Vietnam, Johnson began a steady escalation of the war, hoping to bring it to a quick conclusion. Womens place in history is further minimized by patriarchal attitudes. United States The United States got involved to prevent South Vietnam from falling into communist hands. Adding to Americans disillusionment was the race issue. To alleviate period pain, they gathered medicinal plants in the jungle. They provided their teams with food, clothing, medicine and a decent burial, a holistic approach to be emulated in the military today. Recording and teaching the other side of war, while a step towards peace through our understanding of the other side, may appear to disrespect Americas veterans and the fallen. He closed by saying: To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. The first American fatality was Air Force Technical Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr., killed June 8, 1956. Every branch of the U.S. military is struggling to meet its 2022 170,000220,000 military The Vietnam War was a direct result of the First Indochina War (1946-1954) between France and Viet Minh. Corrections? Change). The United States committed some 550,000 troops to the Vietnam front at the height of the conflict, suffered more than 58,000 casualties, and engaged in battle after battle with communist forces in the region until its withdrawal in 1973. The war of attrition tactic adopted by the US clearly was not working as early as 1966; although by this time nearly half a million American soldiers were fighting in Vietnam as well as a considerable South Vietnamese army. The war was hard for women, she said. The communist takeover of China and subsequent war in Korea (1950-53) against North Korean and Chinese troops had focused a great deal of attention on Southeast Asia as a place to take a strong stand against the spread of communism. Yet, to say the media cost America victory in Vietnam is vastly oversimplifying a very complex situation. The question of who won the Vietnam War is a contentious and emotional one, because opinions in the United States were so divided while the war was happening. Success was measured in body count. It was to be a war of attrition and statistics, a policy that suited Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who distrusted the military and often bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff in issuing directives. Answer: Over 50,000 brave American soldiers died and over 300,000 were injured. How far do you agree? In 1973 a third Vietnam war begana continuation, actuallybetween North and South Vietnam but without significant U.S. involvement. Those who argue that the United States won the war point to the fact that the U.S. defeated communist forces during most of Vietnams major Therefore, in a socio-economic sense, the Vietnam War was a war that nobody has won. Understanding Vietnam, Los Angeles, 1993. Funds, commodities and technicians were poured into South Vietnam during the early 1960s, in an attempt to win the hearts and minds of the [South Vietnamese] people. In 1965, US president Lyndon Johnson escalated the war; by introducing US combat troops to counter the advance of Communist forces. The Vietnam War (article) | 1960s America | Khan Academy He, in turn, called the Buddhists VC sympathizers. The 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces in World War II, were recently given a place in history thanks to Svetlana Alexievichs ground-breaking The Unwomanly Face of War (Penguin 2015) which won the Nobel Prize for Literature. From 4000 US advisors in Vietnam in 1960, the presence increased to 11,300 by the end of 1962, and 16,000 by 1963. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. It also proposed that all political matters be discussed between North and South Vietnamese politicians at a later date, although there was no set deadline for this meeting to take place and in all likeliness fighting between the Vietnamese was set to continue. To its own surprise, Hanoi found its forces advancing rapidly toward Saigon, realized victory was at hand, and renamed the operation the Ho Chi Minh Offensive. In terms of body count, the U.S. and South Vietnam won a clear victory. The VC were often supplemented by units of the Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN), more often called simply the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) by those fighting against it. Was the Vietnam War an undeclared or declared war? Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Fridays debut of No Hard Feelings, a sex work romcom that doesnt want to admit to its own subgenre, is very much of our era. The united nations mainly the united states funded the war and the number of deaths speak for its self as far as who won the war. The U.S., which had been gradually exerting influence after the departure of the French government, backed Diem in order to limit the area under communist control. A notable exception was Even The Women Must Fight: Memories of War from North Vietnam (Wiley, 1998), a scholarly treatment by Karen Gottschang Turner with Phan Thanh Hao. Yet, fifty years on, the history of the women who defeated a superpower, while celebrated in Vietnam, remains largely unrecognized and undocumented in our history of the war. She is anindependent publisherand aUniversity of Chicago Pressauthorof books on the Vietnam War includingVietnam Zippos: American Soldiers Engravings and Stories 19641973(2007),Mekong Diaries(2008) andOn The Ho Chi Minh Trail: The Blood Road, The Women Who Defended It, The Legacy(2021). A month after she enlisted in 1965, the U.S. unleashed Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam intended to interdict transportation routes and stop the spread of communism. around the world. Im the News & Social Editor at HistoryNet and a World War II researcher with an unparalleled affinity for Sir Winston Churchill, Spitfires, and Michigan football. On March 5, 1975, the NVA invaded again. And please explain to us why McDonalds, Coke machines, ect have ANYTHING to do with the Vietnam war. Similarly, casualty totals among the VC and NVA and the number of dead and wounded civilians in North Vietnam cannot be determined exactly. Then, on March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese attacked across the 17th parallel with 14 divisions and additional individual regiments. In retaliation for the invasion, and in hopes of forcing Hanoi to negotiate in good faith, Nixon ordered Haiphong harbor in North Vietnam to be mined and he intensified bombing of North Vietnam. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Originally published at http://portal.jarbury.net/essay/vietnam.html, Posted in 20th century History, Asian History, Tagged Cold War, Communism, Domino theory, French Indochina, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Soviet Union, United States, Vietnam, Vietnam War. Why did President Eisenhower support the new anticommunist government of South Vietnam. Undoubtedly, news media played an important role in Americans saying, Enough. Indeed, Vo Nyugen Giap had always envisioned using media as one of his spear points for victory. The U.S. Strategic Air Command B-52 bombers dropped some Congress did that, and thereby caused the deaths of many South Vietnam people He said the military has not had such a hard time signing recruits since 1973, the year the U.S. left Vietnam and the draft officially ended. Why did Americans support the Korean War but oppose the Vietnam War? Antiwar protests continued across America and in many other countries, but on April 28, 1967, Gen. Westmoreland became the first battlefield commander ever to address a joint session of Congress in wartime, and Time magazine named him Man of the Year. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) advised that was not the caseAmerica had a strong military presence in the Pacific that would serve as a deterrent. The answer is that North Vietnam may have won the war, but not over US forces. Why did Martin Luther King believe the Vietnam War was morally wrong? In this essay I will explore the role of the US, and asses how important their withdrawal was in the defeat of South Vietnam, as well as analysing whether or not anything has really been won by the people of Vietnam through the thirty years of war. Explanation: The U.S. Army reported 58, 177 losses in The Trail was the military supply route ferrying fighters, weapons and rice from Hanoi to communist supporters in South Vietnam. That changed in August 1964. The body count policy fell into disfavor and was not employed in future American wars; in Vietnam it led officers to inflate enemy casualties. Updates? Its primary goal was to demoralize the North Vietnamese and diminish their manufacturing and transportation abilities. Did the United States win or lose the Vietnam War? | Socratic No American air strikes came to aid the overstretched South Vietnamese, despite Nixons earlier assurances to Thieu. Eventually the public couldn't take it anymore, and it almost seemed like mass riots were imminent. They detonated the explosives at close range without the benefit of remote controls. Vietnam War - Wikipedia This began a series of destabilizing changes in government leadership. Hanoi offered to restart peace talks, yet remained intransigent in its demands. What U.S. wartime intelligence agency was assisted by the Vietminh? Instead of fighting a conventional style of warfare as US troops had been trained for, there was a clear lack of any battle lines, of any large-scale battles or any military manoeuvres that could gauge the success of the campaign. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). We used shovels because I was afraid a digger would cut [my teammates] bodies into pieces. Such images pack tremendous emotional punch but often lack context. If the U.S. stayed, perhaps the North would have eventually lost - but that conclusion is doubtful considering the long history of Vietnam's struggle for independence. On the other hand, Congress had never declared war and so the president was limited in what he could do in Southeast Asia. In less than two weeks, these strategic bombers had shattered the norths defenses. On August 2, two North Vietnamese torpedo boats in broad daylight engaged USS Maddox, which was gathering communications intelligence in the Gulf of Tonkin. WebVietnam War Failure. Johnson wanted to focus on instituting Great Society programs at home, but Vietnam was a snake he did not dare let go of. Sherry Buchananwas the editorial page features editor of theWall Street Journal Europein Brussels and a columnist with theInternational Herald Tribunein Paris, London and Hong Kong. Associated Press correspondent Malcolm Mal Browne photographed him sitting quietly in the lotus position as the flames consumed him. They moved earth with shovels and wheelbarrows to fill the bomb craters. 9 Questions About the Vietnam War Answered | Britannica Women soldiers, I suspect, are marginalized because they serve mainly in support rather than combat roles. It was anything but. Civilian deaths during that time period were estimated at 2 million, but the U.S. estimate of civilians killed in the north at 30,000. By the end of 1967, there were 540,000 American troops in Vietnam, and the military draft was set to call up 302,000 young men in the coming year, an increase of 72,000 over 1967. How much should a book with more than 3,000 words sell for? The Vietnam War is the commonly used name for the Second Indochina War, 19541975. Its origins were complex, its lessons disputed, its legacy still to be assessed by future generations. In a military sense, it is clear that the North Vietnamese troops defeated those of South Vietnam in April 1975, with the fall of Saigon and the eventual reunification of Vietnam. General Westmoreland had been promoted to Army Chief of Staff and replaced in Vietnam by Gen. Creighton Abrams. Nixon realised this, and as he was not keen on becoming the first American President to lose a war, he compensated for the removal of US troops by stiffening the South Vietnamese army with advisors, equipment and air support. American helicopters rescued members of its embassy and flew some South Vietnamese to safety, but most were left behind. Military personnel, including nurses, were warned not to wear their uniforms in the States. On June 11, 1963, an elderly Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc sat down in the street in front of a pagoda in Saigon to protest Diems policies. (LogOut/ Two nights later, Maddox and the destroyer USS Turner Joy were on patrol in the Gulf and reported they were under attack. (Part 2, by WilliamMiles), http://portal.jarbury.net/essay/vietnam.html.