The Vietnam War and the United States

The Vietnam War (1965-1975) was fought between the North and South Vietnam. The North was called Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the South was the Republic of Vietnam which was supported by the United States.

The war was extremely costly, United States spending over $150 billion dollars. It started with good intentions that got lost in the lengthy battle for the North’s freedom and hopes that America would put a stop to the communistic presence from overtaking Indonesia.Nixon made several speeches to the public in attempts to gain acceptance in ending the war. According to his speech “Richard Nixon: Vietnam War Speech”, it spoke to the Silent Majority Speech that he had given on November 3, 1969. President Nixon then spoke to how long we had been in the Vietnam War and that it would not be in our best interest to completely withdrawal from the war but that we needed to pursue a peaceful resolution to the war. In his speech he had stated, “Now that we are in the war, what is the best way to end it? For the future of peace, precipitate withdrawal would thus be a disaster of immense magnitude “("Richard Nixon: Vietnam War Speech", 2011).

President Nixon’s speech would explain his plans on ending the war. It consisted of peace and his ability to solve the communism fear of the people. It was going to be difficult to get both sides to come to a peaceful agreement, but he was confident he was up for the challenge. There were many hot button issues that had a large amount of importance to the 1972 election.

The fear of the stability in the economy and the Vietnam War were among the two main factors.It was known that the top four super important issues were the Vietnam War, the economy, foreign policy and the military defense. This election became known more for its political scandals that became well known in American history. The Watergate break-in, and cover-up, by President Richard Nixon were what ultimately ended the career of President Nixon.

. Nixon won his re-election against McGovern in what was called a “devastating landslide” President Nixon had the record for 49 States and 520 of the electoral votes.Nixon went into the election with some distinctive advantages. The people had gotten to know him already and had the affirmation of him being able to get elected once before. The people had already gotten to know what kind of President he was. It also did not help McGovern that he had really chosen a bad running mate.

Eagleton had been voluntarily hospitalized multiple times for some suspicious symptoms, after this was revealed it really ruined the image for McGovern and with this bad decision for a running mate what other bad decisions could be making as president. That and his sometimes radical view points; combined with the long and grueling war the American people couldn’t risk it.Antiwar ProtestsOn January 27, 1973 there was the Paris Peace Accords that were signed, it this peace accord had restored some of the peace in Vietnam and had the U.S. forces pulled out. President Nixon had put a stop to all of the American attacks on Vietnam.

Social movements have been something that is part of influencing and in shaping U.S. foreign policy. There were many organized protest that many protests that were done by the American people and was a factor that help push Nixon to eventually taking the troops out of Vietnam, even though this was not really his intentions when he was first elected for president. There was a protest on July 3rd, 1964, in Lafayette Park which was across the street from the White House, There was an activist Dave Dellinger that organized an antiwar demonstration.He got a group to walk up to the fences of the Whitehouse and knelt down there, it was to be an act of civil disobedience but no one had gotten arrested during this demonstration.

With so many protests going on all around the United States there was yet to be an answer to all of the concerns the protestors had, so there these types of protests continued.There were many veterans that lived and died that never really want to go to war but The Selective Service System of the United States forced young men, many of them had just gotten out of high school to go many various dangerous combat zones. Many of these soldiers witness or acted in horrendous war crimes, killing, and seeing some of the people around the die in gruesome ways. Even to this day many people have a bad taste in their mouths about the thousands of young men sent to die.The Cambodia Invasion and Kent StateSihanouk was the ruler of Cambodia and had been allowing the communist Vietnamese people to set up bases inside Cambodia territory.

After a while he began to realize how unstable his country had become so then he worked with the United States in order to renew the working relationship between Cambodia and the US. Little did he know that during that time the US had been secretly planning on bombing Cambodia due to the bases being set up there?The incursion brought about doubts of a peaceful withdrawal of the U.S. Troops and in the end started to cast doubt on the Nixon administration.

This would encourage the creation and execution of even more demonstrations and protests. These protests were less on a national level but more so from grass roots, it seemed as though the Americans had really gotten tired of both sides of the war and the protests against it. Many just wanted to move on.After 1973 the situation in Cambodia worsened and even though the United States was not bombing Cambodia anymore the United States was involved in helping to support the Pol Pot regime.

This Pot regime had been support by the US due to being more of a pro-western stance that it portrayed, yet in Cambodia it was one of the harshest and cruelest regimes to be installed in history. Millions of Cambodian lost their lives because of the ambitions of the Khmer Rouge and the support from the U.S. Laos.

Laos was supposed to be a neutral country that had been agreed upon inside the 1962 Paris Agreement. There was just too much of a struggle for power and the Vietnam War only intensified that. The United States CIA had been involved in a much more private and quite war against Laos, they had trained many of the Meo tribesman on how to defend themselves from the Lao people. The United States ended up bombing Laos many times when Nixon had escalated the War against this area in 1969.The Geneva Accords of 1954 was monumental in marking the end of the rule the French had in Southeast Asia.

There was a short lived amount of peace that was seen in Laos. There was yet another conference to help settle the upset and in 1962 there was an agreement that was met that called for the country to stay neutral until the tripartite government could be established. Even with the new agreement there still was another break in the agreement and ensued a much larger war that had been centered in Vietnam. According the Britannica an agreement negotiated in January 1973 by the United States and North Vietnam at Paris called for a cease-fire in each of the countries of mainland Southeast Asia, but only in Laos was there peace (Paris Peace Accords. (2013)).My Lai MassacreThe Lai Massacre on March 16th 1968 there was one of the most brutal slayings of innocent Vietnamese Women and Children.

This was an order that came from a Captain Ernest Medina. He had ordered Charlie Company, into combat. These orders to the Charlie Company had been responsible for the death of over 500 civilians and villagers. The makeup of these people injured and killed were mainly elderly people, children, and women. These were mostly unarmed and docile individuals and when everything was said and done it was proven that no enemy soldiers were found in this village. There was only one fatality to the US and it was due to a self- inflicted wound.

The scenes that came from this event were described as unimaginable.There were special investigations sparked from the massive out cry of injustice done to the village of My Lai. Many of these otherwise normal soldiers felt as though they were following orders. They were unable to engage the enemy and felt as though this would do the trick. Many survivors hid under the dead bodies of their relatives. The atrocity took over a year to surface in other areas with horrific pictures depicted what happened that day.

This spawned the international outcry for justice and an investigation ("My Lai", N.D.).S.A.L.

T. Treaty The Strategic Arms Limitation was the negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union and it was intended to discuss the manufacture of strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. This treaty froze all arsenals of offensive missiles at their current levels. Even though the offensive missiles were frozen at this time it was a priority to the United States to develop the Tridents (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). 2013)).

The subs that were loaded with these ballistic missiles had a great strategic value to the US and it helped to have a far superior class of the subs as compared to the Soviets.Richard Nixon signed the most important part of the Interim Agreement of the ABM in limitations of the dangerous weapons. According to the article ABM treaty regulated antiballistic missiles that could theoretically be used to destroy incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched by the other superpower.The treaty limited each side to only one ABM deployment area (i.

e., missile-launching site) and 100 interceptor missiles (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (Salt).2013).) The Salt II negotiations had then begun in 1972 and had a continuation discussion that lasted over 7 years.

There were issues with the USSR having much bigger missiles but that the US had smaller missiles with much better accuracy. There was also the fear of new technology that could be underway and needed to be addressed. Although the provisions set forth in the SALT II Treaty failed ratification, both President Ford and Secretary-General Brezhnev agreed to stand by it, as well as the SALT I Treaty.Vietnam War SyndromeThere were some governing principles that were created in order to help people from feeling apprehensive due to living through the Vietnam War, it had really taken a toll on many and seemed to have created a “Vietnam War Syndrome” when speaking about actionable force in war. So Caspar Weinberger came up with the principle of having a clear and achievable political and military objectives when they are looking at deployment of the military when they want to win and get the American Peoples buy in.

So he believed that when dealing with any Post Vietnam War military decisions it should be done right or not done at all (Moss, G. (2010). Vietnam: An American ordeal (6th Ed.)).Conclusion Despite these enormous costs, the tremendous amount of trauma military forces saw and lived through, as well as the trauma that was inflicted on the innocent people, the United States failed, and it was notably for the first time in US history.

Underneath all of the assumption that this war with Vietnam was a battle between the capitalists and the communists, in the end both sides seemed to really never know why and what they were truly were fighting for. The legacy of the Vietnam War was that of something that took away patriotism from those who felt forces to be a part of a war they wanted nothing to do with. It could also been seen as the War not won by the U.S.