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Should the United States have gone to war in Vietnam? Be sure to place the Vietnam War in the context of the Cold War. Provide background on how...

The American involvement in Vietnam is widely considered to have been unjustified and disastrous. The U.S. became involved in the war because in the context of the Cold War, Vietnam was seen as a vital domino in the theory of the "domino effect," in which the conversion of one country in Asia to communism was viewed as liable to tip other countries in the region into communism. 


Vietnam, which had long been colonized by France, was occupied by Japan during World War II. In 1945, when the Japanese forces left, Vietnam returned to French control. However, forces within Vietnam called the Viet Minh, which was an independence movement originally supported by the U.S. and China, came to oppose the French. Eventually, the Viet Minh lost American support and were supported by the Chinese.


The French were dispelled from Vietnam after the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, after the U.S. President, Eisenhower, refused to get involved in supporting the French resistance against Vietnamese independence forces. After the French left, Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel into a communist north and a nominally democratic south supported by the U.S. However, the Viet Minh had forces supporting independence in the south; these forces, called the Viet Cong, supported expelling the American influence in the south. Under President Kennedy, the U.S. sent advisors and supported a South Vietnamese president who quelled dissent by repressive measures.


In 1964, when the USS Maddox was blown up in the Gulf of Tonkin, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing President Johnson broad latitude to fight in Vietnam without declaring war. During the Vietnam War, which was escalated under Johnson and was finally turned over to the Vietnamese and ended under Nixon, over 50,000 Americans died, and the country returned to communist control with the fall of Saigon in 1975. The war was, therefore, largely a useless effort that also resulted in massive death and destruction in Vietnam. Therefore, the war is widely regarded as a mistake.

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