The Vietnam War: A Proxy Conflict in Southeast Asia

The Vietnam War was an example of proxy warfare involving major powers and their local allies. Additionally, there was also political friction between Catholic nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem and his opponents from both Communists and non-Communist factions.

Following France's devastating loss at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, a Geneva conference decided to divide Vietnam into the south-central State of Vietnam and north-central Democratic Republic of Vietnam, with America increasing military support for South Vietnam.

U.S. Policy

American policymakers during the Cold War believed that communism posed one of the world's greatest dangers, so they sought to contain its spread by backing South Vietnam's anti-communist government and creating the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in support of it. Furthermore, they believed in what was known as "domino theory", wherein one country falling under communist influence could spark another chain reaction leading to more countries falling prey and then an entire region falling prey to communism itself.

However, despite SEATO's failure to stem communism in Vietnam's spread, America continued to increase its military presence there. By 1964, both military aid and air strikes had reached unprecedented levels; then in August of that year the USS Maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats off of Tonkin Gulf; an incident President Johnson used as justification for an increase in air strikes and further militarization of conflict.

Johnson may have expanded the Vietnam war in order to avoid criticism of being soft on communism. Like former President Harry S. Truman, who faced Republican attacks during the Red Scare for being too soft against communism. Johnson wanted to show strength by continuing the conflict he believed could strengthen him - something expanding it would accomplish.

American forces increased their military presence in South Vietnam while simultaneously initiating Operation Rolling Thunder, an aggressive bombing campaign of North Vietnam. Unfortunately, even as American forces increased their war efforts significantly against either the NVA or Viet Cong forces, American forces rarely experienced significant victories due to guerrilla warfare; small units using ambushes, booby traps, and swift attacks against larger forces using tactics such as ambushes, booby traps and surprise attacks to catch their opponents off guard.

Growing anti-war movements both domestic and abroad caused serious disruptions to American efforts in Vietnam. Mass protests took place both in Washington D.C. and on college campuses nationwide during 1969; they were in part fuelled by Daniel Ellsberg leaking to The New York Times The Pentagon Papers study detailing American involvement from 1945 until 1967 which exposed US involvement there.

North Vietnam

Vietnam War began as an independence movement against French colonialism but ultimately evolved into an epic Cold War confrontation between Soviet Russia and United States. It had profound repercussions for global politics as well as lasting effects for Vietnam itself.

As soon as France was defeated at Diem in 1954, Ho Chi Minh led his guerilla force into dominating political and military control of Vietnam. Following this defeat, Geneva Conference 1955 established Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in northern Vietnam while State of Vietnam, established by France and gradually supported by America administered southern Vietnam; both partitions were initially intended to be temporary.

Even under bombardment from America, DRV military strategists remained confident they could reunite Vietnam. Supply lines were built to move troops and equipment southward through Cambodia and Laos; this became known as Ho Chi Minh Trail.

DRV intensified internal pressure for loyalty to both party and state. Any southern Vietnamese working for either the government or Americans were perceived as threats and targeted for purging. Furthermore, China and Soviet Russia both provided financial assistance.

As the guerrilla war progressed, thousands of southern Vietnamese were killed due to internal fighting and food shortages caused by government mismanagement and resistance against collectivized agriculture. Others fled northward in search of relatives. By 1960's end, significant numbers had joined armed forces under what then was known as People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN).

Due to an increasing threat from communists, President Johnson reenergized its program for dissuading them by targeting North Vietnam's proxy ally Laos. On 18 December 1964, aircraft from carrier groups Ranger, Hancock and Coral Sea under the codename Flaming Dart launched an attack in eastern Laos bombing enemy barracks and other targets of opportunity.

North Vietnam leaders maintained their "Talk-Fight" strategy based on the belief that US bombing was losing popular support, while reviving efforts to reach an agreement at Paris Peace talks scheduled to start in October 1966.

South Vietnam

One year after the Tet offensive, General Westmoreland unveiled a new strategy known as Vietnamization with an aim of ending the war by winning it. This involved increasing South Vietnamese military capabilities while decreasing American presence. Although implementation was initially slow and difficult, by early 1968 it showed promising signs of success.

By spring of that year, an intense fight had broken out below the DMZ at Con Tien and spread west towards Dak To on Laotian territory. PAVN units refused to retreat and held out against reinforcements sent in from elsewhere in the South by MACV; consequently, this battle became known as The Border Battles; becoming one of the bloodiest moments of World War II to that point.

Ngo Dinh Diem had established a non-Communist regime in South Vietnam backed by an army trained and supplied by the United States in 1954, but due to his Catholic faith he failed to gain much traction with its Buddhist majority. Opposition was widespread both within and without the military; one attempt at coup by officers loyal to France failed while gangsterism, trade of opium, warlordism, and criminality were rampant - contributing significantly to an unstable environment for Diem's rule.

An abundance of energy that accompanied the Tet attacks was quickly dissipated; President Nguyen Van Thieu took advantage of it to pursue naked power grabs that undermined constitutional foundations for his regime while driving even hardline anti-Communists into despair.

American responses to the Tet offensive were widely criticized both at home and abroad, leading to policymakers like Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and General Creighton Abrams to seek ways to prevent such actions in future conflicts; Vietnamization became an approach intended to do just this - its main features being smaller scale operations targeting PAVN/NLF logistics with greater transparency towards media, reduced use of American firepower without collateral casualties, lessened use of American weapons as well as abandoning body count as a measure of battlefield success.

International Relations

The Vietnam War had a profound effect on world politics. Not only could the United States fail to defeat communist insurgents within South Vietnam, it soon found itself embroiled in an all-out confrontation with Russia and China that eventually included most major powers - leading to its humiliating defeat and decreased influence in Asia.

President John F. Kennedy authorized a US military campaign in 1961 to assist Ngo Dinh Diem's nationalist government against Viet Cong insurgents led by Communist insurgencies, with American troop deployment reaching its peak of 540,000 by 1969.

By the late 1960s, antiwar sentiment in America had reached critical mass. Following the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy as well as violent clashes between police and protesters at Chicago's Democratic Convention, antiwar sentiment had reached unprecedented levels across the nation.

On August 2, 1964, North Vietnamese forces fired on a United States destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin and President Lyndon Johnson falsely reported a second attack; as a result, Congress approved full-scale US intervention in Vietnam by passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

The United States initiated a massive air war against North Vietnam and committed ground troops to fight Viet Cong forces. American strength reached 540,000 in April 1969 but soon dropped as public opinion against this war began to shift.

At the same time, Southeast Asia became an arena for proxy war between major world powers to determine control of Indochina. Leading up to the Geneva Conference of May 1967, representatives of Ngo Dinh Diem's French-controlled South Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh's communist insurgents joined with Western nations and Soviet Russia representatives in trying to settle their respective nations' interests through settlement terms that would satisfy them all.

The Conference may have failed, but the seeds of cooperation between the United States and Vietnam were planted during its course. Vietnamese officials sought regular high-level meetings with American leaders from the earliest days of war; additionally, Leahy War Victims Fund took advantage of a congressional waiver to operate in Vietnam to establish itself in Hanoi which later led to diplomatic relations being formalised between nations.