Why did America go to war with Vietnam?

Question

I think the American war with the worst public opinion has been with Vietnam, maybe up until recently since 9/11 anyway. No one likes to say we lost, but we didn’t really accomplish anything we wanted to in the Vietnam War. Why did America go to war with Vietnam in the first place?

Answer 1

So the same old question why did America go to war with Vietnam... Allow me to explain. In the 1950s and the 1960s, Communism was an extremely popular way to govern people in a developing region such as Vietnam since it seems. Then in America, 1949 is the year of the fear of Communism in America. The 1950s were under the scare of the Communism taking over America, aptly named the Red Scare, led by an anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy, who ironically shared a name with Stalin. Anyway, McCarthy went on a witch hunt against the Communist that was rising in America, creating a sense of distrust and hysteria. After WWII, Eastern Europe and China had fallen under Communism and this trend reached over to Latin America, Africa and part of Asia.

There is a need to contain Communism and it's up to the US to do so after feeling that they are losing in the Cold War. So the US sent some people to help fight the French fight the Communist Northern Vietnam. The French were in a battle to maintain colonial power and not as concerned about the Communism part of the war. France pulled out soon after in 1954 since they don’t deem the blood sacrifice worth the colony. The US continues to send in their army and war support until 1975, all in order to maintain that Democracy. The capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese soon after they left. So pride and scare mongering in the US brought them to the war and somehow accomplished nothing.

Answer 2

America went to war with Vietnam as a general way of trying to prevent Communism. At the time, the capitalist South Vietnamese region was losing their fight against the communist North Vietnamese. The American government, like some others, was very afraid that the communists might win, so they intervened on behalf of Vietnam to try to stop the spread of Communism. We were kind of defending capitalism as the main goal and the southern region of Vietnam who was having trouble fighting as a humanitarian effort. However, eventually North Vietnam captured South Vietnam’s capital, which forced the U.S. to pull out the troops. This is why people like to criticize our involvement in the Vietnamese War because we didn’t really do anything that lasted.

Answer 3

The problems in Vietnam began while Eisenhower was president, and he foresaw a possible need in the future for America to become involved. So America went to war with Vietnam as a result of the communist regime that started developing when the country split into North and South Vietnam. During the Cold War, there was a big fear that if the North Vietnamese communism started spreading, then it would conquer all of Southeast Asia. President JFK made a promise not to allow South Vietnam to fall to communism, and a lot of this was probably sparked by the fear that started in Eisenhower’s administration.

Comments

So this is why did America go to war with Vietnam? Why people always worry about the things that aren’t happening? Vietnam became a Communist country, and so what? Its neighbors did not get the impact and become one. Worst decision ever!

Answer 4

In 1963, South Vietnam’s dictator was assassinated, and the chaos in the country that happened after that lead to the U.S’s involvement with Vietnam. There was a lot of anarchy amongst the government and the people, and this made them weak against the already threatening North Vietnam.