The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War occurred between the 1950's and the 1970's in Southeast Asia. Similar in some respects to the Korean War, the Vietnam War was a conflict between Communist forces from the northern part of the country and democratically aligned forces from the southern part of the country. Again, this conflict included the usual Cold War supporters i.e. the United States, Soviet Union, and China. To be more specific, the United States supported the southern democratic forces; whereas the Soviet Union and Chinese assisted the northern Vietnamese communists.

In its earliest phases the Vietnam War began as a conflict between French colonial forces in Indochina or southeast Asia and the communist insurgents. By the early 1960's, after the French lost control, the United States began to commit support troops to help the fledgling South Vietnam government. With increasing instability, the United States had inserted 100,000's of combat troops across southern Vietnam. The selective service (draft), the television coverage, and the peace movement made the Vietnam War extremely unpopular in the United States. By the early 1970's the United States could not win the war, thus withdrawing and ending the conflict. The Vietnam War was arguably the only war that the United States lost.

The Vietnam War was another Cold War conflict. The United States viewed the collapse of the South Vietnamese government as a communist threat. Because of the Domino Theory the United States felt compelled to combat communism on every front. The United States lost approximately 50,000 lives in the Vietnam war. The Vietnamese lost several hundreds of thousands to millions of lives in the war. The Vietnam War caused American citizens to rethink the role of their government in foreign policy.