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American Experience in Vietnam
In analyzing the Vietnam War from a historian's perspective, it is necessary to consider the cultural and social contexts of the conflict, the role played by presidential leadership, and the role played by diplomatic negotiations. In all of these realms, though, the historian can reduce the most important lesson of the Vietnam War to a single word: truth. An examination of the Vietnam War from each of these angles will show that a crucial role was played in each arena -- social, presidential, and diplomatic -- by dishonesty.
The cultural and social context in America of the Vietnam War is a familiar story: we are accustomed to hearing that the war was unpopular and occasioned numerous protests. But it is crucial to note that the campaign to make the war more palatable to the public hinged crucially...
We do not need to take sides here in assessing the American rationale for the war as upholding the "domino theory," in which permitting Vietnam to fall to Communism would necessarily entail the fall of other countries or continents -- it is not necessary to debate the truth or falsity of the domino theory in order to see the way in which untruth was a pivotal part of the way the war was presented to the American public. In fact, all we really need to consider is the action of the lone whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, and his release of the "Pentagon Papers" to the New York Times. The Pentagon Papers represented the results of a study done by the U.S. Department of Defense that had been commissioned in 1967 and completed in 1969, in the last days of the Johnson Presidency. The papers revealed, however, that…
American Experience One of the most important aspects in life is effective leadership. In Vietnam, this was problematic and resulted in more adverse consequences for the United States. To fully understand how this can be applied to daily life requires understanding these concepts, the importance of cooperation and the lessons that can be learned from the war. These different elements will offer specific ideas which can be used by everyone to
Vietnam War Lessons Lessons to Be Learned from the Vietnam War The United States officially ended the war in Vietnam four decades ago, but the shadow of Vietnam looms in American consciousness still today. The war and its legacy continue to affect American society and its engagement with the rest of the world. For a historian, the important question about the Vietnam War and its legacy is the following: what lessons can
President Nixon and his philosophy of sending weapons to countries fighting off communism without sending them troops. Vietnam War The second Indo-China War in 1954-1975, was the outcome of the long-standing conflict between Vietnam and France. Under the command of General Vo Nguyen Giap, nationalist forces trounced the allied French troops at the Dien Bien Phu remote mountain outpost located in the northwest part of Vietnam (Brigham). This defeat made the
To that end, the northern Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong in the south were looking to actually unify with the southern portion of this country -- which is evinced by the fact that shortly after the end of the war Vietnam was indeed united once again. Although this conception of the significance of the war is primarily political in nature, U.S. military forces could have used a more
This ability to use the bipolar system to its advantage helped North Vietnam to win its war for independence and to take over South Vietnam in 1975. Realism not only fully explains the actions of each state in this conflict, but it also predicted the outbreak of war as soon as ideology became the focus of the debate on Vietnam. In Conclusion, the Vietnam War was an excellent example of
It was an independent strategic interdiction campaign designed to disrupt the flow of Soviet supplies, as the North Vietnamese had few resources of their own at the time. Thus, although painted as an alliance between South Vietnam and America in the press, it was by and large an independent effort. "Operation Freedom Train began in April 1972 in response to the North Vietnamese Army's massive Easter Offensive invasion. Freedom