The Vietnam War: historical overview and impact

Vietnam was a situation that seemed to develop slowly in the consciousness of the American public so that much of the country seemed to discover rather suddenly that the nation was enmeshed in a growing war to which there seemed no end. In truth, America had been involved in Vietnam for many years before the issue became the catalyst for social protest and political reprisals in the U.S., and for much of that time the public ignored what was taking place. American involvement actually started in 1954, and at that time it was the French who had been caught in the Vietnamese quagmire. Full American involvement was contemplated prior to 1954 and rejected, in part because Eisenhower did not believe that a military victory was possible because of the political situation in the region, since the people supported the Viet Minh and identified Ho Chi Minh as the leader of their independence movement. The reason for considering involvement was to maintain an ally.

The Kennedy administration essentially followed Eisenhower and again went against Kennedy's own advice from a decade before that military involvement in South Vietnam would never achieve the intended goal. This administration followed the course that would be continued by subsequent administrations -- maintain a military presence because to do otherwise would make America appear weak.

A third reason expressed by Johnson and others was based on the domino theory, holding that if one country in the region fell to Communism, more would follow. The fourth reason given was based on the view that America had been attacked and had to retaliate, a reason notably involved in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

Michael Lind offers the belief that in a generation or two, after many of the biases of the time are forgotten, the war will be seen as a Cold War battle like the Korean War, with the war serving as a proxy battleground for the United States on one side and the Soviet Union and China on the other. He further determines that the war will be seen as a just and necessary proxy war. Lind is only partly right. Certainly, the war is seen as and will continue to be seen as a proxy battle between the different sides Lind identifies. From the American point-of-view, however, the war is seen at best as a grievous error, and virtually any conflict the U.S. either enters or contemplates is compared to the war in Vietnam in terms of how deep the U.S. will be pulled into the conflict and how difficult it will be to get back out. The first Gulf War raised the usual questions bout whether this might become another Vietnam. The current war in Iraq has been subject to the same comparison. The War in Vietnam as having been necessary and perhaps not as being just. Lind throughout analyzes the war in terms of its proxy status and defends the i9dea that the war was just. Given the prevailing view today, though, that the war was an error and achieved nothing except to destroy a lot of lives on both sides, Lind's belief that his view will one day prevail seems disingenuous at best. The biases of the time are not as strong today as they were 30 years ago, and yet no real change in how the war is viewed has taken place. The idea that Vietnam was a morass into which the United States should not have ventured is strongly held by millions of Americans today, and the idea is reinforced through repetition so that it seems unlikely that one or two generations more will make that much difference. Many of the people repeating this idea today do not really remember the Vietnam War at all except as a history lesson, and the lesson is not being given as Lind predicts it will.