GR 3 Key Terms

Containment

U.S. Cold War policy that sought to limit the political control of the Soviet Union to the territories it had occupied at the end of World War II

Nuclear Deterrence

U.S. method of containing the Soviet Union that relied on the capability to deliver a mass nuclear strike in retaliation for Soviet aggression 

Strategic Air Command (SAC)

independent strategic bombing force of the U.S. Air Force capable of immediately launching a mass nuclear bombing raid on the Soviet Union

Limited War

war in which at least one belligerent does not employ its full military power because of overriding geopolitical interests, characteristic of the United States’ efforts in Korea and Vietnam during the Cold War; war in which the object of each side is to convince the other that the goals it seeks are not worth the cost it would have to pay to achieve them

Revolutionary War

The application of irregular warfare methods to the propagation of an ideology or political system

Harry S. Truman

president who pledged to support free peoples against subjugation by communist forces, intervened to defend South Korea, and resisted escalating the war or broadening it to include other communist states 

Battle of Inchon

September 1950 landing of U.S. troops at the South Korean port city of Inchon: cut off North Korean supply lines, threatened encirclement of North Korean forces in the south, and broke the initial North Korean assault on South Korea 

Lead by Douglas McArthur

Douglas MacArthur

Commander of U.S. and allied forces in Korea, relieved of command by President Truman for challenging the President's policy of not extending the war beyond Korea

Yalu River

river marking the border of Korea and China, the advance of U.S. forces to which provoked the intervention of Chinese communist forces in late autumn 1950 

Sputnik

: name of the first artificial satellite, launched into Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM)

a missile that follows a ballistic trajectory, leaves Earth’s atmosphere, and which can deliver a warhead to a target on another continent

The Space Race

competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s to reach milestones in space travel

Ho Chi Minh

Founder of the Viet Minh and leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) after independence from France 

Viet Minh

Communist-led Vietnamese national independence movement founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1941; its members formed a disciplined military force that went to war against France as it tried to re-establish its imperial authority in Vietnam following World War II  

Battle of Dien Bien Phu

Decisive battle between the French army and the Viet Minh, culminating in May 1954 with the surrender of the French garrison there and the subsequent end of French colonialism in Vietnam

Ngo Dinh Diem

Anti-communist President of South Vietnam from the end of the First Indochina War in 1954 until his assassination in a military coup in 1963, accused of being disconnected from the majority of the Vietnamese people and fanning the flames of revolution in South Vietnam 

John F. Kennedy

U.S. President who deepened American involvement in Vietnam by sending thousands of advisors to assist the South Vietnamese military in its fight against communist guerillas

Robert McNarama

U.S. Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson who valued statistical indices to the exclusion of other criteria in evaluating the progress of the U.S. intervention in Vietnam 

William Westmoreland

Commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command in Vietnam who ignored the political aspects of the revolutionary warfare in South Vietnam, orienting operations instead on maneuvers of large units around the countryside 

Lyndon Johnson

U.S. President who, in 1965, massively committed American combat forces to Vietnam and began bombing North Vietnam but sought to avoid making the war unpopular with the American people 

He also let the American public down by failing to clearly explain the war and avoiding full mobilization, which weakened public trust and support.

Le Duan

de facto leader of North Vietnam whose fanatical drive to conquer South Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive in January 1968

Viet Minh

Communist-led Vietnamese national independence movement founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1941; its members formed a disciplined military force that went to war against France as it tried to re-establish its imperial authority in Vietnam following World War II  

Battle of Dien Bien Phu

Decisive battle between the French army and the Viet Minh, culminating in May 1954 with the surrender of the French garrison there and the subsequent end of French colonialism in Vietnam

Ngo Dinh Diem

Anti-communist President of South Vietnam from the end of the First Indochina War in 1954 until his assassination in a military coup in 1963, accused of being disconnected from the majority of the Vietnamese people and fanning the flames of revolution in South Vietnam 

John F. Kennedy

U.S. President who deepened American involvement in Vietnam by sending thousands of advisors to assist the South Vietnamese military in its fight against communist guerillas

Tet Offensive

offensive campaign against South Vietnamese cities carried by North Vietnam regulars and Viet Cong guerrillas, intended to spark a general uprising of the South Vietnamese populace, was turned back with huge casualties to the attackers, but despite its tactical failure amounted to a strategic victory for North Vietnam and a turning point in the war

Richard M. Nixon

Successor to Lyndon Johnson as President of the United States, undertook “Vietnamization,” negotiations, and increased bombing of North Vietnam to achieve a peace settlement with North Vietnam

Vietnamization

program of training and equipping South Vietnamese forces, accompanied by the reduction of numbers of U.S. troops in South Vietnam carried out by the Nixon administration in response to domestic opposition to the war in Vietnam

Operation Rolling Thunder

strategic bombing campaign undertaken by President Lyndon Johnson against targets in North Vietnam, intended to apply gradually increasing pressure on North Vietnamese leaders until they agreed to stop attacking South Vietnam, but ended following the Tet Offensive without achieving that objective

Operation Linebacker

large-scale interdiction campaign by U.S. air power against targets in North and South Vietnam in response to the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive of March 1972

Bombed:railroads,bridges,supply depots (targetted logistics)

Operation Linebacker II

eleven-day strategic bombing campaign of targets in the Hanoi-Haiphong area of North Vietnam, undertaken to force North Vietnam to conclude negotiations to end U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh Trail

U.S. name for the supply routes from North Vietnam to Viet Cong fighters in the South, proved resilient against bombing interdiction over the course of the war

Six-Day War

War between Israel and a coalition of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in June 1967, in which Israeli air power dominated its opponents and Israel rapidly defeated the Arab states and gained control of the Sinai peninsula  

Yom Kippur War

War between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria in October 1973; while a decisive victory for Israel, the war demonstrated an improvement in Egyptian military capabilities sufficient to pave the way to a negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt

Bar Lev Line

an Israeli system of earthworks and strong points that stretched 150 kilometers on the east bank of the Suez Canal. Despite its presumed impenetrability, it was nonetheless quickly breached by Egyptian forces at the outset of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.