Containment in Vietnam

How did the Vietnam War begin?

  • After the Second World War, the Vietnamese had appealed to the US government to back its claim for independence.  However, due to the communist credentials of nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh, the US decided to support a French return to Indo-China.  This led to a long conflict between Ho's forces and the French

  • The US funded the French, approximately 80% of the cost of the war by 1954, but French forces were surrounded and defeated in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.  Following this defeat, talks were held in Switzerland and the Geneva Accords were drafted: 

    • The French would withdraw from Indochina

    • There would be a temporary division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel

    • Ho Chi Minh would control the north of the country

    • There would be ‘free elections’ to unite Vietnam in 1956

    • There were to be no foreign bases

    • Laos and Cambodia would be recognized as independent states

  • The US did not sign the accords, and it attempted to strengthen the government in the south.  It also set up SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) which was an alliance with Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines and Pakistan.  It included South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in its 'protected areas'.  This was the legal basis for US involvement in Vietnam

  • The US government was then increasingly drawn into the ongoing conflict. Kennedy's administration backed the unpopular government of Diem, which failed to redress corruption and growing violence against the regime. After Kennedy's assassination, President Johnson escalated US involvement via the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which committed US forces to war in Vietnam

How did the Vietnam War end?

  • Following the Tet offensive, Johnson moved to scale back US troops from Vietnam and declared that he would not stand for re-election.  Republican Richard Nixon won the subsequent election on a ticket that he would bring 'Peace with Honor' in Vietnam

  • In order to achieve this the US embarked on detente with the USSR and a rapprochement with the PRC - therefore the Vietnam war had a significant impact on the development of superpower relations at this time

  • Nixon moved towards a policy of 'Vietnamization' of the war, and signed the Paris Peace Accords in 1973.  US troops were brought home

  • However, in 1975 Vietnamese communists finally took the south and Cambodia and Laos also fell to communist forces. The dominoes had fallen in Indo-China

Was the Vietnam War a disaster for containment

  • It would seem that US intervention in Vietnam was a total disaster for the policy of containment. It had failed to contain communism in Indo-China.

  • However, some historians and contemporaries have argued that in a broader context the Vietnam War was not a total failure for the US in terms of containment of Communism

  • The former leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, supports this perspective; historian Jim Rohwer in his book Asia Rising writes that ‘the broader aims of America’s effort in Vietnam were to keep the Capitalist semi-democracies of Southeast Asia from falling to Communism’ and that Vietnam allowed other countries in the region, such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore – all of whom faced Communist insurgencies – to hold the line with the backing of massive US military presence in the region