How did the American-Vietnam war come about?
You must have heard the name of the Vietnam War; But you may not know much about the cause of this war, why America entered it and who won and who lost in the end. In this post we will briefly review the origins of the Vietnam War, the process of its formation and finally this historical conflict.
The Vietnam War was one of the longest and costliest wars of the 20th century, lasting from 1334 to 1354 AD and finally ending with the defeat of America and the unification of Vietnam under communist rule.
The roots of this war go back to the French colonial period. Vietnam was a French colony for many years, but after World War II, the independence movement led by Ho Chi Minh began to fight against colonialism. The French forces were finally defeated at the Battle of Dinh Binh Phu in 1333, and with the Treaty of Geneva, Vietnam was temporarily divided into northern and southern parts.
North Vietnam was ruled by Ho Chi Minh's leadership and had a communist orientation and was supported by the Soviet Union and China. In contrast, South Vietnam had an anti-communist government supported by the United States. National elections were supposed to be held to unify the two parts, but these elections were never held and the political and military differences between the two sides increased.
Meanwhile, the United States, concerned about the expansion of Soviet and Chinese influence in Southeast Asia, increased its financial and military support for South Vietnam. One of Washington's main concerns was a theory known as the domino effect; According to this theory, the fall of South Vietnam to communism could have dragged neighboring countries like Laos and Cambodia down the same path.
In 1343, the Gulf of Tonkin incident and an alleged attack by North Vietnamese forces on American ships paved the way for the expansion of Washington's military intervention. A year later, in 1344, the United States began sending large-scale combat troops to Vietnam, and the war entered a full-scale phase.
Despite the superiority of American weapons and air, North Vietnamese forces and Vietcong guerrillas created massive resistance against the American military by using asymmetric warfare, underground tunnels and familiarity with the geography of the area.