American experience in Vietnam

American experience in Vietnam is most immediately associated with the American debacle in that country in the circumstances of U.S. withdrawal and the aftermath in the mid-1970s. But the story really began in the aftermath of World War II. After the Japanese surrendered in 1945, the French, aided by the British, moved right back into place in Indochina, essentially reasserting its colonial authority. But during the war the Vietminh was formed, headed by Ho. Within days of the Japanese surrender, the nationalist/communist Vietminh forced Bo Dai, putative Vietnamese emperor, to abdicate. In 1949, Bo Dai set up an anticommunist rival government in Saigon, under French auspices (Drake, 1998).

From 1949 until 1954, French and pro-French Vietnamese fought a series of battles, including guerrilla fighting, over Vietnam's geopolitical status. In early 1954, the battle of Dien Bien Phu famously routed the French from Indochina. Into the anticommunist vacuum in Saigon stepped the US, which became chief supporter of a series of client regimes that were meant to guarantee that North and South Vietnam would not be united under a communist regime, hence would prevent the rest of Asia from turning communist as well. Domino theory, as first articulated by Eisenhower in the 1950s, predicted the disintegration of Asia as one state after another, starting with Indochina fell to communism, once the first state fell (1989, p. 537). Cold War politics would not permit the US to let that happen.

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Category: History - A