The Vietnam War: The First War since the dawn of the Cold War where the Allies lost.

The Vietnam War was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second Indochina War fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam.  Indochina wars refer to the conflicts which took place in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, with the principal involvement of France(1946-54) and later the United States beginning in the 1950s during the 20th century.

The wars are also called the French Indochina War and the Vietnam War, or the 1st and 2nd Indochina Wars. The latter conflict ended in April 1975. In the latter half of the 19th century, Vietnam was conquered by the French, who controlled it as a protectorate(1883-1939) and then a possession(1939-45). Vietnamese rule returned to the country on September 2, 1945, with the Nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh’s proclamation of Independence. From 1946 to 1954, The French fiercely opposed the Vietnam independence movement which under Ho Chi Minh had adopted guerrilla warfare against them. The war ended in a Vietnamese victory at Điện Biên Phủ on May 7, 1954. Subsequently, an agreement was signed at the Geneva on July 21 1954 providing for a temporary division of the country, at the 17th parallel of latitude between a communist-dominated North and a US-supported South. 

Activities of pro-Communist rebels in South Vietnam led to the heavy us intervention in the mid-1960s and the Second Indochina War. However, a ceasefire agreement was signed on 27 January 1973. But the ideological differences and subsequent communist activities in the South resulted in a resumption of war. In 1975 the South Vietnamese government collapsed and was replaced by a regime dominated by the communists. On July 2 1976 the two Vietnamese were united as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The North Vietnamese army was supported by USSR, China, and other communist allies, and the South Vietnamese army was supported by the US, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, and other anti-communist allies.

The Viet Cong, a South Vietnamese communist common front aided by the North, fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region, while the Peoples Army of Vietnam, also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) engaged in more conventional warfare, at times committing large units to the battle. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the first Indochina war against the forces from France and later on the United States. 

US involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident, in which a US destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which gave the US president authorization to increase US military presence. Regular US combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations crossed international borders: bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were used by the North Vietnamese supply routes and were heavily bombed by US forces as American Involvement in the war peaked in 1968, during what is known as the Tet Offensive.

Tet Offensive was generally a surprise attack by the coordinated forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army on many positions where the United States had a stronghold which caused a huge military loss before finally repelling the communist forces. Subsequently, the US was also doing aircraft attacks with Nepalm named dangerous chemicals all over the region without caring about the life of the civilian people. The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government but came the turning point in the war as it persuaded a large segment of the US population that its government’s claims of progress towards winning the war were illusionary despite many years of massive US military and aid to South Vietnam.


Under increasing pressure for the American people to withdraw US forces from Vietnam, US  President Nixon assumed office in 1969 and started his efforts to end the war honorably. In line with these efforts, first of all, he tried to increase military pressure on the North through bombings and increased military raids, and at the same time, he tried to push pressure on the Soviets to persuade the allies to join the serious negotiations.
However, the plan did not work, so by June 1969 President Richard Nixon started withdrawing American troops from Vietnam and started a program called “Vietnamization “ by which the US military worked towards training & equipping the local forces of South Vietnam to defend themselves.


However, whether the South Vietnamese could build the combat capability, logistics, planning capacity, and leadership at the national and military levels to face the North Vietnamese on their own was an important challenge to the US. Thus the American Administration would continue its Triple Strategy(Re-group, Re-equip & Expand) of Vietnamization, coercing North Vietnam to negotiate through military pressure and through the Soviets and the Peoples’ Republic of China(PRC) and seeking negotiation. Finally, in October 1972, Kissinger reached an understanding with the North.

However, this agreement was not acceptable to the South and it refused to accept a peace that left Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam and legitimized the Hanoi-controlled communist shadow agreement, the provisional revolutionary government. Kissinger was however unable to find any middle ground so the president threatened to South to cut Military, Financial, and Logistical aid and eventually persuaded the South to sign the agreement. The South reluctantly accepted the agreement under pressure and the peace agreement was signed on January 27th, 1973. The peace settlement enabled the US to withdraw from the war and welcome the American prisoners of war back home. However, neither of the Vietnamese parties abided by the settlement, and the war continued.

Though the Nixon Administration to the South in the event of a violation of the agreement, both parties understood it as bombings by B-52s.  Later on, because of domestic and congressional pressures and the Watergate scandal, the Nixon administration was distracted and could never intervene in Vietnam further. The Watergate scandal was the outburst of both Democratic and Republic government authorities that they were tapping each other phones, leaking and stealing mail and data, and exposing the In-house politics and corruption of the US Senate.

Having rebuilt their offices and upgrading their logistics system, North Vietnamese forces triggered a major offensive in the Central Highlands in March 1975.  On April 1975, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) tanks rolled through the gate of the presidential palace in Saigon, effectively ending the war.

This was the first war since the dawn of the Cold War when the US and its allies had to finally concede power to the communists after a prolonged contest that lasted for some 20-odd years. The extent and the scale of the war were huge in which both sides suffered enormous losses of life as well as property. This war was also a war that showed the weaknesses of the deliberative approach as well as the Democratic system of government.

While the democrats in the US could build up public opinion in the US and the allied countries against the war to which the US government had to succumb the totalitarian communist regime did not face the problem. Secondly, there was an increased realization that the contemplating approach works only if there are sufficient grounds for offering and receiving benefits, that is both parties are almost on equal footing and are in a position to offer and receive something and would not work if either party realizes that is in a position to dominate and dictate terms of settlement.