Half a century since the conclusion of the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War, a conflict that lasted from 1955 to 1975, was a significant event in the history of Southeast Asia. The war began as a struggle for independence from French colonial rule, but it soon evolved into a complex conflict involving multiple nations.
In July 1954, the Geneva Indochina Conference ended French colonial rule over Vietnam. However, the division of Vietnam into North and South along the 17th parallel was not a permanent solution. The Viet Minh organization, founded by communist politician Ho Chi Minh in 1941, began armed resistance against Japanese occupation in 1943. Ho Chi Minh declared the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi on September 2, 1945, the day of Japan's surrender.
The First Indochina War ended in May 1954 with France's defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The US President Dwight D. Eisenhower feared a domino effect of communist takeovers in Southeast Asia, a theory that guided US policy in Vietnam for the next two decades. US military advisors and intelligence agencies were helping the South Vietnamese government maintain its power against communist groups and insurgents from 1957.
Under President John F. Kennedy's leadership, the number of US soldiers in Vietnam increased significantly, from barely 1,000 under Eisenhower to over 16,000. The US Congress passed the "Tonkin Resolution" on August 7, 1964, giving President Johnson the authority for direct military intervention in Vietnam. The first US ground troops landed in South Vietnam in March 1965.
The war spread to Laos and Cambodia, direct neighbouring countries of Vietnam. North Vietnamese Viet Minh factions participated in guerrilla warfare in South Vietnam from 1957. In December 1960, various opposition groups in South Vietnam united under communist leadership to form the "National Liberation Front" (NLF), known as the "Vietcong".
The anti-war protest became a central political issue for an entire generation of young people in the USA. Large-scale student protests began as early as April 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, inherited a politically and militarily unstable situation in South Vietnam. Johnson ordered Operation "Rolling Thunder" - the targeted bombing of North Vietnam by the US Air Force - in February 1965.
By the end of 1965, over 184,000 US soldiers were deployed in Vietnam, and the number grew to over half a million by 1968. Richard Nixon pursued a strategy of "Vietnamization" of the war, with the goal of gradually putting South Vietnam in a position to fight against the troops from North Vietnam without US help.
Approximately 2.7 million US Americans served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, with 1.6 million in combat. Other states were directly involved in the Vietnam War, with soldiers from South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand fighting alongside South Vietnam and the USA.
The leaders of the government in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War included Hα» ChΓ Minh until his death in 1969, followed by LΓͺ Δα»©c Thα» who succeeded him. The war ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, to North Vietnamese forces. The Vietnam War had a profound impact on both Vietnam and the United States, with lasting effects felt to this day.
