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R. McMaster is an American soldier and a career officer in the U.S army. The purpose of McMaster’s book is to analyze how and why the United States becomes involved in the Vietnam War. During this, the author also explains on what he thinks why the president decided to keep the war going instead and escalate it. McMaster came to a conclusion that Johnson made the mess himself and he chose to escalate the war. The author presents the war as a consequence of specific decisions made by specific men, Lyndon B. Johnson.
Robert S. McNamara’s legacy is undoubtedly how he redefined the Secretary of Defense's role in the White House, but I am interested in his thoughts on the war afterward. From my research, I have found that McNamara heavily regretted the Vietnam War as a whole. In his memoir, “In Retrospect”, he writes about how he believed the communist threat was truly not that large of a threat, and he questioned if Soviet and Chinese behavior would have been different if the United States had not ever been involved in the Vietnam War. He also pinpointed eleven different “failures” of the war, like how there was a failure to involve Congress and the American people in a pros-and-cons-Esque discussion of entering Vietnam. McNamara retained the idea of how
The Vietnam War was a gruesome trial of war that some people think should never have happened, but why do they think this? A large amount of evidence can back up the thought of the Vietnam War being unjustified. An example of this is Agent Orange, which is a generation's worth of disabilities and deformities caused by the unredeemable toxic chemicals dropped on the Vietnamese population. A second reason is that many people— including a large number of Americans — protested against the Vietnam War, because of the terror occurring. War drafts also were happening, which sent men (even if they did not want to) to fight in the war, which was yet again met with mass protests.
As David Farber illustrates in The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s, “Between the summer of 1964, when the Johnson administration achieved passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and the April 1965 antiwar rally, the American combat role in Vietnam had escalated greatly” (141). In the mid 1960s, a bloody and violent war was in full swing overseas between Vietnamese and American soldiers. On the American home front though, citizens of the US began to question whether it was wise to remain in the war or pull American troops back home. Two major groups began to spring up: advocates for the war and those against it.
For O’Brien, the Vietnam War was so poorly planned out that the government had failed to even educate its people on the goal. This did not stop once the men arrived in Vietnam, as the author states, “you can’t tell where you are, or why you’re there, and the only certainty is overwhelming ambiguity” (O’Brien 78). American soldiers were uninformed on such simple matters as the goals of their missions or their location, which resulted in the almost anarchic combat in Vietnam. Finally, this is further corroborated by “Dereliction of Duty or the Wrong War? Learning Lessons of Vietnam” by Thomas G. Bowie
He cites the “domino theory” for communism as the primary reason for the war. The theory was that if Vietnam became communist then, it leave way for other countries to become communist as well. At the end of the war, the United States had wasted its resources, had millions die, growing unrest due to anti-war movements and lost the war. The US lost the war, according to PAT, due to generals’ odd strategies and the president’s reluctance to pursue the war in the first place. Schweikart and Allen explanation differs from Zinn’s, again, due to focusing more on war strategies and fighting rather than the causes and
The Vietnam War is known as the first war America “lost.” The loss of lives was a devastating number. The American government was very secretive as to their plans in Vietnam. Although President Johnson said that the US had no desire to get involved in the war, he and close government officials prepared in case they truly needed to go to war. The public was eased into a false sense of security.
The Vietnam War is considered one of the most controversial wars in United States history. The United States is one of the greatest superpowers at the time and were seen as the helping hand for doing the right thing. The United States were dragged into this war in order to stop the spread of communism throughout the Democratic South Korea. Many Americans saw this as the United States intervening in another country’s civil war which is not our duty. Americans also used the draft in a poor way affecting the young and African American population.
One of the most controversial wars in history and a turning point in American foreign policy, the emotions and events surrounding the Vietnam War capture the essence of the era. The rise of rebellious youth culture and anti-war and anti-draft movements were key social aspects of American life leading up to and during the fighting. (Doc 2, 3) On the political side, Congress aimed to control the Chief-Executive with legislation such as the War Powers Act of 1973, requiring the president to remove all unreported troops in Vietnam and report any further sent. (Doc 7) To say the country was divided would be a massive understatement.
The U.S did anything they could to get the upper hand in the war any many people see their bombing in cambodia a major violation of war. Even with these articles it shows that the U.S main purpose was no peace in the war but to stop an opposing force by any means possible then figure out peace later. Their reason behind this was the domino theory which says that if one nation comes under Communist control, then neighboring nations will also come under Communist control. LBJ used this to justify increasing US involvement in Vietnam. In Document 3 is says that No act of violence which makes the return to peace more difficult as well as Killing the enemy is not the main purpose, obtaining your goal is.
Although the Vietnam was caused by the United States trying to stop the spread of communism, the war had negative consequences on Americans and Vietnamese people. Thousands of innocent lives were lost and it had social, econmic and political
The main reason America went to war with Vietnam was to keep South Vietnam from falling to communism. At the time, the Domino Theory was a huge worry because America thought that if South Vietnam turned to communism then other countries would shortly follow (U.S. News). This affected the young draftees because some didn’t want to go and risk their lives just to try and fight, what they thought should be, South Vietnam’s own war. Americans didn’t think that the war was necessary because they believed that South Vietnam could fight its own battle while other Americans felt that they should help Vietnam so they could have a lesser chance of becoming communist. All of these opinions confused young draftees because they didn’t know if they should believe that South Vietnam should fight its own battle or if America should step in and
On November 1st, 1967, McNamara presented a memorandum to president Johnson stating that the United States could not win the war, which was very controversial among the government causing, even more, friction to the conflict (McNamara, 371). The book concludes by reflecting on the Vietnam War, especially questioning if the military intervention was a prudent move by the government, what lessons could have been learned from the mistakes made back then, and what can be applied to the present and future of policymaking (McNamara, 381). Despite being a memoir, In Retrospective is of good academic worth that can give another perspective to the readers. While writing the book, McNamara examined the massive quantity of declassified materials and
The Vietnam War was waged in one form or another throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The war was a conflict between communist North Vietnam and the democratic South Vietnam. For a good portion of the war, the United States fought on the side of South Vietnam. Television coverage deeply affected American policy in Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson quipped that he knew he had “lost” Middle America’s support when Walter Cronkite stated the war was “unwinnable.”
The Vietnam War was a war the United States should have never been involved in. The “Domino Theory” was a direct cause of the war. The war resulted in much death; innocent civilians and young Americans were killed. The Vietnam war also resulted in rioting, distrust for the United States government, and the loss of many lives. 58,000 Americans were killed and 300,000 were wounded.
