Compare And Contrast Vietnam War And Iraq War

The Vietnam and Iraq war, two wars during drastically different time periods and drastically different circumstances, but still have many similarities. Of course there are obvious comparisons such as the location of the two countries or the number of casualties, but looking beyond these allows for a better understanding of these two wars. For example, The United States had a completely different goal when entering the Vietnam war compared to the Iraq war. In the Iraq war, the US only wanted to defend South Vietnam, but In Iraq the US wanted to start and support a new government. Another thing to keep in mind is the drastic difference in the length of these wars. The Vietnam war lasted almost twenty years while the Iraq war only lasted about eight years. The

First of all, when going into Vietnam, America did not have a clear picture of what they wanted to happen. They knew they did not want to communism to spread, but then what after that? Because of this, even with the help of South Vietnam America could not defeat North Vietnam and could not stop the spread of communism. By the time the Iraq war came around, America had learned its lesson. Instead of going in and playing defense the whole time, America had a real plan. It was to remove all threats of terrorism then set up a successful government. “On May 6, 2003, Bush appointed Paul Bremer to govern Iraq.”(Danver) This may not have worked out, but at least the idea was there. Another difference is the battling that went on in these two wars. In Vietnam, it was the US and South Vietnam against North Vietnam, similar to a civil war. Iraq was the US versus terrorism which leads to another comparison on how these wars played out. The Vietnam war was a more stereotypical war, one army facing off against another. The Iraq war was much different, similar to guerilla warfare, enemies of the US were spread out all over Iraq and did not attack in an army versus army