How Did Lyndon Bailnes Johnson Impact The Vietnam War

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Lyndon Baines Johnson, who reigned as president from 1963 to 1968 in the US, sparked a profound impact on the Vietnam War by escalating the involvement of the United States through The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and implementing the controversial strategy of Operation Ranch Hand. As a result of the passing of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Johnson obtained the authority to utilise a range of defensive measures that he considered essential in promoting international peace and securing Southeast Asia. This discussion will encompass how the interaction between the measures that Johnson enforced and the logic surrounding them ultimately transformed the Vietnam War in 1955. Lyndon Baines Johnson significantly impacted the Vietnam War by utilising the Gulf of Tonkin …show more content…

As an outcome of presenting the reported attacks on US Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin to the US Congress, Johnson emphasised a serious threat to American interests and security. Johnson, after thorough analysis, discovered a balance between aggressive military tactics and maintaining international peace by authorising the deployment of seven thousand US ground combat troops to Vietnam in March, 1965. This was recognised as a paramount decision, as it heavily boosted military resources/personnel in the war effort and enabled the US to directly participate in ground operations. For instance, the primary source of a photograph of a US-assisted ground operation showcases an American soldier intervening in a search and destroy mission, which involved moving into enemy villages and torching them to the ground if they contained local support for the Viet Cong. This indicates that, with the aid of US troops in ground operations, the effects of the Viet Cong were successfully neutralised through eliminating enemy agents and