ipl-logo

Long Term Effects Of The Cold War

675 Words3 Pages

The Cold War, the second-longest war in US history, was a war between the US and the USSR, which was, ironically enough, caused somewhat by the end of World War II. At this point, the US and USSR had become two of the most significant world powers, with the USSR trying to spread communism, and the US trying to contain it. It was called the Cold War because neither side actually declared a state of war between the two sides, they just attempted to prevent the other from spreading their political influence around the globe. Each side tried to spread its power and assert dominance through the spread of nuclear weapons and proxy wars, which are wars between smaller territories or countries that represent the interests of larger world powers. One …show more content…

At the time, the US was under a policy of containment, which desired to contain the spread of communism. This meant that South Vietnam represented the best of their interests, while North Vietnam represented the best of the USSR’s interests.

The US policy of containment stated that communism would fall as long as it was prevented from spreading. After the loss of Russia and China to communism, the US feared the next country to fall would be Vietnam. The loss of countries fell under the principle of “falling dominos”, which President Dwight Eisenhower explained: “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences” (Doc 1). This explained that after one domino, or country, fell, the others would fall very quickly, one after the other. This principle meant that the spread of communism would be very fast if the US didn’t do something about it, hence the US involvement in the Vietnam War. The US had been supporting South

Show More
Related
700 Words | 3 Pages

Furthermore, United States’ support in Vietnam was initially supposed to be limited to training support (source A). As even United States president, Lyndon Johnson, was aware of the potential escalation of the war in Vietnam if American military forces were to involve themselves in the Vietnamese conflict. President Johnsons statement that “… we could get tied down in a third world war” (source A) substantiates the idea that America feared the worldwide consequence of American support in Vietnam (Source A). Contrary to this however,

Read More
848 Words | 4 Pages

Many students were taught in their U.S. History class in high school that United States went to war with Vietnam because they wanted to prevent the Vietnam from becoming communists, and if Vietnam were to fall it could result in the whole region of Indochina to become communists (domino theory). In Howard Zinn’s essay gives a different perspective to its readers and he raises questions in minds of his reader such as, “what was the real reason for U.S to invade Vietnam and how come a wealthiest and a powerful country lose war, so miserably against a third world country?” According to Howard Zinn the hidden reason for U.S. entering and supporting French in the Vietnam War was because “Communist had control over all of Southeast Asia, which

Read More
581 Words | 3 Pages

It was a perception that was widely accepted in the United States particularly in the years that led to the Vietnamese War. Vietnam was divided into North and South with North Vietnam being a communist population and South Vietnam a capitalist population that hoped for a democratic system of government and the consequent reunion with the North part. Though President Lyndon Johnson held the view that it was the responsibility of the United States to stop the war and crush communism before it extended to Southeast Asia, he, however, lacked any good motivation to join the war; in spite of everything, North Vietnam had not offended the United States openly or directly. Therefore, North Vietnam continued to send streams of soldiers against the South Vietnam part to transform South Vietnam to communism. The United States, on the other hand, had no option but to observe these occurrences from across the ocean in

Read More
516 Words | 3 Pages

They wanted the United States to continue sending troops to Vietnam, as well as trying to make sure the domino theory does not hit the United States with communism. “They believed anti-communist South Vietnam needed to be defended and worried about a possible domino effect and threats to America if communism were allowed to expand.” (perspectives on the Vietnam War Article) This statement explains the Hawks' belief in the domino theory and its effect of it if it were to happen. Another reason for the Hawks’ opinion was they were very patriotic.

Read More
182 Words | 1 Pages

Our idea was “containment” which was we wanted to stop the spread of communism in its tracks before it could get a foothold in other parts of the world, that is why the U.S. got involved with the South Koreans.

Read More
503 Words | 3 Pages

Vietnam and the relationship to the Domino Theory The relationship that Vietnam has to the Domino Theory is that the United States was intervening the spread of Communism. They acted like Trump’s Wall, theoretically speaking. They didn’t want communism to spread throughout the rest of Asia so they decided to help out the south. President Harry Truman would sent military aid to help out.

Read More
517 Words | 3 Pages

Yes, preventing other countries and their citizens from being taken over by communist rule, was the moral thing to do, but was communist control of Vietnam a threat to our national

Read More
1867 Words | 8 Pages

Kennedy and Johnson wanted to go into Vietnam to defeat North Vietnam for fear of the domino effect and Congress in retaliation set boundaries. The Vietnam War for political standards from a United States standpoint was to defeat the common enemy of communism. This was a goal that President Nixon wanted to achieve but peer pressure from protests and Republicans and Democrats made it impossible. “In the attempt to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam, the politics behind the war led to the rise of communist regimes in Vietnam’s neighbors, alongside bloody civil wars, and in Cambodia’s case, a period of genocide and mass violence. ”(Room)

Read More
758 Words | 4 Pages

American troops were transferred into ‘hot zones’ to destroy or force the Viet Cong out of their centers. In America, public support for the war in Vietnam, though originally strong, began to collapse. Vietnamization was the term applied by Richard Nixon to define US policy towards South Vietnam in the following stages of the Vietnam War. Vietnamization was Nixon’s desired policy to allow South Vietnam to take a bigger responsibility for the war while America began a planned departure, while at the same time assisting the government in Saigon in its battle against the NLF. The Fall of Saigon happened in South Vietnam, signifying the end of the Vietnam War.

Read More
3130 Words | 13 Pages

The Vietnam War took place during the cold war era, which lasted many years and could be described as the clashing of two conflicting ideologies between the communist eastern countries and the capitalist western countries. The Americans aimed at stopping the spread of communism in Vietnam, based on the their policy of containment, which was set up to stop the spread of communism to any other country in the world. Many American citizens opposed the sending of their own troops to fight in a war that was not even theirs to lose. Many of the soldiers being sent to Vietnam were members of the youth, which led to increasingly rapid protest action amongst students, as well as the parents of the young men being conscripted. These American troops were being placed to fight in unfamiliar and harsh terrain – as the majority of Vietnam was overgrown with forests and dangerous wildlife - which negatively affected the Americans morale and diminishing their possibility of success in the war.

Read More
985 Words | 4 Pages

The United State believed in the Domino Theory of which they were fearful that the fall of South Vietnam will cause a chain reaction to the rest of Southeast Asia countries to become communist. Hence, in 1965 the United State sent soldiers to Vietnam, the US soldiers had superior

Read More
835 Words | 4 Pages

Vietnam had been an important symbol for capitalism for the USA government with the fail of China in 1949 and the failure in Korea from 1950 - 1957 it was essential for the US that Vietnam maintained a capitalist presence and not lose Vietnam to communism. Since it would be a massive personal blow to the US government as well as the US authority around the world. There are many arguments that US tactics were inefficiently used. To begin with they used heavy bombings which did damage North Vietnams supply routes the Ho Chi Mhin trail but it did not stop the trail which provided the Viet Congs with equipment and weapons from neighboring countries. It's an embarrassment that the US failed to stop countries such as Cambodia and Laos since the

Read More
1043 Words | 5 Pages

Vietnam saw the war as a fight for independence while the U.S. saw the war as a fight against the communist regime, aiming to instil its capitalist approach in order to alienate the Soviets from the rest of society. This is a perfect example of numerous things in the theory of Realism, namely: the balance of power, the idea that peace and stability are most likely to be maintained when military power is distributed to prevent a single superpower from controlling the world; the security dilemma, the tendency of states to view the defensive arming of adversaries as threatening, causing them to arm in response so that all states’ security declines; and national interest, the goals that states pursue to maximize what they perceive to be selfishly best for their country (WPTT, 2011, pp.32-33). The U.S. saw the Vietnamese becoming allies with the Soviets as a security dilemma, so in order to somewhat restore the balance of power, a war was declared on the Vietnamese, all to preserve its national interest. The U.S. declared war on Vietnam even though there was no real need for one, as the Vietnamese were much too busy fighting for their independence from the Chinese in an attempt to differentiate

Read More
555 Words | 3 Pages

The United States believed that it was their responsibility to contain Communism. They wanted to stop the spread of communism across the world. They saw that Vietnam as the start of the spread of Communism so it contributed as one of the reasons of going to war. The Domino theory was a theory that if one country in a region falls to Communism that the surrounding countries would fall to communism as well. The U.S. also saw the Domino Theory in Vietnam.

Read More

More about Long Term Effects Of The Cold War

Related Topics

Open Document