Us Involvement In The Vietnam War Essay

On November 1st, 1955, America entered the longest and least successful war in history. It lasted 20 years and caused 58,000 casualties, costing over 150 billion dollars. In the end, millions of Vietnamese soldiers died and thousands of innocent civilians were injured, meanwhile the surrounding counties of Laos and Cambodia fell to communism. The United States should not have sent troops to the civil war in Vietnam in 1965 because it was not a U.S. concern, the cost of the war was expensive, and it caused a countless amount of casualties.

The Vietnam War did not directly influence the United States, and therefore the U.S. should not have invaded Vietnam. Even though many Americans argued that communism was bad and could eventually reach the U.S., there was never an immediate threat to the United States and there was nothing to achieve by joining in on the conflicts. Many believe that the involvement in the Vietnam War was just a way for the U.S. to assert their dominance as a world power. It was not the U.S.’s job to determine who’s freedom should be protected, and therefore America should not have intervened in the war.

The War cost the United States over 150 billion dollars, which calculates to be about 1.1 trillion in 2016. These expenses included military operations and economic and military aid to the Saigon region. Many factories back home in the U.S. were converted to produce military equipment, which cause a decrease in consumer spending. The military spending caused major inflation and increased interest rates, which eventually led to an economic crisis in the 1970’s. Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs were also postponed, these included programs like anti-poverty and social security, all of which were stalled because of government military spending. The Vietnam War was one of the most expensive wars in history, and the spending was