why did the U.S become involved in Vietnam?
Answers
Explanation:
The role of the United States in the Vietnam War began after World War II and escalated into full commitment during the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1973. The U.S. involvement in South Vietnam stemmed from a combination of factors: France's long colonial history in French Indochina, the US War with Japan in the Pacific, and both Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong's pledge in 1950 to support Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh's guerrilla forces. Related to this, Roosevelt was adamantly against providing any aid to France that would in any way prop up France's struggle to maintain its pre WWII colonial empire. However, Stalin and Mao's offering their support to the Viet Minh in 1950, changed the battlefield dynamic and geopolitical character of the struggle to one of a global conflict against Maoist and Stalinist expansionism. It was at the time, in September 1950, that French forces began to be moderately backed by America. Beginning with $10M USD worth of military supplies, President Harry S. Truman from that initial support provided progressively increasing amounts of financial and military assistance to French forces fighting in what was still in the minds of the Western powers French Indochina. Beginning in 1950, US involvement increased from just assisting French collision forces to providing direct military assistance to the associated states (Annam, Tonkin, Laos, and Cambodia). Eventually, U.S. missions were carried out at a more consistent rate by sending out increasing amounts of military assistance from the United States. Their main intent was to restrict Communist expansion in Indochina as they thought it would soon lead to Communist takeovers in Thailand, Laos, Malaya, and all of what later became Vietnam. This would have resulted in a change in balance of power throughout Asia. The U.S. foreign policy establishment saw national security US and Western Europe's interests being marginalized due to the rise of this Communist expansion, and thus it strived to take measures to restrict it. Under Truman the support went from $10M in September 1950 to $150M by the end of 1951. The struggle passed from Truman to Eisenhower who saw the fall of French Indochina, and in 1961 the Eisenhower administration passed the conflict to Kennedy. In May 1961 Kennedy sent 500 more military advisers, bringing American forces there to 1,400.[1] With the budget increased and with American boot on the ground in Vietnam by at least 1961, these actions came to be questioned by other segments of the US government and among the people of the United States.[2]
Ultimately, estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000[3] to 3,812,000.[4] Current, 2017 records, report that the conflict resulted in 58,318 US fatalities.[5]