Here is your essay on the US War in Vietnam!
The US started building South Vietnam as an independent state under the dictatorial and corrupt rule of Ngo Dinh Diem.
It was universally believed that Ho Chi Minh’s party was certain to win the elections. Diem’s government, on the US advice and support, refused to comply with the decision to hold elections.
The US started building the South Vietnamese army to resist the North Vietnamese army and crush the South Vietnamese guerrillas.
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In spite of US support, Diem’s government was on the verge of collapse in 1963 due to its growing unpopularity. It was brought down by a US-supported military coup.
The US government increasingly committed itself to the maintenance of an anti-communist regime in South Vietnam. The US policy makers advocated what was called the ‘domino’ theory. According to this theory, if South Vietnam fell to the communists, all other South-East Asian countries would also collapse and come under communist rule and this would lead to the expansion of communism over the entire Asia continent.
The US started sending her own troops, to begin with, as military advisers, but gradually as regular combat troops. By the end of 1967, the number of US troops fighting in Vietnam had gone up to 500,000.
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It has been estimated that by 1967 the power of bombs dropped on Vietnamese territory by the US exceeded that of the bombs dropped all over Europe during the entire period of the Second World War.
The US war in Vietnam was the most unpopular US war in history. It was condemned by people all over the world. Even with the United States there was huge opposition to the war. No other single event in the years after 1945 had united people all over the world as the opposition to the war in Vietnam.
The US troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1973. By April 1975, the South Vietnamese army was routed and the last of the US advisers also left. In this war, 58,000 US soldiers were killed and about 300,000 wounded.
The Vietnamese casualties, both military and civilian, were much higher. The entire country had been ravaged. Vietnam soon emerged as a united country. The defeat of the greatest military power in the world by the people of a small country in Asia was an event of great significance in recent history.