Development Of United States Policy Towards Vietnam Between 1954 - 1965 (Research Paper Sample)

America’s War Policy: Vietnam between 1954 and 1965.
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The Vietnam War was a fight of ideology rather than a show of a country’s might. The northern part had a communist ideology. The southern part was initially supported by France, but later France paved the way for the United States and had a capitalist ideology (Walker, 2014). This is because of the subsequent defeat of French by the Viet Minh. By 1954, many leaders were killed by the French or had joined the Communists in the North. Ngo Dinh Diem was the ablest candidate that could handle the leadership role. He was made Prime Minister of South Vietnam in June 1954. The United States had different perspectives of the Vietnam struggle. Firstly in their point of view, it was the North against the French, then the North against the South (Walker, 2014). And finally they saw it had the further spread of communism, so they had to stop it. The following events signify the development of the united States policy towards Vietnam between 1954 and 1965.
The Agroville or Strategic Hamlet Program. This policy was initiated when the leadership of Diem deteriorated. Diem was a Catholic. In most instances he favored the Catholics over the Buddhists. He went against the Geneva Convention and embraced the guidance and advice of the United States. Diem was keen though not to be made a puppet of the United States. He was more monarchical than democratic and believed in own ideology known as Personalism (Wiest, 2006).
In this ideology, he concentrated more on family and social groups. By appointing his brother and sister to be leaders and favoring only one religion, mainly the population was alienated. The only control he had was Central Vietnam and fellow Catholics. America saw this being a very small region for their mega plan. To win more people, they went for Strategic Hamlet Plan, which was successful with the British in Malaysia. In this policy, the peasants were relocated to a certain village where there would be limited entry and exit of communists for influence. The policy, however, failed because of incompetence and extensive use of force (Dunbabin, 2014).
The boost of the South Vietnamese army. Just before the elections in 1956, the north had just fought the French and were arming up again. They had anticipated a fall of Diem because of his unpopularity. Americans could not wait for this to happen. Thus, they decided to give military aid to the South and conducted some campaigns contrary to Vietminh cells to make sure the anticipated elections do not take place. That plan was a success to the United States.
The coup to remove Diem. During Buddha’s birthday, some monks and Catholics flew flags in celebration. Diem killed the Buddhist monks and spared the Catholics. This action was not received well by the then American President John Kennedy, who was angered by the decision by Diem. He saw this as an enhancement to separation rather than the integration they sought. President Kennedy, therefore, ordered the removal of Diem to power. On first November 1963, the coup succeeded, and Diem was replaced by Saigon's Special Forces commander. However, this led to the assassination of President Kennedy three weeks later (Senauth, 2012).
Further increase of troops in the region and conducting operations. Lyndon B Johnson succeeded President Kennedy following his assassination. Despite his domestic nature, he was also provoked by the Gulf of Tonkin incident that challenged him. He was not to be seen as going “soft” on the communists. He, therefore, increased the number of the American army on the ground to 15000. He further got the congressional green light to protect all American troops in Vietnam by any means possible following the incident. An action by the North that led to the killing of 8 Americans was enough challenge to Johnson, who ordered the kick-off of Operation Flaming Dart that later changed to Operation Rolling Thunder. Later on, he increased the number of troops to 200000 (Walker, 2014).
Persuasion for the adoption of the pacification program. Due to drafting a constitution by Khanh in 1964, South Vietnamese were angered. This led to a series of coups that took place making General Nguyen Van Thieu the eventual President of South Vietnam. During and before Thieu’s time, there was rampant corruption. This was an advantage to the Viet Cong as they could replace government officials in the rural with their loyalists.
Following this, the Americans tried to convince Thieu and his vice Ky to adopt the Pacification Program. This was so as to win the people of South Vietnam. Under this program, the United States would offer security and also develop the rural South Vietnam. However, this did not take place immediately because America was at war by that time (Daddis, 2014).
The strategy of attrition. The methodology was to weaken the North by a series of attack on their bases adopted by General Westmoreland. In 1965, the United States had put all they could in the war from the army to the air force. All this was an affirmation that communism was not to win at all cost and also to defend the South Vietnamese government. North Vietnam received military support from the Soviet Union and China.
On the other hand, South Vietnam received major support from the Unite...