Introduction
The Vietnam War is one of the most significant events in the history of the XX century. The political events on the world arena after the victory over the Fascist Germany are characterized as the period of the Cold War between the West and the socialistic Soviet Union.
However, the period of the Cold War in the international relations did not exclude the occurrence of the hot spots on the planet. Vietnam, a state in the South Eastern Asia, became one of them.
The Historic Background of Each of the War Pivotal Moments
Counter/Insurgency of 1960-1961
The country was divided into the Southern Vietnam remaining under the control of France and the Northern Vietnam or DRV with its capital in Hanoi, which became independent from French supremacy but was under political and ideological control of the Soviet Union.
“Up until that time, the DRV had been following a policy consistent with the Soviet line of “peaceful coexistence” which was implicit in Khrushchev’s famous 1956 de-Stalinization speech and then announced by him in 1957” (No Road to Take 11).
The early period of the conflict traces back to 1960-1961. It was the period when the United States made a decision to send the helicopter troops to Vietnam. The occasion for the Washington’s decision was the union of the certain groups of partisans in the Southern Vietnam fighting for the disengagement of the country from France colonial supremacy. The union became well-known in history as Vietcong. However, the decision was essentially motivated by the political reasons, namely, the ideological war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Full-Scale War of 1964-1965
During 1964-1965 the war began to broaden rapidly. The Vietnam partisans’ squadrons began to attack the American military objects on the territory of the Southern Vietnam regularly and that provoked the United States to send additional military troops in Vietnam. “Successive U.S. administrations have maintained that, in clear violation of the Geneva Accords, the insurgency in the South was planned and started by Hanoi to conquer the South by force” (No Road to Take 11). In addition, the internal political situation in the Southern Vietnam was not easy along with the continuing political intrigues in Saigon, the capital of the country.
The studies of the social environment in the South also prove that the authorities made a substantial political pressure and abused their power in relation to local people. “The evidence gathered by the Pentagon Papers and by many Vietnam scholars has shown that in fact the uprising was provoked by Diem’s heavy repression and his calculated violation of those accords” (No Road to Take 11).
The actions of the government in the Southern Vietnam headed by Ngo Ding Diem at that period maintained the authoritative political regime in the South that led to the sharpening of the conflict and prevented its peaceful settlement. Social tension in the rural areas was so intense that people were enforced to take the weapon. “As Mrs. Nguyen Thi Dinh explained in her memoir, for them there was “no other road to take.” no other choice, but to follow the path of armed revolution for survival” (No Road to Take 19).
In contrast, the ideology behind the politics of communists in the North was aimed at the support of peasants. Jeffrey Race in his work How They Won describes the fundamentals of victory in the war stating the following,
“Yet what is the victory? It is the achievement of a decisive superiority in the balance of forces. In the context of Vietnam, “victory in the rural areas” meant achieving a decisive superiority in the balance of forces at the village and hamlet levels, the only units of social and geographical significance to the rural Vietnamese” (Race 632)
Tet Offensive and Post-Tet Escalation of 1968-1969
In 1968 the war was escalated resulting in the mass victims from the both sides of the conflict and huge in scale military mobilization in the United States. Washington decided to send more and more troops in the South to quell the partisans’ activity in the South. The Tet Offensive initiated by the North army made a significant harm to the American forces. From that moment, the war in Vietnam provoked the numerous debates all over the world concerning the reasons and consequences of the American insurgency in the country. At that time Hanoi continued its attack in the South.
Vietnamization, Cambodia of 1970-1971
The pacifist movements in the West demanded from the Richard Nickson’s government the decision to call off the troops from Vietnam. Under the strong influence of public Washington eventually began to withdraw the American troops.
The so-called process of Vietnamization initiated by Washington in the South implied the transfer of authority to Sangoi. However, the process of the troops withdrawal was dragged out as a result of the conflict in Cambodia in 1970, when the local government tried to beat the communists. Hanoi made a decision to send the forces to the country to support local communists, whereas Washington decided to delay the withdrawal of troops sending additional forces to Cambodia.
Peace Talks, Easter Offensive in 1972-1973
In 1972 Hanoi initiated a military operation in the South, which would be later named the Easter offensive. However, the North army suffered significant losses as a result of the operation. The outcome of the Easter offensive motivated Hanoi to sign the peaceful agreement in Paris in 1973, when Washington took the responsibility to call off the troops from Vietnam.
Fall of Saigon in 1975
After the withdrawal of American military forces from the South the conflict inside the country did not stopped. The North continued attacks in the South and Saigon was captured in 1975 by the communist forces.
The Lessons of the War
Nowadays there are still a lot of discussions among historians about the lessons of the war. However, the most of them say about the lies of American government for decades about the real situation in Vietnam. The propaganda supported by Washington pursuing the global political aims to overcome the Soviet Union in the Cold War eventually led to the thousands of casualties in a war. It is necessary to cite Lyndon Johnson who said “so we must be ready to fight in Vietnam but the ultimate victory would depend upon the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out of there” (“Heart and Minds”).
The film “Hearts and Minds” depicts the horrors of war, the consequences of the American bombarding of the rural areas including the victims among the civilians and the social collapse. As Father Chan Tin from Sangoi said “this war became a war of genocide” (“Hearts and Minds”). The invasion of Americans in Vietnam contradicted all the principles of democracy and respect to the freedom and independence which the United States stayed for during its history. Father Chan Tin also claims that “the people in South Vietnam and North Vietnam fighted only for freedom, independence, and national unity”. (“Hearts and Minds”). The outside interference only sharpened the conflict and finally had led to the war.
The lessons can be taken from each of the pivotal moments of the war starting from the insurgency in 1960-1961, when the United States should not send the helicopter troops in Vietnam to quell the partisans’ rebellion, and ending the Parisian agreement in 1973, which might had been signed much earlier, preventing the thousands of casualties.
“The question is whether we were on the wrong side in the Vietnamese War but we weren’t on the wrong side, we were the wrong side” (“Heart and Minds”). These are the words that perfectly summarize the one important lesson that should be taken from the war, namely, the interference in the foreign conflict will only deepen it and result in such terrible consequences of any weapon conflict as casualties, social collapse, emotional traumas, and thousands of physical and mental invalids. This idea has been expressed in the words of American soldier, the main character in Bao Ninh’s book The Sorrow of War,
“But war is a world with no home, no roof, no comforts. A miserable journey, of endless drifting. War was a world without real men, without real women, without feeling” (Ninh 31).
Conclusion
The Vietnamese War is a terrible example of the consequences of political intrigues on the world arena which led to the deaths of thousands of soldiers and civilians. The external factors behind the internal conflict result in the bloody war lasting for almost fifteen years. The modern political leaders should not forget about the lessons of the War in Vietnam in order to protect the mankind from its repeat in other hot spots of the planet.
Works Cited
“Heart and Minds.” YouTube. 2012. Web.
Jeffrey Race. “How They Won.” Vietnam: Politics, Land Reform and Development in the Countryside 10.8 (1970): 628-650. Print.
Ninh, Bao. The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam. New York: Riverhead Books, 1993.
No Other Road to Take. New York: Cornell University, 1976. Print.