After the surrender of Japan, which occupied Vietnam during World War II, the confrontation was virtually uninterrupted. Ho Chi Minh, a prominent figure in the Comintern, led the movement for a unified communist Vietnam in 1941, becoming leader of the military-political organization Vietminh, which aimed to fight for the country’s independence from foreign domination. He was essentially a dictator until the late 1950s, and remained the nominal leader until his death in 1969. Ho Chi Minh became a popular “icon” of the new left around the world, despite his totalitarian dictatorship and the extermination of tens of thousands of people.

During World War II, the Japanese occupied Vietnam, which was part of the French colony called Indochina. After Japan’s defeat, a kind of power vacuum was created, which the Communists took advantage of to declare the independence of Vietnam in 1945. No nation recognized the new regime, and France soon introduced troops into the country, which caused the outbreak of war.

Beginning in 1952, U.S. President Truman actively promoted the domino theory, arguing that communism ideologically inevitably sought world domination, so a communist regime would cause a chain reaction in neighboring states, eventually threatening the United States. The metaphor of falling dominoes linked complex processes in distant regions to U.S. national security. All five U.S. governments that participated in the Vietnam War, despite some nuances, followed the domino theory and the policy of containment.

Truman declared Indochina a key region. If the region came under Communist control, all of Southeast Asia and the Middle East would follow. This would jeopardize the security of Western European and U.S. interests in the Far East. Therefore, a Vietminh victory in Indochina must be prevented in any case. The prospects for success and the subsequent costs of U.S. involvement were not in doubt.

The U.S. supported the French and by 1953, 80% of the material resources used by the pro-French puppet regime for combat operations were supplied by the Americans. But the northerners, too, began to receive aid from the PRC from the early 50s.

Despite their technical superiority, the French were defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in the spring of 1954, which was the final stage of the confrontation. It is estimated that about half a million Vietnamese were killed during this conflict, which became known as the Indochina War of 1946-1954.

Peace talks in Geneva in the summer of that year resulted in the creation of four independent countries on the territory of the former French colony – Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh and the Communist Party ruled North Vietnam, while South Vietnam was ruled by a pro-Western government headed by Emperor Bao Dai. Neither side recognized the legitimacy of the other – the separation was seen as temporary.

In 1955, Ngo Dinh Ziem, supported by the Americans, became the leader of South Vietnam. According to the results of the referendum, it was announced that the inhabitants of the country abandoned the monarchy in favor of a republic. Emperor Bao Dai was deposed and Ngo Dinh Ziem became president of the Republic of Vietnam.

British diplomacy proposed a plebiscite in the North and South to determine the future of a united Vietnam. However, South Vietnam opposed the proposal, arguing that free elections were impossible in the communist North.

There is an opinion that the U.S. was supposedly ready to accept free elections and a reunified Vietnam, even under communist rule, as long as its foreign policy was hostile to China.

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By the late 1950s, it was clear that peaceful attempts to unite North and South were at a standstill. The government of the North supported the 1959 uprising organized by the South Vietnamese Communists. However, some American sources claim that in fact the organizers of the rebellion were assassins from the North who had infiltrated South Vietnam on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, rather than the local population.

By 1960, disparate groups fighting against Ngo Dinh Ziem’s regime had merged into a single organization, which in the West was called Viet Cong (short for “Vietnamese Communist”).

The main thrust of the new organization was terror against officials and civilians who expressed open support for the pro-American regime. The South Vietnamese guerrillas, fully supported by the Northern Communists, were becoming more confident and successful by the day. In 1961, the U.S. responded by bringing its first regular troops into South Vietnam. In addition, American military advisors and instructors assisted the Zien army by helping to plan combat operations and train personnel.

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There was a lack of consensus among the group of generals who came to power, leading to a series of coups in the months that followed. The country was feverish with political instability, which the Viet Cong immediately took advantage of as they gradually expanded their control over new areas of South Vietnam. For several years, the North Vietnamese shifted military units to the American-controlled areas, and by the beginning of the open confrontation with the United States in 1964 the number of the North Vietnamese troops in the South amounted to about 24 thousand people. The number of U.S. troops by then was just over 23,000.

In August 1964, there was a clash between the US destroyer Maddox and the border torpedo boats off the coast of North Vietnam. A couple of days later there was a second skirmish. The Tonkin incidents (named after the bay where the conflict occurred), were the occasion for the United States to launch a military campaign against North Vietnam. The U.S. Congress passed a resolution authorizing the use of force by President Johnson, who had replaced John F. Kennedy, who had been shot a few months earlier.

Bombing

The National Security Council recommended a three-phase escalating bombing campaign against North Vietnam. The bombings lasted a total of three years and were intended to force the North to stop supporting the Viet Cong by threatening to destroy the country’s air defenses and infrastructure, as well as to provide moral support for South Vietnam.

However, the Americans did not limit themselves to bombing North Vietnam. Bombings were organized to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia, which had been used to deliver military aid to the Vietcong in South Vietnam.

Despite the fact that more than 1 million tons of bombs were dropped on the territory of North Vietnam and more than 2 million tons on Laos, the Americans were never able to achieve their objectives. On the contrary, these U.S. tactics helped to rally the people of the North, who had to switch to a virtually underground way of life during the long years of bombing.

Chemical attacks

Since the 1950s, U.S. military laboratories have experimented with herbicides, which were developed as chemical weapons during World War II and then used to test their effects on nature for military purposes. Beginning in 1959, these agents were tested in South Vietnam. The tests proved successful, and U.S. President Kennedy made these substances a central component of an innovative counterinsurgency strategy in 1961, personally ordering their use in Vietnam. In doing so, the U.S. government exploited a flaw in the 1925 Geneva Convention, which banned the use of chemicals against humans but not against plants.

In July 1961, the first shipments of chemicals arrived under code names in South Vietnam. In January 1962, Operation Farm Mistress began: The U.S. Air Force systematically sprayed herbicides in Vietnam and the border areas of Laos and Cambodia. In this way they tilled the jungle and destroyed crops to deny the enemy protection, ambush, food, and popular support. Under Johnson, the campaign became the largest chemical warfare program in history. Until 1971, the U.S. had sprayed about 20 million gallons (80 million liters) of dioxin-contaminated herbicides.

Ground War

Since the bombings did not have the expected effect, the decision was made to deploy ground warfare. The U.S. generals chose the tactic of attrition – physically destroying as many enemy troops as possible with the fewest casualties of their own. Americans were supposed to defend their own military bases and control border areas, catching and destroying enemy soldiers.

The purpose of regular American units was not to conquer territory, but to inflict maximum damage on the enemy, to prevent possible attacks. In practice it looked as follows: a small airmobile group would be sent to the area of operation by helicopter. Once the enemy was detected, this peculiar “decoy” immediately recorded its location and called in air support, which carried out a heavy bombardment of the specified area.

This tactic led to numerous civilian deaths in the cleared areas and the mass flight of the survivors, making the subsequent “pacification” much more difficult.

It was impossible to evaluate objectively the effectiveness of the chosen strategy, since the Vietnamese took the bodies of their dead whenever possible, and the Americans were very reluctant to go into the jungle to count the enemy’s corpses. Killing civilians to increase reporting became a common practice among U.S. soldiers.

The main difference of the Vietnam War can be considered a small number of large-scale battles. After suffering several major defeats at the hands of a technologically better-equipped enemy, the Vietcong adopted guerrilla warfare tactics, moving at night or during the rainy season, when U.S. aircraft could not inflict serious damage on them. Using a vast network of tunnels as weapons depots and escape routes, engaging only in close combat, the Vietnamese guerrillas forced the Americans to spread their forces more and more thinly in an attempt to control the situation. By 1968, the number of American soldiers in Vietnam exceeded 500,000.

U.S. soldiers, unfamiliar with the language and culture of the country, could hardly distinguish peasants from guerrillas. By killing both as a precaution, they created a negative image of the aggressor among the civilian population, thus playing into the hands of the guerrillas. Although the U.S. Army and South Vietnamese government forces had a fivefold numerical advantage, their adversaries were able to maintain a steady flow of weapons and well-trained fighters who were also significantly more motivated.

Government forces seldom managed to maintain long-term control of cleared areas, while the Americans were forced to use a large proportion of their troops to guard their own military bases and weapons stored there because they were constantly under attack. In essence, the guerrillas managed to impose their tactics on the enemy: It was they who decided where and when the battle would happen and how long it would last.

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For Nixon, however, military defeat and the loss of South Vietnam was unacceptable. The U.S. resumed bombing of North Vietnam, allowing the South Vietnamese to withstand the onslaught of the enemy. Both sides, exhausted by continuous confrontation, were increasingly beginning to consider a truce.

Throughout 1972, negotiations continued with varying degrees of success. North Vietnam’s main goal was to enable the U.S. to emerge from the conflict without losing face. At the same time, the South Vietnamese government, on the contrary, tried its best to avoid such an option, realizing that it was unable to stand against the Viet Cong on its own.

At the end of January 1973, the Paris Peace Accord, under which U.S. troops left the country, was signed. Implementing the terms of the agreement, by the end of March of that year the U.S. had completed its withdrawal from South Vietnam.

Deprived of American support, the South Vietnamese army was demoralized. More and more of the country was falling de facto under North Vietnamese rule. Convinced that the U.S. had no intention of renewing its involvement in the war, in early March 1975, North Vietnamese forces launched a large-scale offensive. The two-month campaign resulted in the North Vietnamese occupying most of South Vietnam. On April 30, 1975, the Communists raised a banner over the Independence Palace in Saigon – the war ended in complete victory for North Vietnam.

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