Why Did America join the Vietnam War?

Areli Ortiz7th pd. T/TH

United States and the Soviet Union

It all began after World War II, when two superpowers emerged: the United States and the

Soviet Union. They embraced opposite ideologies.

Both of these superpowers wanted the rest of the world to embrace its respective ideology and the

world became a theater for a struggle between these two.

United States

democracy and

capitalism

Soviet Union

totalitarian and

communism

The Soviet Union •The Soviet Union began to control of Eastern Europe and Germany.

•America began to view the Soviets as an aggressive, expansionist power that wanted to dominate the world.

United States takes action•As a result, President Harry S. Truman promulgated the Policy of Containment & the Truman Doctrine, which stated that the U.S. would resist any communist takeovers in other countries.

•Communist insurgents tried to take over Greece and Turkey (under the direction of the Soviets). American military aid flowed to these countries and the insurgents were defeated.

•On June 25, 1950 the communist north Korea invaded the non-communist south Korea to take it over. The U.S. went to the defense of South Korea and defeated the north. •America’s victory in these two events made it confident that communism would be stopped whenever it tried to take over.

Communist

NorthNon-communist

South

Vietnam•Vietnam was separated into two: North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

United States gets involved• In the early1960’s the southern communist Viet Cong (a political organization) began a military campaign to overthrow the government of the South. By 1965, they had acquired the support of North Vietnam, who was aided by Communist China and the Soviet Union.

•Due to the fact that the U.S. had developed the policy of containment to stop the spread of communism and adopted the Truman Doctrine to help free peoples resist, it became logical to commit American troops to the defense of South Vietnam, so we did the beginning of 1965.

America’s reasons

American past successes with containment and the Truman Doctrine made its military

commitment to the defense of South Vietnam a logical step.

America viewed this attack as another attempt to spread international communism sponsored

by the Soviet Union and Communist China.

North Vietnam and the Viet Cong militarily moving against the government of South

Vietnam were viewed as contrary to the policy of containment and the Truman Doctrine.

Resources:http://www.11thcavnam.com/education/containment&doctrine.htm