Vietnam war: important events 1962-1969

Vietnam War: Important Events 1962-1969 It was in 1962 that American military assistance command was established in South Vietnam (Karnow, 1997, 694). And it was the Tonkin Gulf resolution passed by American Congress that gave “ extraordinary powers” to President Johnson “ to act in Southeast Asia” (Kranow, 1997, 695). This resolution was provoked by the two Tonkin Gulf incidents in which the US marine forces, for the first time, directly engaged with the North Vietnamese army. Later, after the war ended, President Johnson was accused of being “ too distracted by his Great Society” and hence it was alleged that he “ micromanaged the war” (Wiest and Barbier, 2010, 56). And a second reason cited for failure of America in Vietnam was the way media in US turned the people against the war and the US government (Weist and Barbier, 2010, 56). There are other reasons as well why the American war in Vietnam was a misadventure. The south versus north conflict in Vietnam had a very long history into which America was plunging as an ignorant participant who really did not understand the dynamics of it (Weist and Barbier, 2010, 56). The Vietnamese soldiers were special in their ability in guerilla warfare, as they had learned it from fighting “ Mongols to the Chinese” (Weist and Barbier, 2010, 56). By 1969, the defeat of America was so visible that Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird himself coined the word, “ vietnamization”, to describe “ American troop withdrawals” (Kranow, 1997, 697). What was the gain for America in getting involved in the conflict between South and North Vietnam is the question, which will answer the politics of Vietnam War. For, America the war was just a game for global political domination, while the war was for the Vietnamese people, a bloody civil strife, matter of freedom and sovereignty. It was this difference that determined the course of war eventually. The Northern Vietnamese forces were motivated by an ideology and the hope that it imparted, while the American soldiers were youths just out of their schools, ignorant of the greater politics of the war. They were compelled to rage war in an unknown territory, to face unknown enemies, whose tactics of war surprised and defeated them. Reference Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York, (Penguin Group) 1997. Wiest, Andrew and Barbier Mary Kathryn. America and the Vietnam War: Re- Examining the Culture and History of a Generation. London, (Taylor & Francis) 2010.