CS3 - The Vietnam War (1965-1973), a Cold War trauma How did US intervention and strategy lead to defeat?

1. US involvement in Vietnam
• US containment policy:
US goal = to prevent the spread of communism in Asia : the USSR and China (since 1949) were communist powers and communist North Vietnam threatened South Vietnam. Moreover Laos and Cambodia could be next (domino theory).
• A Cold War conflict between:
- Communist China and the USSR helping North Vietnam (the Vietminh) to invade South Vietnam and supply South Vietnamese communist guerrilla (= the Vietcong) versus
- the USA supporting anticommunist South Vietnam forces fighting the Vietcong, even though South Vietnam was a military dictatorship (no rule of law)
• A progressive involvement:
The war started with progressive US involvement: from humanitarian aid to military assistance (material and troops) without any formal declaration of war against North Vietnam. But it became a dirty war to exit the quagmire Vietnam had become for the USA.

2. US humiliating defeat
• North Vietnamese strategy:
North Vietnam realised the only strategy to defeat the US was to wage an asymmetric war against US far superior military power. Vietnamese guerrilla fighters wore no uniform and used the local territory and friendly civilians to hide.
• US wrong strategy:
US overconfident superpower started waging a dissymmetric war against North Vietnam.
But, as North Vietnam shifted to guerrilla war, the US military couldn't identify and target their enemy which led to their waging a dirty war.
=> US shocking defeat:
US involvement in Vietnam turned into a quagmire which led to its first military defeat and its subsequent withdrawal in 1973. In 1975, with the fall of Saigon, South Vietnam capital, the whole of Vietnam became communist -as did its neighbours, Laos & Cambodia.