Vietnam War Flashcards
What did the veit cong do?
The attacked the South Vietnamese government as well as officials and buildings.
Who was the viet cong?
Was the south Vietnamese opposing communist group
How did Kennedy support them?
Sending them military personnel to fight with the viet cong
What were the 4 reasons why the USA got involved with Vietnam?
Containment
Domino theory
Military industrial complex
American politics
Explain the domino theory
It was closely linked to containment, president Eisenhower figured that china and ussr were planning to spread communism through Asia.
Explain containment ?
Containment meant stopping the advance of communism wherever it looked like it was possible. Like they had previously done with Korea, Greece and Cuba.
Why did the USA get involved in Vietnam?
As an accumulation of events, the USA wanted to prevent Vietnam from becoming communist, with the influences of china and French not being very pro active, the USA stepped in to help. They put diem in place, sent in their advisers, gave money to French and diem
What did the us do in retaliation of the veit Minh trying to remove diem through guerrilla warfare ?
Sent in advisers to support the South Vietnamese army
Who were the viet cong/viet Minh?
A communist group trying to enforce it over Vietnam it’s leader was Ho Chi Minh, North Vietnamese army
How much money did the us give to the French to control the spread of communism?
$500 million every year
How much did the USA give Diem between 1955-1960?
$1.6 billion
Why did the USA ban the election set up by the French in 1945?
Because there was too much risk of all the votes being for communism
How many people were in the viet cong?
170,000 soldiers
What was the viet congs aim?
To turn the whole of Vietnam communist
who supplied the weapons for the viet cong? And why?
Ussr and china
Ussr- promoted communist, didnt like USA
China - also promoted communist
What advantages and disadvantages did the viet cong have over the USA?
A lot of fighting experience after fighting with the Japanese and French however they were heavily outnumbered by the us army
Who had the viet cong previously fraught with?
Japan and France
Name the 3 USA tactics?
Search and destroy
Chemical warfare
Bombing
Explain search and destroy
Us went around locating the viet cong and destroyed everything; due to the fact viet cong were not uniformed the USA often killed civilians.
What were the 3 problems for the search and destroy ?
Raids were based on poor information.
Often troops fell in traps or were ambushed. Many innocent civilians died.
Explain chemical warfare?
The viet cong hid easily and well in the jungle. So the Americans carried out a policy of defoliation. The leaves of the trees were removed and killed by agent orange and the jungle became very toxic, lead to tunnels tactic by viet cong. Killed many people.
Explain bombing?
USA bombed industrial and military targets in North Vietnam, targets then became towns and cities in North Vietnam as well as cities along the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Why was the bombing effective ?
It disputes communist supply routes and eventually forced north Vietnam to negotiate.
Why did the USAs tactics turn people against the USA?
It only slowed communism spread down it didn’t remove it. It cost the USA $400,000 to kill one viet cong. Killed innocent civilians.
