Vietnam War Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Vietnam War - Term Paper ExampleThe former imperialistic romish Empire should serve as an example of how this cause and effect scenario plays out. A similar destiny awaits America if it refuses to stop repeating the rationalizations for host involvement that unploughed it in Vietnam for a decade. A result of justifications emanating from Cold War, anti-communism attitudes, Vietnam became the standard by which limitations of the American military can be measured. Following the U.S. victory over the Japanese in 1945, the U.S. and former Soviet Union became engaged in a politically ideological battle that enveloped much of the rest of the world, the Cold War. Communism was clearly Americas adversary and after the Soviets build the Berlin Wall and continued to dominate other Eastern European countries, which became known as satellite nations of the Soviets, the U.S. stubborn to not allow communism to spread into far Southeast Asia for motivations that remain unclear. Though the U.S. used the atomic bomb in Asia less than 20 days earlier, it deployed thousands of troops to the jungles of Vietnam during the decade-long police action despite pleas by some that ground troops were necessary only after the bomb was dropped in a clean-up role. The debacle of Vietnam instigated an anti-military response from the majority of American citizens which contributed to the Cold Wars end. ... isolationism at the ending of the 19th century to its status as the sole remaining superpower, has constantly been centered on the promotion and conservation of its own interests and the advancement of elegance, the exercise of power to assert itself beyond the bounds of the American continents in the interest of civilization and of humanity and its own selfish interests. (Olney, 2004) This period of military re-evaluation lasted from the end of the Vietnam War in 1973 until the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. The U.S. entered the Vietnam conflict to bring democracy to the laden indigenous population (the official reason) very optimistic of securing a quick victory. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. went into Vietnam War with somewhat of an arrogant attitude thinking that the North Vietnamese military would soon bow to the mighty American military machine and that South Vietnam would willingly accept and adjust to a westernized style system of government. According to enthalpy Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State under President Nixon, America entered Vietnam with a brash confidence in the universal applicability of Americas prescriptions. (Kissinger,2003) The inconclusive epilogue to Vietnam was that America went into this bloody, horrifying and long-term war believing it would be the noble liberator of the South Vietnamese. The U.S. did this without appreciating the obvious fact that the South Vietnamese people had been chip for liberation from a North Vietnamese government which represented the same imperialistic way of thinking as the American government . (Ignatieff, 2003) The U.S. failed in Vietnam not because it lacked military capability but because it did not understand the enemy. Although the U.S. marched in with a tremendous military