What caused the Vietnam War to start?

Answer 1

The military action in Vietnam was part of a wider fight to help contain the spread of communism. Basically, North Vietnam and its communist supporters wanted to take over the government on South Vietnam, thus increasing the spread and power of communism. South Vietnam was supported and protected by the United States and other non-communist countries.

Answer 2

because America wanted to stop the Communism in the country

The war started because the french were unwilling to grant Vietnam independence which was what the U.S. were preaching at the end of World War II, ironically they ending up supporting the french for reasons outlined below.

The U.S. firstly were reluctant to enter Vietnam. They HAD to support the French as they were vital in the rebuilding of Europe after WWII. Beyond this just a few things to keep in mind is that Ho Chi Minh worked with the U.S. during and just after WWII and he only turned to the communists when the U.S. decided to support the french. There is significant evidence that if the French did not violently enforce their colonial domination over Vietnam and gave them independance (just as Roosevelt proposed at the end of WWII) Ho chi minh could of been the next Tito. In other words on the Americans side more or less.

Therefore, in many ways the French caused the US to become involved in the Vietnam War.

Answer 3

The Vietnam conflict was originally fought by France, because they wanted to retain Vietnam as a colony after WW2, as it was before the war. Communist/nationalists under Ho Chi Min wanted Vietnam to be independent (as other Asian countries were becoming after WW2). The US moved in when France was defeated, as the US feared the spread of communism.

Catholic North Vietnamese (trained by the French) moved to South Vietnam to flee the communist takeover in North Vietnam and replaced the Buddhist South Vietnamese government with a corrupt government, which the US supported until they withdrew from Vietnam an April 1975. When the US withdrew the communist/nationalists under Ho Chi Min took over the entire country.

Answer 4

This a very brief, truncated explanation. The War in Vietnam has roots that go back to before World War 1. America didn't really start it, they were just the last country to lose there. ---- With the end of World War 1, the Vietnamese people were moving toward independence. The French held colonial control of the country, and elements of the Vietnamese attempted through the treaty talks at Versailles to gain their Independence When this was denied, Nguyá»…n Sinh Cung, later known as Ho Chi Minh, plead with the American president, Woodrow Wilson for help in ending French Colonial rule, but was denied. Minh attempted to gain the assistance of the Americans to draft a constitution, and did draft a Vietnamese Declaration of Independence similar to the American document. However, his efforts were in vain, and the French re-instituted their colonies in Southeast Asia. With the onset of World War 2, the Japanese invaded Indochina, and pushed all European colonial interests out. Life under Imperial Japanese rule was harsh at best for the people of the countries they ruled. In many cases entire cultures were eliminated and supplanted with Japanese colonial law. In 1941, Nguyá»…n Sinh Cung helped to establish and lead the Viet Minh, and supported clandestinely by the US, he lead military actions against the French and Japanese occupational forces. Minh continued to ask for political support for the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam, but President Harry Truman never responded to any communication, and no country formally recognized the new nation. With the end of World War 2, France was given back her colonial territories in Southeast Asia. One of these holdings was Vietnam. When the French moved back into to reclaim its agricultural interests, they found that the people of Vietnam had developed a distaste for foreign rule. Revolt and insurrection began almost immediately. The 1954 Geneva Accords finally divided Vietnam between the DRV in the north and French Colonial rule in the south. The Accords established a date for free election and reunification of the two Vietnams in 1956, but the southern government never approved of it so it never occurred. Early in 1954 the French occupational forces attempted to blockade opium traffic that was flowing along the Ho Chi Minh trail through the region of Dien Bien Phu. Under Operation Condor, the French air dropped hundreds of ton of supplies and elements of six French Airborne Battalions into the city and surrounding area. The Viet Minh besieged the French forces for 57 days from 13 March, 5:30PM to 7 May 1954 at 5:30PM when the French were forced to surrender. From the end of 1953, the US had been providing economic and military support for the French and South Vietnam. With the French defeat, they pulled out, essentially leaving the US holding the bag. The US has supported the Viet Minh resistance during WW2, and may have felt obligated to continue assistance in an attempt to stabilize the region. Hind sight is twenty/twenty though, and perhaps if they had given the support Nguyá»…n Sinh Cung (Ho Chi Minh) had begged for decades before, the Soviet and Chinese communists might not have gotten a foothold in Southeast Asia, and the war would never have occurred. Well, live and learn...or not. Sound anything like the Mujaheddin/Taliban and Afghanistan? The war officially began in the year 1959 when on the eighth of July, Charles Ovnand and Dale R. Buis became the first Americans killed in action in Vietnam. Before they died, the French had inhabited Vietnam and were running it with what is called a Puppet Government, meaning a country that is nominally independent, but in reality, under the control of another power. By 1946, the Vietnamese people started to rise up against the French and the First Indochina war started. This was fought between Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh and the French who were sided with the State of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Ho Chi Minh saw that Communism was the way to freedom and pushed for it to be implemented to Vietnam. He started requesting weapons and tanks from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. This is when America started to get paranoid about Vietnam turning to communism. They believed that what would happen is what they called "the domino theory." It was foreign policy theory that speculated that if one more country in Indonesia came under the influence of communism, the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. In 1950, Harry Truman sent the Military Assistance Advisory Group (Know as the MAAG) to Vietnam to help the French in the First Indochina War. They were sent to supervise the use of ten million dollars worth of US military equipment, which was there to support the combat of the Viet Minh forces. On May 7, 1954, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French involvement in Indochina and the French surrendered, by which time the US had supplied 300,000 small arms and spent one billion dollars in support of the French. The US began to funnel all their efforts into South Vietnam. In 1955 the MAAG mission was increased to 740 men. After the French left it was a struggle to build forces for many years. There were many small-scale attacks and bombings. The US started to create more and more planes and train more South Vietnamese troops. By 1959 an estimated force of 5,000 guerrillas were operating in South Vietnam. By 1964 that number had risen to 100,000. On the second of March 1965, following an attack on a U.S. Marine barracks, the bombing operations Flaming Dart and Rolling Thunder started. The bombing campaigns lasted three years and were meant to force North Vietnam to stop its support for the NLF. It was also aimed at increasing the morale of the South Vietnamese. On 8 March 1965, three thousand and five hundred United States Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. The war escalated and became larger and larger until 1969 when the My Lai massacre occurred. After that incident, protests got worse and the whole war spiralled down, ending with the fall of Saigon.