Why Did the US Intervene in the Vietnam War between 1946 and 1956?

After WWII, French colonialism was in motion once more in Vietnam, a country that had been previously colonized by France, followed by Japan after the former fell in 1940. The country's road to nationalism, socialism and eventually communism, was paved over decades of defiance and insurgency, in face of foreign imperialism and domestic corruption within the government. The reasons why the US intervened between 1954 and 1964 can only be understood within the larger context of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and is chiefly a byproduct of imperialism and containment policy, alongside the domino theory.

The US, a democracy with full-blown ideals of self-determinism, and seeing itself as an advocate for freedom, was said to face a dilemma between support for nationalism and its disdain for communism. This was demonstrated by the fact that the US was the main provider of firearms and weapons during the Vietminh's uprising against fascist Japan after 1941 (the formation of the Viet Minh, or the League for Vietnamese Independence). Throughout the course of the Japanese rule from 1940 to 1945, the Vietminh successfully expanded its base in Tokin and Annam, helping peasants in the proximity through famine and gaining extreme popularity as a result. However, the US' military support can be seen as an ephemeral commitment, as leader Ho Chi Minh initiated the request and Americans were themselves more against the Japanese than for Vietnamese independence. Again, even earlier on in 1919, the US never gave a shred of support for the struggling advocate Ho, who submitted eight demands to the French at the Versailles Peace Conference, following the end of the WWI. Where were anti-imperialism, freedom, and democracy in play then? And was it of any concern for the US during the Geneva Convention when they opposed the promised elections in 1956, only in fear that the people of Vietnam would choose a communist leadership, without American ties? War devastated and economically depleted colonialist France fought through the First Indochina War from 1949 to 1954, only because the US funded them. To endorse in an action that promotes the trespassing of national sovereignty, and to support another country in the overtaking of nation of a different race is not different from being part of the invasive party itself. To help achieve an imperialist end is nothing else but imperialism and hypocrisy on the part of Americans. More importantly, the reason why the US intervened in the form of war merely years later is also largely political.

The US' then recent set back against the communists in Cuba and failure to control the Berlin crisis, encouraged President John F. Kennedy to show stronger resolve in containing communism in Asia. Again, the Domino Theory, first popularized by President Eisenhower of the previous term was used to justify the intervention that the US undertook. China's 'fall' to communism was seen as a travesty to President Harry S. Truman's shame, and the result of event was the triangulation in relations during the period now in question. The US believed, that as Domino Theory claims, if one country falls to communism, the neighboring countries will turn communist as well, one after the other. Vietnam, heavily influenced by Chinese culture and politics, was already a country with a peasant base large enough to be threatening as communism, unlike capitalism, promises peace, bread and land. China has fallen; the US cannot remain spectator, as Vietnam was clearly about to become in league with the very enemy the US had fought in the previous two decades.

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu resulted in Vietnamese victory on May 7, 1954 due to General Vo Nguyun Giap's brilliant plan and the Vietminh's resilience to the loss of lives. In total, 40,000 troops launched the offensive, and for every French casualty, there would be ten for the Vietnamese. The Geneva Accords, settled in July 1954 by countries including France, Vietnam, the United States, the USSR, Britain, China, Laos and Cambodia, officially split Vietnam into two, promised to reunify after free elections. The US would argue that the North Vietnamese began radical land reforms, persecuting and imprisoning landowners and forced a wave of close to a million people to South Vietnam by 1955. Yet, again, the US shows sympathy to those who had been the very core of relatively wealthier oppressive landowners who had formally crushed and assisted in the colonial quests of foreign powers. There is no context given in propagandistic American media such as the CNN, and thus creates the illusion that the US, again, intervened as a policing power.

There after, Diem, the leader of South Vietnam, was overthrown and murdered by his very own former supporters, with the help of the CIA on November 1, 1963. The CNN says that after the death of Diem and President Kennedy, a few weeks apart, Vice President Lyndon Johnson "assumed office determined not to lose Vietnam to the communists" (italics added). Kennedy had formerly sent "special advisors" to South Vietnam, who were really military combatants, Johnson in 1963, sends Defense Secretary Robert McNarnara to repledge U.S. support. All of these measures were really actions that showed the preparation the US was making for inevitable militaristic confrontation. In August 1964, the USS Maddox, a destroyer on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin, received fire from North Vietnamese torpedo boats, and reported of another attack two days later. Conflicting evidence from the ships' records show of no second attack, despite the insistence of the Pentagon, and the up played 'intrusion' was unequivocally without substance in and of itself. The ships were destroyers in nature and were in North Vietnamese territory; the incident was merely a tool so that the Johnson administration could push the "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" through Congress, permitting LBJ to initiate warfare in Vietnam.

The above background and events as summarized provide indication that the US intervention was purely based on containment policy, the domino theory and massive retaliation. The US-installed puppet leaders of the South were not of the people, whereas the Northern leaders gained power from grass roots movements and were supported by the very peasants they fight for. Should not a nation that believes in democracy and self-determination not respect the national sovereignty of the Vietnamese people, whom the US was afraid would come into power if free elections were to occur. Therefore, by stripping away the rights of one small underdeveloped Asian nation, the US ensured the safety of the 'free world'. Yet unlike Cuba, Vietnam was on a completely different continent, without any nuclear potential, and could bring no harm to the US with its power alone. Had the US allowed free elections to occur, perhaps peaceful co-existence would become reality, since the movements of the Vietcong were nationalist in nature, and communist only as identification as an international political stance. Seeing that the US had no prior intentions of encouraging the growth of a 'free' Vietnam, economically independent and internationally respected, the US has no right to blame the country for its friendship with Moscow. And so, obviously, the US intervened at the beginning of the Vietnam War not in the interest of Vietnam, but that of the United States' safety and superpower status among capitalist and communist countries alike.