For much of its history Vietnam has been under foreign rule. This trend started with the Chinese invading in 208 B.C.E and ruling for thousands of years. During this period the people of Vietnam adopted Chinese writing, language, and administrative protocols but resisted at assimilating th

Johnson believed that the key to success in the war in South Vietnam was to frighten North Vietnam leaders with the possibility of full-scale U.S. military intervention. In January 1964 he approved covert attacks against North Vietnamese territory, including commando raids against bridges, railways, and coastal installations. Johnson also ordered the U.S. Navy to conduct surveillance missions along the North Vietnamese coast. These actions led to an incident on August 2, 1964, when North Vietnamese coastal gunboats fired on the destroyer USS Maddox, which had penetrated North Vietnam territorial boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin. Johnson ordered more ships to the area, and on August 4 the USS Turner Joy reported that North Vietnamese patrol boats had fired on the ship. Johnson then ordered the first air strikes against North Vietnamese territory and went on television to seek approval from the US public. (Subsequent congressional investigations would reveal that the attack on the Turner Joy had never occurred.) The US Congress overwhelmingly passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which effectively handed over war-making powers to Johnson until such time as peace and security had returned to Vietnam.

The battle of Dien Bien Phu was the pivotal moment for the Vietminh. Dein Bien Phu was a French firebase in Vietnam setup to start a fight with the Vietminh and draw them out into the open so French artillery could destroy them. The Vietminh under command of General Giap Stealthily surrounded the base and destroyed the French garrison there. This signaled the end of French rule in indo china and added Vietnam to the list of failures the French government had while trying to re-claim their former colonies. This failure and the consequential French withdrawal led the world powers to meet and discuss what the future of this country was going to be. This led to the creation of the Geneva Accords, which according to the terms of the Geneva Accords, Vietnam would hold national elections in 1956 to reunify the country. The United States, however, had other ideas. Secretary of State John Dulles did not support the Geneva Accords because he thought they granted too much power to the Communist Party of Vietnam. Instead, Dulles and President Dwight D. Eisenhower supported the creation of a new southern region. The United States supported this effort of nation building through a series of agreements that created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Using SEATO for political cover, the Eisenhower administration helped create a new nation from dust in southern Vietnam. In 1955, with the help of massive amounts of American military, political, and economic aid, the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN) was born. The following year, Ngo Dinh Diem, a firm anti-Communist figure from the South, won a dubious election with US help that made him president of the GVN.

After the Gulf of Tonkin incident the NLF guerrillas launched between February 7 and February 10, 1965, surprise attacks on the U.S. air base at Pleiku, killing 8 Americans, wounding 126, and destroying 10 aircraft; they struck again at Qui Nhon, killing 23 U.S. servicemen and wounding 21. President Johnson responded to these attacks by implementing Operation Rolling Thunder, which was a program of limited bombing of Hanoi and other targets in the north. The use of airbases to launch these attacks created security concerns within the Johnson administration, and with the apparent inability of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) to protect US air bases President Johnson¡¦s senior planners came to the consensus that US combat forces would be required. On March 8, 1965, 3500 U.S. Marines landed at Da Nang. When the end of April rolled around, 56,000 other combat troops had joined them; by June the number had risen to 74,000.

Having turned down re-election Johnson handed over the problems of Vietnam to the new president Richard M Nixon. Nixon lookin

Some topics in this essay:
Vietnam War, North Vietnamese, South Vietnam, Guerrilla Warfare, Bien Phu, Johnson Vietnamization, Tet Offensive, Offensive Despite, Giap Stealthily, Giap Despite, north vietnamese, tet offensive, vietnam war, anti-war movement, south vietnam, bien phu, north vietnam, dien bien phu, gulf tonkin, dien bien, republic vietnam, north vietnamese territory, battle dien bien, ho chi minh, communist party vietnam,