Fear and the Vietnam War
Fear of other powers taking over the political world and spreading communist ideas that threatened the capitalist system of the United States contributed heavily to the somewhat psychological battle against communism during the Cold War and in extension the Vietnam War.
Vietnam
Fear of the spread of communism began U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, a decision that was later realized to have caused more trouble for this country than benefits that it yielded. Fear of the disapproval of citizens and that the U.S. were over involved caused Nixon to take movements to end the war.
In 1965, the U.S. sent troops to Vietnam during a civil war to attempt to prevent the South Vietnamese government from collapsing as communist forces from the North surged to the South, after several years of attempting to influence Vietnamese government. The U.S. feared that if communism spread to control the country in its entirety, it would spread to surrounding countries due to the Domino Theory. Nixon was elected in 1968 with promises to end the war. He feared that the lack of support from the American people would be detrimental to the government. Henry Kissinger began conducting secret peace talks with representatives from both the North and the South in an attempt to come to an agreement. When agreements were violated, the U.S. decided they must begin to withdraw troops. Eventually communism took over Vietnam. The fact that the U.S. "lost" the war only heightened the sense of purposelessness at getting involved in the conflict because of the fear of the spread of communism.
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Context of the Cold War
The Vietnam War was an extension of the battle against communism during the Cold War. Fear permeated America, internally there was social fear of communist within the country, an international political fear of the spread of communism and the use of atomic weapons in the psychological battle against the Soviet Union, and international economic fear that the communist system would undermine capitalism and greatly influence international trade.
Social
Within America during the Cold War there became what was known as the "Red Scare" or a fear of communism within the country. Citizens and the government feared that sympathizers to the Soviet Union would threaten U.S. security or act as spies. The media heavily influenced this feeling in citizens. Communist sympathizers in America often lost their jobs, or were alienated by friends and family. Many investigations were done by the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee in an attempt to uncover espionage or communists within the government. The root to many of these actions was fear.
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Political
The U.S. and the Soviet Union were never engaged directly in combat; the Cold War was mainly a period of fear at the differences in the political structures of the two superpowers. Both began investigating and compiling atomic weapons, in the case that the other state attacked, although neither dared to attack with the fear of the other side's retaliation. It also became a war of competing for influence in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.
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Economic
The capitalist system is based off of individual economic freedom through production and follows the business cycle. The communist system is based off of eliminating the gap between the rich and the poor that is an integral part of the capitalist system.Yet in a communist system the government controls the money and has all of the power, greatly opposing the democratic system of America. As the U.S. and the Soviet Union fought for economic influence in Europe and throughout the world, both tried to ensure that more countries were converted to their form of economy.
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Historical Connections
Fear of other structures controlling the world, or America, have contributed heavily to political actions and ideas in the past, similar to the fear of communist movements felt by the U.S. during the Cold War.
Reconstruction After the end of the Civil War, a movement to increase black rights and allow them to transition into new lives away from slavery called reconstruction began. Blacks, and whites, began advocating for black rights, but many southerners did not support this new movement. They opposed any change to the system and feared that their newly freed slaves would take revenge on them for their harsh treatment. Similar to the fear of communism felt by the U.S. during the Cold War, white southerners feared a system in which blacks were equal to themselves and given the ability to take part in government.
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Industrialization After the war, many American found work in newly created factories as the industrial revolution hit the U.S. in full swing. New resources and business ideas began to evolve, the Transcontinental Railroad connected the nation and a few owners of large corporation became the richest in America. Labor unions began emerging, attempting to combat these corporations. Capitalism was in full swing in American economy. Yet fear was still present within this system. Large corporations feared the uprising of their workers and collapse of their business and laborers feared that their rights would continue to be ignored and they would be trapped in a system in which only the few rich were given an upper hand.
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Westward Migration As America began to industrialize and the railroad systems made traveling much easier, many Americans began to escape the crowds of the east and traveled west in search of work, prosperity, their own land and adventure. Ideas traveled with these pioneers, influencing the political systems across the country. Women began stepping up in political roles and taking work. Some feared the spread of Americans; that it would be difficult to keep a country spread over a large amount of land united. The spread of ideas was also feared, similar to the fear of the spread of communism due to the domino effect during the Cold War.
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Chinese Immigration As Chinese immigrants began streaming into the country during the mid and late 1800s they were greeted with a wave of unfriendly sentiment. Laborers feared that the Chinese would take their jobs and they would be unable to support their families, and distrusted the foreigners. They were attacked, often brutally, such as the murder of 28 Chinese laborers during the Rock Springs Chinese Massacre. Any Americans who showed any form of communist support during the Cold War were also treated similarly. Americans feared that communism would begin to be considered within their own country, and treated communist Americans in the 1950s as they did Chinese immigrants in the 1850s.
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The U.S. as a World Power As the U.S. gained power politically, there were many opposing views to the amount of involvement the country should have in influencing other governments. Due to fear of a ‘savage government’ spreading, political figure, Albert Beveridge wanted to take the Philippines under U.S. rule and it is the American duty to govern lesser nations incapable of self-government. During the Cold War, the U.S. was about containment of communism similar to Beveridge's ideas.
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The Progressive Era During the progressive era, it was questioned whether or not the government had the right to control economic and political systems of industry. Similarly, the cold war was the result of the U.S. attempting to control communist influence in the world. Fear of too much power being gained by a specific group, both within and without this country, contributed to intervention actions.
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World War I One of the ideas that contributed to WWI was imperialism, the idea that countries have to conquer other countries to have economic power. Fear of uprising and other countries coming to power contributed heavily to the causes of WWI. The U.S. involved themselves because they feared that Mexico would unite with Germany to overthrow them and that Germany would attempt to undermine American Economy. Similarly, in the Cold War, fear of global Soviet impacts contributed to U.S. actions during this time.
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Roaring 20s Drastic change in the 20s both politically and economically, as well as revolutionary ideas about human rights, created an entirely new American society. There were parties, luxury goods, buying on credit and new government systems that reduced corruption. Yet some feared that the drastic change was bad for American Society. As the U.S. feared communism influencing the world, people, rightly so considering the depression, thought this new economic order infiltrating nearly the entire country could backfire on our economic system.
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The Great Depression and New Deal The economy began to crash as America reached the 1930s, and the depression was set into action. Soon millions of Americans were jobless or homeless. President Roosevelt was elected in 1932 and immediately began working to fix the economy with the New Deal. Some feared that these new deal programs did not benefit the economy and instead disrupted the natural business cycle in our capitalist economy. Welfare systems could have been viewed as a branch of communism. Ideas that helping the poor and closing the gap between classes would benefit Americans were questioned, and this in itself parallels the Cold War. Some Americans feared that these systems and movements would drag down capitalism.
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Fear of Communism Parallels Fear in the War on Terror Today
The fear that inspired involvement in the Vietnam War is paralleled in the U.S. taking action in Iraq in the current War on Terror. Both wars were seemingly pointless given the end result, and both were provoked by fear.
The U.S. became involved in Iraq under the concept that Saddam Hussein was connected to al Qaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be used against America. This country sent troops in under the fear that Iraq had the power to target the American people. This was very similar to Vietnam and the Cold War in the respect that both wars were 'wars of choice' and were taken on because of a fear of possible actions of other countries. Another similarity between the two lies within the idea of the Domino Theory. A main factor to U.S. involvement in Vietnam was the thought that if Vietnam were taken over by communism, the system would spread throughout Asia. In Iraq, the domino theory was thought to be reversed. President Bush claimed that U.S. victory and involvement in Iraq would spread democracy throughout the region. Essentially, both conquests failed. The involvement motivated by fear in both Iraq and Vietnam resulted in a loss for the United States and the killing of thousands of American soldiers.
Bibliography
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