Question

As the United States became more deeply entrenched in Vietnam under President Kennedy, the nation’s political and military leaders remained confident that superior technology and firepower would subdue the enemy. They were wrong. Explain their initial understanding of the political situation in South Vietnam and how their assumptions about U.S. technological and military superiority had to be revised as the conflict there escalated.

Answer 1

Kennedy's understanding of Vietnam's political situation: The Soviet Union had promised to support wars of liberation and Kennedy wanted to demonstrate that such efforts would be costly. Kennedy poured American advisers and weapons into South Vietnam in order to stabilize the government there and to prevent the North Vietnamese from gaining a foothold.

Kennedy's understanding of Vietnam's military situation: Kennedy wanted to project strength in the Cold War. His ideas reflected the racist attitudes of American superiority over nonwhite populations. He assumed that the United States' military technology and sheer power could win in Vietnam.

The reality in Vietnam: In fact, the Diem government was corrupt and had little support even from most South Vietnamese people. As the war escalated, it became clear that advanced weapons and technology were not well suited to the guerrilla warfare practiced by the Vietcong. Such weapons also hurt the very people they were intended to save. When the South Vietnamese government approached collapse in 1965, Johnson failed to understand this reality and sent in more troops and weapons. After the Tet Offensive in 1968, he realized his errors and began to reduce the bombing.

Nixon's approach: Nixon recognized that Johnson's escalation of the war had been ineffective and altered the U.S.'s approach to the war by bombing Cambodia and putting more responsibility for the war into Vietnamese hands—but even these efforts failed to subdue the North Vietnamese.

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