The Vietnam War (c. 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.
The civil and colonial conflicts in Vietnam became internationalized in 1950. After the defeat of the French Union in the First Indochina War, Vietnam's independence was affirmed at the 1954 Geneva Conference, but the country was divided at the 17th parallel: the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, took control of North Vietnam, while Ngo Dinh Diem led South Vietnam, which the US assumed financial and military support for. The North Vietnamese supplied and eventually directed the Viet Cong (VC), a communist front in the south that intensified a guerrilla war from 1957. In 1958, North Vietnam invaded Laos, establishing the Ho Chi Minh trail to supply the VC insurgency. By 1961, North Vietnam was covertly sending soldiers of its People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) to assist the southern insurgents. President John F. Kennedy increased US involvement in the early 1960s, including military advisors and aid to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). In 1963, Diem was killed in a US-backed ARVN military coup, which added to South Vietnam's growing instability.
Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the US Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to increase military presence without declaring war. Johnson launched a bombing campaign of the north and deployed combat troops, dramatically increasing deployment to 184,000 by 1966, and 536,000 by 1969. US forces relied on air supremacy and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations in rural areas. Communist forces relied on guerrilla tactics, using the countryside and jungle as concealed base areas.
In 1968, the PAVN and Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive, which was a tactical defeat but contributed to growing American opposition to the war. Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon, began "Vietnamization" from 1969, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN while US forces withdrew. The 1970 Cambodian coup d'état resulted in a PAVN invasion and US–ARVN counter-invasion, escalating its civil war.
With its ranks degraded by widespread drug abuse and plummeting morale, US troops had mostly withdrawn from Vietnam by 1972. However, American forces provided crucial air support to ARVN against North Vietnam's massive Easter Offensive with the Linebacker Operations. Following the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the last American forces left. The accords were subsequently violated by North Vietnam, and bloody fighting continued until the 1975 Spring Offensive. Weakened by years of corruption and the economic troubles of South Vietnam's Thiệu regime, Saigon fell to the PAVN, marking the war's end. North and South Vietnam were officially reunified in 1976.
The war exacted an enormous cost: estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 970,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 US service members died. The war was also marked by brutal atrocities, including large-scale massacres (such as Huế and Mỹ Lai), terrorism, indiscriminate bombings, rape, torture, and persecution of ethnic minorities. 20% of South Vietnam's jungle was sprayed with toxic herbicides, which led to significant health problems.
Political repression and flawed economic policies following the war would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions leave Indochina, of which about 250,000 perished at sea. The Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, and the Cambodian–Vietnamese War began in 1978. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the US, the war gave rise to Vietnam syndrome, an aversion to American overseas military involvement, which, with the Watergate scandal, contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected the United States throughout the 1970s.
The Vietnam War (c. 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 and peaked in 1968. After this, the US gradually scaled back involvement (while expanding and upgrading the South Vietnamese forces) until US forces were completely withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.
The civil and colonial conflicts in Vietnam became internationalized in 1950. After the defeat of the French Union in the First Indochina War, Vietnam's independence was affirmed at the 1954 Geneva Conference, but the country was divided at the 17th parallel: the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, took control of North Vietnam, while Ngo Dinh Diem led South Vietnam, which the US assumed financial and military support for. The North Vietnamese supplied and eventually directed the Viet Cong (VC), a communist front in the south that intensified a guerrilla war from 1957. In 1958, North Vietnam invaded Laos, establishing the Ho Chi Minh trail to supply the VC insurgency. By 1961, North Vietnam was covertly sending soldiers of its People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) to assist the southern insurgents. President John F. Kennedy increased US involvement in the early 1960s, including military advisors and aid to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). In 1963, Diem was killed in a US-backed ARVN military coup, which added to South Vietnam's growing instability.
Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the US Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to increase military presence without declaring war. Johnson launched a bombing campaign of the north and deployed combat troops, dramatically increasing deployment to 184,000 by 1966, and 536,000 by 1969. US forces relied on air supremacy and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations in rural areas. Communist forces relied on guerrilla tactics, using the countryside and jungle as concealed base areas.
In 1968, the PAVN and Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive, which was a tactical defeat but contributed to growing American opposition to the war. Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon, began "Vietnamization" from 1969, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN while US forces withdrew. The 1970 Cambodian coup d'état resulted in a PAVN invasion and US–ARVN counter-invasion, escalating its civil war.
With its ranks degraded by widespread drug abuse and plummeting morale, US troops had mostly withdrawn from Vietnam by 1972. However, American forces provided crucial air support to ARVN against North Vietnam's massive Easter Offensive with the Linebacker Operations. Following the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the last American forces left. The accords were subsequently violated by North Vietnam, and bloody fighting continued until the 1975 Spring Offensive. Weakened by years of corruption and the economic troubles of South Vietnam's Thiệu regime, Saigon fell to the PAVN, marking the war's end. North and South Vietnam were officially reunified in 1976.
The war exacted an enormous cost: estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 970,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 US service members died. The war was also marked by brutal atrocities, including large-scale massacres (such as Huế and Mỹ Lai), terrorism, indiscriminate bombings, rape, torture, and persecution of ethnic minorities. 20% of South Vietnam's jungle was sprayed with toxic herbicides, which led to significant health problems.
Political repression and flawed economic policies following the war would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions leave Indochina, of which about 250,000 perished at sea. The Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, and the Cambodian–Vietnamese War began in 1978. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the US, the war gave rise to Vietnam syndrome, an aversion to American overseas military involvement, which, with the Watergate scandal, contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected the United States throughout the 1970s.
Names
Various names have been applied, though Vietnam War is the most commonly used in English. It has also been called the Second Indochina War, as it spread to Laos and Cambodia, the Vietnam Conflict, and colloquially 'Nam. South Vietnam used terms such as Kháng chiến chống Cộng sản (lit. 'Resistance war against the communists') and Cuộc chiến bảo vệ tự do (lit. 'Battle to protect freedom'). North Vietnam at the time, and official histories produced by the Vietnamese government today, refer to it as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ, cứu nước (lit. 'War of resistance against America to save the nation'), or simply the resistance war against America. Vietnamese both within the country and overseas occasionally refer to it as Chiến tranh Việt Nam, the Vietnam War.
Fractures between nationalists and communists emerged in the late 1920s, as the two groups differed in their visions for postcolonial Vietnam: republicanism for the revolutionary nationalists, and proletarian internationalism for the communists. The communists' radical push for centralized control led to a prolonged civil conflict marked by the suppression of rival nationalists, with the ICP largely responsible for initiating systemic Vietnamese-on-Vietnamese violence.
Japanese occupation of Indochina
In September 1940, Japan invaded French Indochina, following France's capitulation to Nazi Germany. By 1941, Japan had gained full control of Indochina and established a dual colonial rule that preserved Vichy French administration while facilitating Japanese military operations. Cung, now known as Ho Chi Minh, returned from exile to establish the anti-Japanese Viet Minh movement. Throughout the war, the Viet Minh received aid from the Allied powers, specifically the United States, Soviet Union, and Republic of China. Beginning in 1943, the US Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) provided the Viet Minh with training and weapons to develop local intelligence networks against Japanese and Vichy French forces.
In March 1945, Japan, losing the war, overthrew the French government in Indochina, established the Empire of Vietnam, and maintained Emperor Bảo Đại as a figurehead. Nationalist sentiment, intensified during World War II, helped pave the way for the communist-led Viet Minh, themselves cloaked in nationalism. Following the surrender of Japan, they launched the August Revolution, overthrowing the Nguyễn dynasty and seizing weapons from the Japanese. On 2 September, Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). At the same time, following Allied decisions, British forces were deployed to Indochina to oversee the Japanese surrender south of the 16th parallel, while Chinese Nationalist troops did so in the north. On September 23, the British supported a French coup that overthrew the DRV government in Saigon and reinstated French control. O.S.S. forces withdrew as the French sought to reassert control in southern Indochina.
First Indochina War
Beginning in August 1945, the Viet Minh sought to consolidate power by terrorizing and purging rival Vietnamese nationalist groups and Trotskyist activists. In 1946, the Franco-Chinese and Ho–Sainteny Agreements facilitated a coexistence between the DRV and French that strengthened the Viet Minh while undermining the nationalists. That summer, the Viet Minh colluded with French forces to eliminate nationalists.
With most of the nationalist partisans defeated, and negotiations broken down, tensions between the Viet Minh and French authorities erupted into full-scale war in December 1946. Surviving nationalist partisans and politico-religious groups rallied behind the exiled Bảo Đại to reopen negotiations with France to establish the State of Vietnam in opposition to communist domination. Adhering to Marxist–Leninist principles, the Viet Minh tightened their control through a series of radical campaigns, provoking disillusionment and growing defections.
The outbreak of the Korean War in June convinced Washington policymakers that the war in Indochina was another example of communist expansionism. Within the United States, the Red Scare and rise of McCarthyism fostered public opposition to communism. In April 1950, the Chinese leadership formed the Chinese Military Advisory Group (CMAG), marking the beginning of substantial Chinese support for the Viet Minh. Chinese weapons, expertise, and laborers transformed the Viet Minh from a guerrilla force into an army. In September 1950, the US created the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to screen French aid requests, advise on strategy, and train Vietnamese soldiers. By 1954, the US had spent $1 billion in support of the French effort, shouldering 80% of the war costs.
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
In late 1953, the CMAG and the Viet Minh planned operations in northwestern Vietnam around Dien Bien Phu near the Laotian border. During the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Viet Minh forces encircled the French, using heavy artillery and anti-aircraft batteries to bombard the garrison. France and the US discussed the use of tactical nuclear weapons, though how seriously this was considered is unclear.
In May 1954, the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu surrendered. At the Geneva Conference, they negotiated a ceasefire with the Viet Minh, and the independence of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam was affirmed, with Vietnam placed under a temporary North–South division.
Điện Biên Phủ was the decisive battle of the First Indochina War, and the destruction of the garrison meant that roughly one-tenth of the total French Union manpower in Indochina had been lost. The battle was a serious defeat for France which weakened her position and prestige, as well as producing psychological repercussions both in the armed forces and political structure. This was apparent with the previously planned negotiations over the future of Indochina, which had begun in April.
Transition period
Between 1953 and 1956, the DRV government instituted agrarian reforms, including rent reduction and land reform, which resulted in political oppression. Witnesses suggested about one execution per 160 village residents, totaling around 100,000 executions. As the campaign was mainly in the Red River Delta, 50,000 executions became accepted by scholars. Documents from Hungarian diplomats suggest that executions were lower, though likely greater than 13,500. The overall death toll was higher when accounting for deaths from torture, imprisonment, isolation, and suicides. In 1956, leaders in Hanoi admitted to excesses and restored much of the land to the original owners.
At the Geneva Conference, the French and the communists came to see the division of Vietnam into two halves as a necessary solution for reaching a negotiated settlement. The Soviets and Chinese pressured Ho Chi Minh to accept the 17th parallel demarcation line, arguing that he could win the election in a couple of years.
The United States and the State of Vietnam objected to the division of Vietnam as a solution. The US countered with the "American Plan", with the support of the State of Vietnam and the United Kingdom. It provided for unification elections under United Nations supervision, but was rejected by the Soviets. The Diệm government called for UN-supervised elections but rejected those proposed by the Viet Minh, believing they would not be free. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, representing the US at the conference, eventually walked out of the negotiations early; as a result, neither the US, nor the State of Vietnam, signed anything at the Geneva Conference.
The Geneva Accords of July 1954 brought a flawed peace. Signed between the French and the Viet Minh, the accords ended the war between French and communist forces, but it did not resolve the conflict between the two internationally recognized Vietnamese regimes, which were temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel.
Throughout the 300-day relocation period, up to one million Northerners moved South, including at least 500,000 Catholics, approximately 200,000 Buddhists, and tens of thousands from ethnic minorities. Allen Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, authorized a psychological campaign that exaggerated anti-Catholic sentiment among the Viet Minh and circulated materials falsely attributed to them. The CIA's efforts played a minimal role, as Catholic migrants were driven primarily by their own convictions and circumstances rather than external psyops.
Condemning both the communists and the French colonialists for the partition of Vietnam, Northern émigrés became an important force in articulating anticommunist discourse in South Vietnam. Meanwhile, over 100,000 Viet Minh fighters moved North for "regroupment". The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in the South as a base for insurgency. The last French soldiers left South Vietnam in 1956, and China withdrew from North Vietnam.
Eisenhower speculated that up to 80% of voters would have voted for Ho Chi Minh over Bao Dai in a 1954 election, emphasizing Bao Dai's shortcomings as a leader. The Pentagon Papers suggested that Diem would have fared better than Bảo Đại, with support for Ho very likely falling well below 80% by 1956. In 1957, independent observers from the International Control Commission stated that fair elections were impossible, reporting that neither South nor North had honored the armistice agreement.
From April to June 1955, Diệm eliminated political opposition in the south by launching operations against 'sectarian' armed groups: the Cao Đài, the Hòa Hảo, and the organized crime group Bình Xuyên, which was allied with communist party secret police. The group was defeated in April following a battle in Saigon. As broad opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Diệm sought to blame the communists.
In a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam in October 1955, Diệm rigged the poll supervised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu and was credited with 98%, including 133% in Saigon. His American advisors had recommended a more modest winning margin of 60–70%. Diệm, however, viewed the election as a test of authority. He declared South Vietnam the Republic of Vietnam, with him as president. Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communists were reported to have received 99% of the vote in North Vietnamese elections.
Political and socioeconomic discontent after land reform and Vietnam's partition led the Vietnamese Workers' Party to undertake the 'correction of errors' in North Vietnam. Inspired by perceived reformist tendencies in Moscow and Beijing, intellectuals in Hanoi launched the unauthorized periodicals Nhân văn and Giai phẩm in 1956. The Party leadership moved to suppress the movement, as it did to the Quỳnh Lưu uprising.