War in Vietnam Essay

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Vietnam War provides the opportunity to learn from history. Analysis of the Vietnam War experience, from the American point-of-view anyway, sheds light on current diplomatic negotiations, presidential leadership, and cultural/social contexts of war. Unfortunately, it would seem that the opportunities to learn from Vietnam had been squandered by the time the War on Terror began in earnest after September 11, 2001. The Vietnam conflict, for example, began as a diplomatic farce. As Young (2014) puts it, "Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara created the illusion that attacks on North Vietnam were alternatives to war rather than war itself," (p. 1). Bombs were used as a darkly ironic form of diplomacy. Therefore, one of the most important lessons learned from Vietnam is that the United States must be more honest and straightforward in its use of force. Use of force cannot be disguised as a form of diplomatic negotiations. "There is a grave danger associated with calling the bombing of another country anything but war," (Young, 2014, p. 1). During the Second Gulf War and the war in Iraq, Bush's strategy was similar in that war was never officially declared. This approach is deceptive not only for the foreign power, but also for the American people. The American people are led to believe that the political conflicts will be resolved diplomatically, when in reality a full-blown war has escalated. A war by any other name is still a war.

In addition to the lesson of botched and deceptive diplomacy, Vietnam presents the opportunity to learn from presidential leadership.

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Presidential leadership was lacking during the Vietnam War, which is why the diplomatic strategies used by Johnson can be rightfully called deceptive. Johnson told the American public that war in Vietnam was essential to curb the great evil of communism. The fear about communism was deeply ingrained already in the American psyche, and was why Kennedy initially started to look to Southeast Asia prior to his assassination and also led to the Bay of Pigs and other debacles. Fear of communism was simply a propaganda campaign used to dupe the American public into accepting whatever military interventions the government wanted. "Far from an inevitable result of the imperative to contain communism, the war was only made possible through lies and deceptions aimed at the American public," (Young, 2014, p. 1). The process by which Johnson persisted in allocating troops to Vietnam and engaging in war was a sign of poor leadership. Instead of being honest about the intentions of the American government, the president sneakily put American lives in danger over the course of twelve years and pretended that no war was going on. When it was obvious how entrenched American troops had become, the president had lost connection with the American public. This seriously undermined….....

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How and Why the Vietnam War Began and Unfolded

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