AS-1, Chapter 6, Lesson 2 Study Guide
Vietnam War And Other Military Operations
March 10, 2008
President John F. Kennedy once said, “War is far too important an enterprise to leave it to the generals.” Every American military leader realizes he or she serves at the pleasure of the President. But the extent to which politicians got involved in the Vietnam War was ridiculous--and counterproductive! In this chapter, we’ll discover what can happen when politicians get too involved in “the art of war.”
Cuban Missile Crisis
• Really began in 1959, when Fidel Castrodrove Cuba’s dictator Batista from power.
- Castro turned away from the U.S. and began to trade with the Soviet Union (Russia).
• President Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations with Cuba before leaving office in January 1961.
• Castro frequently feared a U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba.
- The CIA was training a small group of Cuban refugees in Guatemala.
• President Kennedy agreed to support an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961.
- Perhaps he believed the talk of “Camelot” and his own political invincibility.
- The results were terrible: nearly 200 men were killed, and over 1,100 were captured (later ransomed).
• The Soviets (Russians) used the Bay of Pigs invasion as an excuse for a military buildup in Cuba.
• U-2 reconnaissance flights in mid October 1962 confirmed the presence of offensive missilesites.
- Photos showed evidence of offensive weapons: medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and bombers.
• President Kennedy announced a total naval blockade of Cuba until Soviet missiles were removed.
- Soviet leader Khrushchev began withdrawing missiles and bombers from Cuba in late October 1962.
- The U.S. secretly agreed to remove some obsolete missiles from Turkey within a year in exchange.
- The Soviet Union began a strategic weapons buildup at home, so it could confront the U.S. as an equal.
• The Cuban missile crisis led to a communications hot line between Washington, D.C. and Moscow.
- The “hot line” was previously a direct telephone line; it is now a computer-to-computer link.
Vietnam War
• Some things about the Vietnam War sound very familiar:
- Vietnam had been dividedafter World War II, just like Germany and Korea.
- Communists controlled the North and were trying to take over the South, just like Korea.
- U.S. forces were helping the South resist the spread of Communism, just like Korea.
-- U.S. leaders feared if Vietnam became Communist, so would other Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Burma, and Thailand. This theory was called “the domino effect.”
- U.S. political leaders told military leaders to fight a limited aims war, just like Korea.
• But…some things about the Vietnam War were very different:
- North Vietnam used guerrilla warfare to outlast a stronger enemy, just like the U.S. did during the
Revolutionary War.
- The Vietnam War became highly unpopular; opposition to the war in the U.S. grew and grew.
- Because of the war’s unpopularity, President Johnson chose not to run for reelection in 1968.
- For the same reason, President Nixon negotiated a “peace with honor” in 1973.
-- Nixon’s policy of replacing U.S. soldiers with South Vietnamese was called Vietnamization.
-- All U.S. soldiers withdrew from Vietnam, and U.S. prisoners of war (POWs) were released by Hanoi.
- Sadly, South Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1975, just 2 years later. Saigon was given a new name: Ho Chi Minh City (named for the previous leader of North Vietnam).
• On the battlefield, the U.S. never lost an important battle in Vietnam and always killed many more North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. But…results of individual battles became less important than the images of the war on American TV sets.
- Reports of many women and children killed by U.S. soldiers (the My Lai Massacre).
- Demoralizing nationwide counterattack by North Vietnamese during lunar New Year (Tet Offensive).
• In the air war, U.S. bombers successfully destroyed targets such as bridges and railheads resupplying Communist forces. But, many targets remained “off limits” for political reasons.
- Bombing was mainly used to force North Vietnam to negotiate a cease-fire.
• Important new military technologies used in Vietnam included:
- Use of the helicopter as an offensive platform (with rocket launchers, machine guns, and grenades).
- M-16 automatic rifles (with night sights).
- Computers (especially for logistics and resupply problems).
• “No more Vietnams” has become a U.S. battle cry. What does it mean?
- Military leaders are reluctant to commit U.S. forces to a “limited aims” war.
- Political leaders have (hopefully) learned not to use modern communications to micromanagethe battlefield from thousands of miles away.
- Politicians have also learned not to get involved in a war without the support of the U.S. public.
