Vietnamization (policy)
Vietnamization was a military and political strategy implemented by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969, aimed at gradually withdrawing U.S. forces from the Vietnam War while transferring the responsibility of combat to South Vietnamese allies. This approach was developed as a response to increasing public opposition to the war and the significant casualties that the U.S. military had incurred. Nixon believed that an immediate withdrawal would be dishonorable, so he sought to disengage from the conflict in a way that would maintain the integrity of the U.S. presence and support for South Vietnam.
The strategy involved training, equipping, and modernizing South Vietnamese forces, while also providing political and financial support to the South Vietnamese government to enhance its legitimacy and popular support. Despite these efforts, South Vietnamese forces struggled against the North Vietnamese military, and the ultimate effectiveness of Vietnamization was called into question. By 1975, the collapse of South Vietnam culminated in the capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese troops, marking a definitive end to the conflict. The Vietnamization policy highlights the complexities of war, national strategy, and the impact of public opinion on military engagement.
Vietnamization (policy)
Vietnamization was a military and political strategy used by the administration of President Richard M. Nixon starting in 1969. This strategy was intended to gradually remove US forces from the destructive and widely unpopular Vietnam War while passing responsibility to US allies in South Vietnam. Nixon felt this was the best technique to honorably withdraw from the war. Despite extensive training, funding, and equipment from the United States, South Vietnamese forces ultimately lost the Vietnam War.
Brief History
The roots of the Vietnam War reach back to 1945, when Vietnam declared its independence from its longtime colonial ruler, France. This move was greeted with strong opposition from France and its allies, including the United States, which tried to militarily put down the Vietnamese rebellion. After a major victory by Vietnamese forces in 1954, France agreed to end the fighting and recognize Vietnamese independence.
The newly free Vietnam was torn between internal factions, however, and ultimately split into two halves, North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam allied itself with the Soviet Union, China, and other Communist forces. Meanwhile, South Vietnam partnered with the United States and its democratic allies. Having two distinctly different ideologies in halves of one country created great tension, however, and by 1957 the two sides were at war with each other.
The United States began sending aid and advisors to South Vietnam in the hopes of keeping communism from spreading across a democratic nation. With the continuation and growing intensity of the war, however, the limited help provided by the United States turned to direct military intervention. In 1964, the United States formally declared war on North Vietnam and began sending thousands of armed forces personnel, bombers, tanks, and other weapons.
By the end of the 1960s, more than five hundred thousand US armed forces members were actively serving in the Vietnam War. American forces had taken a leadership role in the effort, attempting to oversee South Vietnamese and other allied forces and guide them to conduct themselves according to American protocol and ideals. Despite this great investment, and the loss of thousands of American lives, the American effort in the Vietnam War was fraught with problems.
On January 30, 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched a surprise attack known as the Tet Offensive that severely damaged US and allied forces. This event clearly demonstrated to Americans that the war was nowhere near an end and thousands or even millions more lives would be at risk. On March 16, 1968, US forces engaged in the My Lai Massacre, the killing of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians. News of this event shocked the world and made many people question the brutal tactics of the war but also its overall purpose.
Overview
Events such as the Tet Offensive and My Lai Massacre, along with ever-increasing casualty figures, led many Americans to turn against the war effort. By January 1969, the United States had lost about thirty thousand personnel and had endured great suffering and expenses since the declaration of war in 1964. At the same time, US forces had not made significant progress in defeating the North Vietnamese forces or the Viet Cong, a powerful military force of South Vietnamese fighting on the Communist side.
Public sentiment in the United States was turning strongly against the Vietnam War. Many people denounced the war as a disaster with no possible positive conclusion. Many protested for peace and demanded that US forces withdraw immediately. American leaders began searching for ways to distance the country from the war in which it had become so entangled.
In 1969, President Richard M. Nixon evaluated the situation. He felt that an immediate troop withdrawal would bring shame to the United States and spell certain doom for the democratic forces still active in South Vietnam. Along with Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and other advisors, Nixon created a new strategy. The press called the strategy the “Nixon Doctrine,” but Laird and many others famously referred to it as “Vietnamization.”
Nixon explained Vietnamization as a contrasting reaction to the “Americanization” of the war that had occurred previously. Since the US war effort began in the previous administration, that of President Lyndon B. Johnson, US forces had positioned themselves as leaders of the democratic effort in Vietnam. Nixon said that Johnson and his supporters had made the war too much about America, and that the path to peace would best be traveled by restoring the focus on the Vietnamese people themselves.
Upon publicly announcing this strategy change on November 3, 1969, Nixon began a series of initiatives meant to disengage the United States from the war “with honor” and transfer responsibility to South Vietnam. American personnel would withdraw from combat gradually while helping to train, arm, and modernize South Vietnamese forces. The United States would also help to bolster the South Vietnamese government, providing funding and encouraging reforms and developments that would increase its popular support.
Many Americans felt Nixon’s decision was wise. However, even as he planned an honorable withdrawal, Nixon also authorized further acts of war. In particular, he sanctioned secretive US bombings and incursions into the neighboring neutral country of Cambodia in 1970 in the hopes of reducing support to Communist North Vietnam. News of the Cambodia attacks, and attacks in Laos in 1971, was wildly unpopular in the United States, and many felt they were among the most heinous events of the war.
Amid intensified antiwar protests in the United States, and continued enemy offensives in Vietnam, Nixon’s administration carried out the promised gradual reduction of armed forces. By 1972, US troops in the country numbered only about sixty-nine thousand, a fraction of former strength. By the following year, the United States and North Vietnam reached a peace agreement, and all remaining American forces left the country.
Nixon, Laird, and other proponents of Vietnamization touted the success of the strategy in removing the United States from the war and empowering South Vietnam to continue the fight. However, the effectiveness of the South Vietnamese forces was questionable. Without direct US support, South Vietnamese armies suffered serious losses to the Communist forces. On April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon, the capital city of South Vietnam, bringing the war to an end with a Communist victory.
Bibliography
Johnson, Robert H. “Vietnamization: Can It Work?” Foreign Affairs, July 1970, www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1970-07-01/vietnamization-can-it-work. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.
Ladenburg, Thomas. “Vietnamization.” University of Houston, 2007, www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/teachers/lesson‗plans/pdfs/unit12‗9.pdf. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.
McCarthy, Eugene J. “The Failure of Vietnamization by Any Name.” New York Times, 1 Aug. 1970, www.nytimes.com/1970/08/01/archives/topics-the-failure-of-vietnamization-by-any-name.html. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.
Nixon, Richard Milhous. “Vietnamization Speech, November 3, 1969.” University of Groningen, www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/richard-milhous-nixon/vietnamization-speech-1969.php. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.
“Vietnam War Fast Facts.” CNN Library, 27 Mar. 2018, www.cnn.com/2013/07/01/world/vietnam-war-fast-facts/index.html. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.
“Vietnamization.” History.com, 21 Aug. 2018, www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnamization. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.
“Vietnamization.” University of Virginia Miller Center, 2018, millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/vietnamization. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.
Young, Stephen B. “The Birth of ‘Vietnamization.’” New York Times, 28 Apr. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/the-birth-of-vietnamization.html. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.