How did the Vietnam War start ?

This is why he got America’s support – he had a poor record on human rights but his rule was in the era of the “Domino Theory” and anybody who was anti-communist in the Far East was likely to receive American backing – regardless of their less than savoury background.

Ngo ruled as a dictator along with his brother – Nhu. Their government was corrupt and brutal but it was also backed by America.

After the non-election of 1956, the Viet Minh became more active militarily. Their guerrillas – now called the Viet Cong – attacked soft targets in the south.

They used the Ho Chi Minh Trail which was a 1000 mile trail along the border with Laos with heavy jungle coverage so that detection from the air was very difficult.

On May 07, 1954, Viet Minh forces won the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and ended French involvement in Indochina. ... Second and most importantly, if the communists won in Vietnam, communism could spread throughout Southeast Asia and become a greater threat to the U.S.

There are several competing views on the conflict. Some on the North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front side view the struggle against U.S. forces as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States,

especially in light of the failed 1954 Geneva Conference calls for elections. Other interpretations of the North Vietnamese side include viewing it as a civil war

especially in the early and later phases following the U.S. interlude between 1965 and 1970,[82] as well as a war of liberation.

In the perspective of some, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, the successor to the Việt Cộng, was motivated in part by significant social changes in the post-World War II Vietnam, and had initially seen it as a revolutionary war supported by Hanoi.

The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam.

This was part of the domino theory of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism.

Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century.

The Vietnam War and active U.S. involvement in the war began in 1954, though ongoing conflict in the region had stretched back several decades.

The subsequent treaty signed in July 1954 at a Geneva conference split Vietnam along the latitude known as the 17th Parallel (17 degrees north latitude), with Ho in control in the North and Bao in the South.

In 1955, however, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN), often referred to during that era as South Vietnam.

With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam.

By 1957, the Viet Cong and other opponents of Diem’s repressive regime began fighting back with attacks on government officials and other targets, and by 1959 they had begun engaging the South Vietnamese army in firefights.

A team sent by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to report on conditions in South Vietnam advised a build-up of American military, economic and technical aid in order to help Diem confront the Viet Cong threat.

Working under the “domino theory,” which held that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many other countries would follow, Kennedy increased U.S. aid, though he stopped short of committing to a large-scale military intervention.

By 1962, the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam had reached some 9,000 troops, compared with fewer than 800 during the 1950s.

A coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November 1963, three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

The ensuing political instability in South Vietnam persuaded Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to further increase U.S. military and economic support.

In August of 1964, after DRV torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam.

Congress soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson broad war-making powers, and U.S. planes began regular bombing raids, codenamed Operation Rolling Thunder, the following year.

In March 1965, Johnson made the decision—with solid support from the American public—to send U.S. combat forces into battle in Vietnam.