Vietnam War

Vietnam War

How and why the US and Australia became involved in the Vietnam War

Back in 1955 the US chose to enter the Vietnam War with the aim of stopping the communism spreading to Southeast Asia. The United States was against Communism and they knew that if Communist forces would gain control of Vietnam, it would spread very quickly, and nation after nation will be a part of it, which dreaded them a lot.

Vietnam was split in North- and South Vietnam, due to the war they fought to gain independence from France. South Vietnam was a poor non-communist government but with the financial and military support from the US, they managed to keep their independency. As the French forces chose to withdraw, the United States decided to support South Vietnam in order to keep the Communists from taking control of them too. North Vietnam was communistic and with the leader Ho Chi Minh they managed to stay strong and powerful. Their purpose was to gain power of all of Vietnam.

In 1965 Australia chose to enter the Vietnam War. Australia was afraid of the communism like the US was. They were frightened by the so–called “domino theory.” The theory was related to Vietnam, and people believed that the communism soon would spread to the neighboring countries if they did not succeed in stopping communism there. Since Australia was one of the nearby countries and they knew that if South Vietnam was overtaken by North Vietnam, the communism would head towards Australia and soon be a danger to their country, they decided to commit to the Vietnam War. At first Australia was only supporting the American’s position in Vietnam by 30 military advisers, but as the war evolved, Australia changed their role from defensive to offensive and sent in men, armored tanks, artillery etc. By the end of the year in 1967 the number of Australians in Vietnam increase to about 8300.

During the Cold War we saw a very separated world. A world split in two: communism and capitalism. The US was representing...

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