Foreign Policy
In the years leading up to the United States entry into Vietnam in 1959, communist Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh had been pushing the United States to aid him in his war against Vietnam's French colonial rule. Instead, being entirely committed to preventing the spread of Communism, President Harry S. Truman sent military assistance to the French. Four years later, France decided to withdraw from Vietnam. By then, North Vietnam had been claimed by the communists, and, fearing their eventual appropriation of South Vietnam, and ultimately more and more non-European countries as expressed through the domino theory, President Dwight D. Eisenhower helped South Vietnam hold a democratic election to find a strong leader. The winner of the election, Ngo Dinh Diem, proved to be so awful that he was killed in a coup backed by President John F. Kennedy and the U. S. in 1963. Following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson received authorization to send the first U.S. ground troops into Vietnam in 1965, beginning the main time period of U.S. involvement.
During the following years, President Johnson was replaced by President Richard Nixon, and Ngo Dinh Diem replaced by Nguyen Van Thieu, followed by Creighton Abrams, Robert McNamara, William Westmoreland, and Chiang Kai-shek Vo Nguyen Giap, each playing their part in the remaining events of the war. The specific type of foreign policy used by the United States upon their entry into the Vietnam War is most commonly referred to as Internationalism, or "World Policeman", which is defined as the action of one country taking it upon itself to intervene in the affairs of another country in order to advocate for national interests or to secure international security. Because the intent of the U.S. upon entering Vietnam was to prevent the spread of Communism, this example of foreign policy can be classified as Internationalism because they hoped their intervention would stop the fall of other non-European countries to the communists.
During the following years, President Johnson was replaced by President Richard Nixon, and Ngo Dinh Diem replaced by Nguyen Van Thieu, followed by Creighton Abrams, Robert McNamara, William Westmoreland, and Chiang Kai-shek Vo Nguyen Giap, each playing their part in the remaining events of the war. The specific type of foreign policy used by the United States upon their entry into the Vietnam War is most commonly referred to as Internationalism, or "World Policeman", which is defined as the action of one country taking it upon itself to intervene in the affairs of another country in order to advocate for national interests or to secure international security. Because the intent of the U.S. upon entering Vietnam was to prevent the spread of Communism, this example of foreign policy can be classified as Internationalism because they hoped their intervention would stop the fall of other non-European countries to the communists.