![]() and a return to the status quo.” 1 Thus, President Harry Truman’s decision in April to relieve General Douglas MacArthur-who in Ridgway’s words “envisaged no less than the global defeat of communism”-suggested that political limitations were now an intrinsic part of developing and implementing strategy in a time of war. Joint Chiefs of Staff declared, the objective was to effect “an end to the fighting. Though the enemy had suffered heavily under the weight of allied ground and air power, Washington and its partners had little stomach to press northward. Ridgway, dug in as both sides agreed to open negotiations. Having blunted North Korean and Chinese offensives that killed thousands of soldiers and civilians, the United Nations forces, now under command of General Matthew B. In the end, the Vietnam War exposed the limits of what American military power could achieve in the Cold War era.īy mid-June 1951, the Korean War had settled into an uneasy, yet conspicuous stalemate. policymakers had asked too much of those crafting military strategy to deliver on overly ambitious political objectives. By asking military strategists to simultaneously fight a war and build a nation, senior U.S. Yet the faith of these Americans in their power to resolve deep-seated local and regional sociopolitical problems eclipsed the possibility there might be limits to that power. Contemporary policymakers clearly understood the difficulties of waging a war in Southeast Asia against an enemy committed to national liberation. On their own, none of these arguments fully satisfy. Still others argued “winning” was essentially impossible given the true nature of a struggle over Vietnamese national identity in the postcolonial era. politicians failed to commit their nation’s full military might to a limited war, others contended that most officers fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the war they were fighting. Historians of the conflict and participants alike have since critiqued the ways in which civilian policymakers and uniformed leaders applied-some argued misapplied-military power that led to such an undesirable political outcome. ![]() troops departed in 1973, the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 prompted a lasting search to explain the United States’ first lost war. For nearly a decade, American combat soldiers fought in South Vietnam to help sustain an independent, noncommunist nation in Southeast Asia.
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