Compare and contrast two counterinsurgency campaigns Free Essay Example, 1250 words

The Vietnam War, or the Second Indochina War (1954 – 1975), was the offshoot of an earlier conflict against French colonialism. Vietnam overthrew France’s colonial rule in July 1954, with the decisive victory at Dien Bien Phu. Under the subsequent Geneva Peace Accords, Vietnam was pressurized by China and the Soviet Union to accept the temporary partition of the country at the seventeenth parallel, with the understanding that reunification would follow the general election scheduled for 1956. However, the U. S., under President Eisenhower, with military, economic and political aid, propped up the new Republic of Vietnam in the South, as a bulwark against the Communist North. In 1957, Ngo Dinh Diem, who became the President with U. S. aid, initiated hostilities against North Vietnam and against the dissidents, including communists, in the South. The National Liberation Front brought together the communists and all Vietnamese aspiring for reunification and engaged in act ive warfare against the forces of Diem. After Diem’s overthrow and death by a military coup in 1963, tacitly supported by the U. S., and President Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson sanctioned the active entry of U. S.We will write a custom essay sample on Compare and contrast two counterinsurgency campaigns or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now troops on the Vietnamese battlefield. The NLF, supported by North Vietnam, resorted to guerilla warfare. The ‘Tet Offensive’ of 1968 was a turning point: although the U. S. forces broke the combined offensive of the NLF and North Vietnam, the scale of the offensive was a tactical failure for the Americans. President Nixon used his ‘Vietnamization’ plan to reduce the presence of U. S. troops, with the Vietnamese bearing the brunt of fighting. Finally, the Saigon government, led by President Nguyen van Thieu, was pressurized into signing the Paris Peace Agreement of January 1973 and America withdrew from the war. The conflict between North Vietnam and the now isolated South continued until April 1975, when communist forces overran Saigon (Brigham, n.d. ). When we compare the Philippines Insurrection and the Vietnam War, several striking similarities emerge. The roots of both conflicts did not directly involve America. The former was a Spanish – Philippine struggle and the latter a Vietnamese – French conflict. In both cases, the U. S. entered the fray deliberately in order to widen its’ sphere of influence and further its’ military and economic interests: obstructing Germany in the Philippines and China in Vietnam. In both cases, the U. S. had initially supported its’ future adversaries.