Annonymous paper

The Cold War and U.S. Diplomacy

Teffron Lee Riley

POL 300 International Problems

Professor Ibrahim Alsaeed

May 12, 2016

The President of choice for this assignment is Richard Nixon, who came into office as the President of the United States in 1969. At that time, the US was already engaged in combat in Vietnam for about four years that had caused the death of more than 30,000 Americans and uncountable Vietnamese lives (Tucker, 2011). The reason for the US sending its soldiers and other forms of support to Vietnam was following the horrendous incidences that resulted in the death of more than 50,000 citizens of Vietnam. That followed the North's fight to have the communist leader and a communist government with the help of the United Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (Tucker, 2011).

After communism had been implemented in North Vietnam, China and USSR supported the North government in attacking the South Vietnam government to have a communist government in place (Tucker, 2011). That was strongly opposed by the US and other Western powers who came in to support the South to ensure that there was no more shading of blood and more importantly the spread of communism (Tucker, 2011).

With the growing public displeasure and dissatisfaction in the US calling for the end of the Vietnam War as evident in a Gallup poll in May 1969. That poll showed 56 percent of the American public rendering the decision by the government to send troops to Vietnam as a mistake with a 61 percent displeasure among those aged 50 years old and a 49 percent of the of the younger generation aged between 21 and 29 years old (Tucker, 2011). In fact, there was a suggestion that the U.S.A. to completely abandon the SEATO Treaty to allow for the complete communist takeover of South Vietnam so as to save the overstretching budget of the US military and instead the resources channeled to other initiatives where the US will directly benefit (Tucker, 2011).

The diplomatic decision by U.S to send troops to South Vietnam meant to ensure peace in the world and brining to an end the culture of violence and war fueled by parties that had no sense of humanity as well as demonstrate America’s commitment to global peace (Hill, 2012). But as earlier mentioned, the Americans were opposed to the efforts as the war was likely to be lost as it turned out to be thus denting the country’s image as a superpower and agent of peace (Hill, 2012). Upon the withdrawal of the U.S troop, the North Vietnam government managed to install a communist government in the South. To the U.S foes such as China and the former USSR, the decision by the US diplomatic efforts in Vietnam meant that they (foes) could not advance their interests (Hill, 2012).

That put pressure on the Nixon government to change America’s foreign policy given Vietnam, a move that President Nixon was not ready to adopt. That is because prior to him securing power, he had campaigned for "Peace with Honor" in the case of the Vietnam situation thus he had promised to end the war but in such a manner that the public was proposing (Hill, 2012). According to President Nixon, mass withdrawal of the American forces from Vietnam immediately was not the best option as there were other viable options that the government could use (Hill, 2012). Though the pressure intensified for Nixon to come to an agreement that the Vietnam War was stretching the military's budget, he publicly dismissed the immediate withdrawal of the forces. He instead proposed a new strategy he anticipated could reinvigorate the U.S. alliances around the world as a way of maintaining the American credibility while sharing the burden of Western defense (Hill, 2012).

The new strategy later came to be known as the Nixon or Guam Doctrine, was a formal U.S foreign policy detailing how the President was planning to withdraw the American troops slowly from the conflict in Southeast Asia leaving the responsibility to the South Vietnamese forces (Dooley & Patten, 2013). Nixon leads to the realization of the doctrine in the course of his first term in office as he withdrew a substantial portion of American forces from Vietnam. That was moved a notch higher when the U.S and North Vietnam signed a peace treaty to end the war in 1973 (Dooley & Patten, 2013). However, two years down the line, the North Vietnamese forces fiercely lodged war against the South Vietnamese army managing to reunite the divided country under a communist regime (Dooley & Patten, 2013).

In conclusion, while the Nixon doctrine was the best strategy for addressing the Vietnamese war as it ensured that there was a peaceful end to the war between the North and the South as evident with the signing of the peace accord between America and North Vietnam (Nichter, 2015). However, the doctrine was not useful as two years after the peace agreement; the North forces took advantage of the fact that the U.S forces had withdrawn ad attacked the South resulting in the formation of a communist government (Nichter, 2015). That means that it was zero work for the U.S to send its troops to Vietnam as the North eventually had their way (Nichter, 2015).

Reference

Dooley, K. L., & Patten, J. N. (2013). Why politics matters: An introduction to political science.

Hill, K. L. (2012). An Essential Guide To American Politics And The American Political System. AuthorHouse.

Nichter, L. A. (2015). Richard Nixon and Europe. Cambridge University Press.

Tucker, S. (2011). The encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A political, social, and military history. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO.