The American experience of the Vietnam War

In the contemporary history of the United States of America the War in Vietnam takes a serious part as it influenced a lot not only the country but the Americans themselves. Many lessons were made after the end of conflict and many people died during the company. Vietnam War  produced a considerable influence on the world outlook on the US citizens. The new youth movement Hippy appeared among the young people who were against the war. According to the data of Gallup Institute Vietnam war took the first place among the most important problems that worried people during the 1964-1972. The war made Americans think over the international questions. The interest to foreign policy problems grew massively and that also increased the role of social opinion in the process of foreign policy formation.

The major part of historians and people who took part in the war as well as those who is studying the problem for the past years came to conclusion that: “The U.S. civilian and military leadership failed to heed the lessons of the past during the Vietnam war. They underestimated the enemy and the nature of the war” (Mariney, 1989)

Many historians and military leaders can not still come to the conclusion whether the United Stated won the war or lost it: “The U.S. won the war on the tactical level but lost on the only level that matters - the strategic, political level.  In some cases the military leadership has been  criticized  for employing  an  inadequate  military  strategy  to  defeat  a communist insurgent movement, for  misleading  the  civilian leadership  and  the  American  people  by  providing overly optimistic assessments that the war was being  won, and  for being  more  concerned  about their careers than winning the war” (Mariney, 1989)

The conclusions are unfavorable. It was a great strike on the Americans’ mind and their beliefs in so called “invincibility”. It showed that people are dying and leaders could be mistaken. It will be very difficult to say whether the after the war were undertaken or not. Foreign policy of the United States has been changed a lot after that and probably, to better. The military strategies were also among those to be changed and it is probably one of the most socially contradictory questions. As many people in the present day US do not keep up the military strategies in Persian Gulf which seemed to be very much alike Vietnam Campaign. Many analytics debate on these questions. But I think that the mistakes and misgivings happened at that times will never repeat again and the military leaders as well as the social has learned their lessons from the previous conflict and in future it will never happen again. Americans do understand that. But still there are people and they do not believe that the lessons influenced, especially military policy of the US. To my mind, the attitude of the Nation to the experience  in the Vietnam war as important as the attitude of analysts and the scientists who study  the problem. And finally all the lessons and especially the lesson with Americans will be taken into consideration.

Sources:

Mariney C. (1989) Vietnam: Lessons Learned, retrieved from the official web page of Global Security Network, at 9th of October 2009,

Kissinger, H.(1975)Lessons on Vietnam, retrieved from National Security Adviser, the 9th of October 2009