Why Was the Us Unable to Defeat Communism

Daisy Nash

Why was the USA unable to defeat communism in south-east Asia in the years 1965-73.

US troops has been in Vietnam since the early 1950’s fighting in a civil war to protect South Vietnam and other countries against the possible communist take over from North Vietnam and its leader Ho Chi Minh. However after putting billions of dollars and loosing thousands of US troops, in 1973 America left the Vietnam War after facing defeat and failing to contain communism. There were many factors that contributed to the US withdrawal of their troops was the strength of the opposition, the human and economic cost, the political resistance and most importantly the poor military and tactical decisions.

The most important reason why the US could not defeat communism in South East-Asia was because of the poor military and tactical decisions. Nixon attempted to halt the flow of supplies to the North Vietnam Army in the south by blocking the Ho Chi Minh Trial, this involved heavy bombing which induced considerable suffering in both countries and had only limited effect. This bombing was ineffective as many of the bombs had not exploded and it provided the Vietcong with explosives for booby-traps. As Johnson wanted to provide peace with honour he came up with a new tactic called Vietnamisation however although some units of the South Vietnam arm were very good, others were not as there were extensive desertions and scenes of panic. Huge quantities of former US arms were handed over, for example 12,000 machine guns. This is the most important reason for the inability for the US to defeat communism because if it wasn’t for the poor military and tactical decisions the number of the US deaths and casualty’s would not have been as great causing to be less political resistance towards the USA fighting in South East Asia.

A second reason why the US could not defeat communism in South East Asia was because of the strength of the opposition. The Vietcong had very effective...