History

The Vietnam conflict is probably the longest war, in which US has been involved in its entire history. The war which lasted for close to two decades was a major loss to the United States. By losing the war basically meant that the US did not achieve its main aim of getting involved in the long conflict. The war was mainly fought between the northern Vietnamese communist forces that were being supported by their allies in support of spread of communism such as China and the former USSR and the anti communism southern Vietnamese forces that were being supported by their anti communism allies such as France and the United States. The second Indochina conflict was a continued struggle for the Vietnamese nationalists from the first conflict in which they were struggling with their colonial masters, the French, to fully liberate their nation. They were therefore determined to ensure all the influences and ideologies that had been introduced in the country by the French were done away with.

The American government was against the spread of communism in other nations where it had not been adopted. Going by the Trumans Doctrine, the US deemed it fit to interfere in the Vietnam War even though it was not affecting the Americans. This is due to the fact that its foreign policy allows the US to interfere in an international matter if it feels that the security of the citizens of that country is under jeopardy or the events taking place in such a country are likely to bring about regional insecurity. On its part, the US government felt that communism was not the best means through which the people of Vietnam could be governed as it viewed communism as an oppressive means of governance and that it could easily lead to mass violations of human rights in the country. Furthermore, the US felt that the nations that were supporting communism were actually using force to make other nations follow communism. The citizens and the governments of such nations were not given a chance of accepting or rejecting it but it was instead imposed on them.

The Vietnam War mainly resulted from ideological difference between the communist and anti communist forces.

US military intelligence failure in Vietnam War
Despite the noble objective of the US government of ensuring that the nation was not ruled under communism, it did not manage to win this particular war mainly because of its military intelligence. The failure of the US military forces to effectively employ intelligence during the period of this conflict was also a major factor that led to its defeat. In the war between Vietnamese nationalists and their colonial masters that is the French, the Vietnamese nationalists mainly engaged in open air confrontations. The United States military intelligence assumed that the communist forces of Vietnam would continue using the same tactics in the second Indochina conflict. However, to the surprise of the US, the Vietnamese forces had already changed their fighting tactics adopting guerilla warfare tactics.

The Vietnamese communist forces were aware that the US military was powerful and therefore deemed it fit to change their fighting tactics. The North Vietnamese forces could in most cases strike the US forces when they were least expected. This enhanced their effectiveness and efficiency in the war since they could first plan their attack before executing it. As a result, the Vietnamese could only suffer limited casualties in the conflict and at the same time employ fewer resources in the conflict. On the other hand, since in most cases, the US forces were mostly attacked when they least expected, they ended up suffering immensely in terms of deaths and casualties.

The failure of US military intelligence is a major factor that made the US to eventually lose the battle.