Westmoreland pursued a policy of attrition, aiming to kill as many enemy troops as possible rather than trying to secure territory. Yet, the Administration and the Congress have tended to treat warfighting as a temporary aberrationas something to be delt with by supplementals or creating short-term budget categories like the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account that seem to reflect the cost of wars, but have become something of a slush fund and a mechanism for selectively avoiding the caps on defense spending set by the BCA. The Human Cost. Five years after the country's partition, the communist leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, decided to attempt to reunify Korea under his control. Papers | Costs of War The Presidents FY2017 budget request included $1,553.6 billion for contingency operations funded in the base budget. The final tables reflect the acute dependence on contractors, and show that the ratio of this dependence has increased over time. Meaning of human cost. Consequences of the war for the USA - The Vietnam War - CCEA - GCSE Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Given the costs omitted from the OCO budget, the real total cost will almost certainly be well over $2 trillion, even using OCO data as the only costs of the wars. In 1955, however, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN), often referred to during that era as South Vietnam. It illustrates just how much the cost and duration of war is changing and how critical it is to properly plan, fund, and manage wars on an extended basis. 1) It became involved in Vietnam because of the fear of the domino theory potentially happening in Vietnam. Nevertheless, there was an inevitable wave of justifications, criticisms and retributions. Despite the concerns of some of his advisers about this escalation, and about the entire war effort amid a growing anti-war movement, Johnson authorized the immediate dispatch of 100,000 troops at the end of July 1965 and another 100,000 in 1966. The arguments about the war were heated and visceral and led Americans to question one anothers morality and good faith. $66.0 billion in FY2017 total budget authority and $41.3 billion in adjusted budget authority. All Rights Reserved. Patrick Hagopian. Despite the later inclusion of the South Vietnamese and the NLF, the dialogue soon reached an impasse, and after a bitter 1968 election season marred by violence, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency. The nation spent more than $120 billion on the conflict in Vietnam from 1965-73; this massive spending led to widespread inflation, exacerbated by a worldwide oil crisis in 1973 and skyrocketing fuel prices. One of the most common defoliants used in Vietnam, Agent Orange, was later found to contain carcinogenic dioxins. This is especially true when the U.S. deploys large ground combat units, where civilians and contractors have become critical parts of the "tooth to tail" ratio. There were debates and recriminations over American involvement and a loss of faith in the US government. What does human cost mean? - Definitions.net At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China. peoples' experiences? Burns's Vietnam Episode 3 Should Have Addressed Human Costs - HuffPost . On November 15, 1969, the largest anti-war demonstration in American history took place in Washington, D.C., as over 250,000 Americans gathered peacefully, calling for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. Even before the war had ended, Richard Nixon publicly declared the end of the Truman Doctrine. The vast exodus of refugees from Indochina led to humanitarian camps being set up in Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and other Asian countries. During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. Lip service references to a "whole of government approach" thinly disguise a real-world separation of what should be a fully integrated civil-military approach, and what is really a "hole in government" approach where the State Department and USAID often seem at least partially decoupled from the realities of warfighting and the Department of Defense focuses on tactical success rather than the political, economic, or broader strategic goals in warfare. The Korean War (article) | 1950s America | Khan Academy HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. The total costs for all OCO spending between FY2001 and FY2018 will be in excess of $1,909 billion. Ironically, members of Congress are fond of criticizing the Administration for lacking a strategy. 4.3 times the IISS estimate of $145 billion for China, and 2.9 times the SIPIRI estimate of $215 billion. As many as one-quarter of these boat people as they became known are believed to have perished at sea. The subsequent treaty signed in July 1954 at a Geneva conference split Vietnam along the latitude known as the 17th Parallel (17 degrees north latitude), with Ho in control in the North and Bao in the South. This section compares current total U.S. baseline and war spending with the spending of other states. Reports of the Tet Offensive stunned the U.S. public, however, especially after news broke that Westmoreland had requested an additional 200,000 troops, despite repeated assurances that victory in the Vietnam War was imminent. ^1 1. Moreover, the Cold War may be over, but the United States still faces strategic challenges from Russia and the emergence of China as a major global power in what is already a multipolar world. What were some human costs of the Vietnam War? - Brainly.com D. It allows the reader to The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. Although North Vietnamese and Viet Cong casualty counts vary wildly, it is generally understood that they suffered several times the number of American casualties. Conservative estimates suggest the war claimed around 1.9 million Vietnamese lives, as well as the lives of 200,000 Cambodians and 100,000 Laotians. Direct link to Jeff Kelman's post "John F. Kennedy expan, Posted 2 years ago. It was 150% of the IISS estimate of $604.5 billion for 2016. The estimated death toll of Us soldiers is 58,200 soldiers and around 200k - 250k vietnam soldiers perished. An even greater number were maimed, disfigured, orphaned, displaced or forced to flee as refugees. Use the notes you completed during the lesson to write a paragraph explaining the effects of the end of World War I on the U.S. economy. When the United States technically "lost" the war, did it seem like an utter waste of time and resources? Nixon ended draft calls in 1972, and instituted an all-volunteer army the following year. The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. They will be $770.5 billion for Iraq. State/USAID did not have this option. For other Americans, opposing the government was considered unpatriotic and treasonous. Use the notes you completed during the lesson to summarize the reasons the United States aided France in Vietnam. Two decades of military intervention and bankrolling friendly regimes cost the United States almost $US170 billion (close to $1 trillion in todays terms). Further, without such an estimate, there is no credible basis for either Executive Branch or Congressional review of the budgets and plans for such wars, much less of the ability to effectively execute given strategies, and provide credible indicators of the cost effectiveness and progress of key elements of military and civil activity. With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress sole authority to issue declarations of war. was it education, the size of the family etc? You can specify conditions of storing and accessing cookies in your browser. This illustrates another critical failure in the preparation and review of both Baseline and War budgets. They are nearly 2.5 times more expensive than the Vietnam War. Vietnam Veterans Memorial | Facts, Designer, & Controversy Failing to address casualties does not defuse the issues they raise or the reality that they too are a cost of war. The Civil War: Human, Economic and Social Costs - Study.com The two countries finally resumed formal diplomatic relations in 1995. The Vietnam War (article) | 1960s America | Khan Academy The later years of the war saw increased physical and psychological deterioration among American soldiersboth volunteers and drafteesincluding drug use, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mutinies and attacks by soldiers against officers and noncommissioned officers. In 1910, Japanese armies conquered Korea and occupied it until their defeat in 1945 at the end of World War II. The two countries were divided along the 17th Parallel, also known as the Line of Demarcation. The DoD semi-annual report now focuses almost exclusively on military activity, and there is no State/USAID counterpart. Fall of Vietnam Flashcards | Quizlet Consequences of the war for Vietnam - The Vietnam War - CCEA - GCSE Political turbulence there and two alleged North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. naval vessels spurred Johnson to demand the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. Per capita GDP as of 2013 was $2,073, with an unemployment rate of just 2.1% and a poverty rate of 13.5%. Three alternative cost estimates are also summarized in this section. The American death toll in Vietnam is dwarfed by the devastating losses suffered by local people. On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive (named for the lunar new year), a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. Overview The Vietnam War was a prolonged military conflict that started as an anticolonial war against the French and evolved into a Cold War confrontation between international communism and free-market democracy. It also led to political reluctance to deploy the needed numbers of personnel except on a "creeping incremental" basis and after serious problems emerged in host country capabilitiesextending the length as well as the cost of the war. Estimated interest costs by 2050: Up to $6.5 trillion. Among other countries that fought for South Vietnam on a smaller scale, South Korea suffered more than 4,000 dead, Thailand about 350, Australia more than 500, and New Zealand some three dozen. Total personnel are another key measure of the cost of war, particularly when high-cost all-volunteer forces are involved, and casualties are a key political consideration. The defeat in Vietnam, they argued, was a betrayal of the US military by civilian politicians. Seeing an opportunity to seize control, Hos Viet Minh forces immediately rose up, taking over the northern city of Hanoi and declaring a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with Ho as president. Confidence in the Domino Theory was undermined, if not destroyed. Vietnam War, (195475), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. If the vietnam war was about the north spreading communism articles say that vietnam battled america instead of saying that the south battled the north alongside america , so is it saying that america fought the whole vietnam gov. The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. It gives the Greeks a Inscribed on the black granite walls are the names of more than 58,000 men and women who gave their lives or remain missing. With training and equipment from American military and the CIA, Diems security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in the south, whom he derisively called Viet Cong (or Vietnamese Communist), arresting some 100,000 people, many of whom were brutally tortured and executed. Information and translations of human cost in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on the web. or is it saying that the south fought the north with america or did america never ally with the south of vietnam? If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. The Korean peninsula off the east cost of Asia has had a long history of foreign invaders. By 1969 more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam. Why did the United States become involved in Vietnam? The Human Cost | Outrider Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The United States has been actively in combat since late 2001, and there is little prospect that it can end the need to use force to check terrorism and violent extremism within the next decade. During the course of the conflict . Families had to fight to survive Hope this helps :) Post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans The deaths of over a million communist soldiers Advertisement Agent Orange not only effected Vietcong but also US Infantry so that was more horrid than anything I could think of of. Throughout both conflicts, reporting has focused on total personnel rather than on the function and capability of the personnel engaged. Direct link to Kim Kutz Elliott's post All American men had to r, Posted 2 years ago. impossible challenge for the The costs of the Vietnam War Any full costing of America's wars needs to include these costs. Many were unfairly harassed and abused by anti-war protestors. "John F. Kennedy expanded US support for the South Vietnamese government, including an increase in US military advisers, the doubling of military assistance, and authorization of the use of napalm, herbicides, and defoliants". Even today, there are an estimated five million pieces of unexploded ordnance still scattered around Vietnam. Vietnam veterans in the US, Australia and other countries have suffered from increased rates of cancers and birth defects in their offspring. military knowledge. It also presents some key metrics developed by SIGAR on the annual and cumulative costs of U.S. aid efforts in Afghanistan. With his approval ratings dropping in an election year, Johnson called a halt to bombing in much of North Vietnam (though bombings continued in the south) and promised to dedicate the rest of his term to seeking peace rather than reelection. He fully subscribed to the domino theory and to the containment strategy, and also feared appearing weak in the eyes of his domestic political opponents. The fighting ability of pro-Hanoi forces in the South had been badly wounded in . Vietnam War Facts, Definition, Costs and Timeline - The Balance Reporting by the Executive Branch seems almost designed to obscure the real costs of conflict, and avoid linking them to an examination of strategy, its effectiveness, and the prospects for conflict termination. Vietnam Facts, History, and Profile - ThoughtCo He died of cancer at 44. Vietnam was the first significant military defeat in US history and would shape American foreign policy for several years. Posted 7 years ago. The U.S. bombings made Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world. These chemicals also had an insidious impact on both Vietnamese civilians and American soldiers and their allies. By 2014, almost 100,000 veterans had taken their own lives. Between three million and five million people were also disabled, disfigured or seriously wounded. Other charts summarize work by Todd Harrison of CSIS showing the extent to which non-OCO expenditures became included in the OCO budget accounts. More than 10 times the military expenditures of the three leading NATO European states: France. The anti-war movement, which was particularly strong on college campuses, divided Americans bitterly. Johnson raised the number of South Vietnam deployments to 23,000 U.S. soldiers by the end of his first year in office. Map showing the division between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Though the majority of Vietnam veterans returned home without serious problems, a large number found the readjustment to civilian life difficult. or did they just enlist and were picked randomly? By Ward Wilson. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in the north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist countries, while the United States and its anticommunist allies backed the Republic of Vietnam (ROV) in the south. reason to finally surrender The invasion of these countries, in violation of international law, sparked a new wave of protests on college campuses across America. The Congress, however, can be criticized for failing to insist on adequate reporting of wartime budgets and examining their costs in detail. In that respect, it failed: the two Vietnams were united under a communist banner in July 1976. Vietnam Veterans Memorial, also called The Wall, national monument in Washington, D.C., honouring members of the U.S. armed forces who served and died in the Vietnam War (1955-75). Feeding, supplying and paying the armies and navies was, by far, the largest expenditure of the war. The Wall - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund But while Ho and his supporters wanted a nation modeled after other communist countries, Bao and many others wanted a Vietnam with close economic and cultural ties to the West. By the end of June 1972, however, after a failed offensive into South Vietnam, Hanoi was finally willing to compromise. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization: withdrawing U.S. troops, increasing aerial and artillery bombardment and giving the South Vietnamese the training and weapons needed to effectively control the ground war. If one counts the Cold War, the United States has been at war for virtually every year since 1941. There were a number of long-term and short-term reasons to explain why the USA became involved in Vietnam in the late 1950s. President Lyndon Johnson dramatically escalated US involvement in the conflict, authorizing a series of intense bombing campaigns and committing hundreds of thousands of US ground troops to the fight. An estimated 18 million gallons of defoliants, bearing codenames like Agent Blue and Agent Orange, were dropped by US planes over the course of the Vietnam War. The Costs Don't. Amount Bilmes estimates the United States will pay in health care, disability, burial and other costs for . by Anthony H. Cordesman. Congress soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson broad war-making powers, and U.S. planes began regular bombing raids, codenamed Operation Rolling Thunder, the following year. They all reflect a common pattern of erratic funding and slow reaction to the return of the Taliban. A related estimate by the Watson Institute puts the cost at $4.8 trillion through FY2016. Data on cost per solider warn that efforts to minimize personnel may have sharply raised cost per soldier deployed, creating major diseconomies of scale. By 1962, the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam had reached some 9,000 troops, compared with fewer than 800 during the 1950s. Reasons for US involvement in Vietnam - The Vietnam War - National 5 Since 1941 Congress has declared war only six times, all during World War II. Both sides wanted the same thing: a unified Vietnam. Some war fighting and support costs are not included in the OCO request. Updated: March 28, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009. He was in Vietnam when he was 20 years old. When a draft took place, it randomly selected men between the ages of 18 to 25. Furthermore, domestic unrest and the financial cost of war made peaceand troop withdrawalsa necessity, not a choice. The Afghan and Iraq/Syria wars are more than five times more expensive than World War I. By 1957, the Viet Cong and other opponents of Diems repressive regime began fighting back with attacks on government officials and other targets, and by 1959 they had begun engaging the South Vietnamese army in firefights. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued the work that Kennedy had started. Vietnam War | Facts, Summary, Years, Timeline, Casualties - Britannica Direct link to Bill Vu's post If the vietnam war was ab, Posted 7 years ago. Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Steve Thompson A team sent by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to report on conditions in South Vietnam advised a build-up of American military, economic and technical aid in order to help Diem confront the Viet Cong threat. What effect did Nixon's promise to unify the nation and restore law and order have on his . Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives drafted a peace agreement by early fall, but leaders in Saigon rejected it, and in December Nixon authorized a number of bombing raids against targets in Hanoi and Haiphong. Were they correct? Sign up to receive The Evening, a daily brief on the news, events, and people shaping the world of international affairs. For some young people, the war symbolized a form of unchecked authority they had come to resent. Known as the Christmas Bombings, the raids drew international condemnation. Many returning veterans faced negative reactions from both opponents of the war (who viewed them as having killed innocent civilians) and its supporters (who saw them as having lost the war), along with physical damage including the effects of exposure to the toxic herbicide Agent Orange, millions of gallons of which had been dumped by U.S. planes on the dense forests of Vietnam. Do you mean which of those statements is accurate on the death toll of both sides? Vietnam War - Digital History Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The functional break out of the cost by theaterIraq and Syriahelps provide a clear picture of mission focus and allocation of resources. The memorial, located near the western end of the Mall, is a black granite V-shaped wall inscribed with the names of the approximately 58,000 men and women who were killed or missing in action. Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the home front turned against the war as well: In October 1967, some 35,000 demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon. I can only speak for myself. Heavy bombing by B-52 aircraft or shelling made these zones uninhabitable, as refugees poured into camps in designated safe areas near Saigon and other cities. These issues are discussed in more detail later in this study. These boats were manned by fishermen unfamiliar with navigating the open sea and some even left without a specific destination in mind. Why are first-hand accounts important? The government most likely knew about these dangers. The program budgeting and integrated force planning efforts pioneered towards the end of the Eisenhower Administrationand put into practice in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrationshave decayed into hollow shells. The United States entered Vietnam with the principal purpose of preventing a communist takeover of the region. How come there was a "Vietnam Syndrome", but it would appear as if there hasn't been any sort of "Middle East" Syndrome" (large scale mass resistance to government foreign interventions) related to all of the United States' involvement in conflicts in Iraq/Afghanistan etc.? There are, however, several problems with current projections of FY2018 and beyond. One caveat to this, however, was that men who were in college could be excused from the draft. an estimated 25,000 American servicemen and 757,143 Vietnamese dead about 200,000 American servicemen and an estimated 4 million Vietnamese dead 58,000 American servicemen and an estimated 1.5 million Vietnamese dead 58,000 American servicemen and an estimated 250,000 Vietnamese dead have empathy for the These debates led to a revisiting of Americas Cold War leadership. These were not linked to progress in stability operations and creating effective host country forces. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. The termination of SIGIR after U.S. combat forces initially left Iraq in 2011 has meant that there is now no official regular public reporting on this war. They make a striking contrast to the total OCO costs. The human cost of war is perhaps the most critical single metric of warfighting. Direct link to Sean Rim/Dog's post Agent Orange not only eff, Posted 5 months ago. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use. That is simply how they viewed the war from their perspective. Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century. Why is it important to tell our stories? What does human cost mean? The figures of U.S.. I've read that the Vietnam War is referred to as the 'American War' (in full, War Against the Americans to Save the Nation) in Vietnam. During the Vietnam War's official duration (4 August 1964-27 January 1973), 1,631 Sailors and 13,095 Marines were killed in action; 4,178 and 51,392 respectively were wounded. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Or would he have gone in a quote better direction based upon how he handled other things as president? This has been grossly unrealistic since the late 1930s. The Vietnam War had a huge cost in human lives. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. The United States defeat in Vietnam led to a period of despondency in America. All Rights Reserved. It granted him broad latitude in handling the struggle against communism in Southeast Asia. Everyone had made mistakes, in any situation I don't think it could've gone "better". The American soldiers who returned as veterans of the Vietnam War faced their own personal challenges. It was the last major event of the Vietnam War. All American men had to register for the draft at age 18. It establishes a seemingly About us; Stories and Resources . The Human Cost - NHHC