American Raises the Stakes in Vietnam 1961-63, Essay Example

The VietMinh, after soundly defeating the French, who lost some 90,000 soldiers during the war of 1964-1954, ended up with only half their country as a result of the Geneva Accords.  This was due to the United States’ policy of containment towards communism, they wished to create a non-communist state that would stem the advancement of communism into the rest of Southeast Asia.  In order to circumvent the restrictions placed upon them by the Geneva Accords, and to get around the objections by the French, the Unites States used the 17^th parallel as a point to create an unofficial Vietnamese state that could be used in order to further their own ends.

The forces that were in play that drove international leaders to deal with the Vietnam issue that caused the partition of Vietnam included not only the cold war and fear of communist expansion, but also the political agenda of furthering and strengthening democratic institutions throughout the world.  The idea of the “Domino Effect”, or the spreading of communism throughout the world from one country to another, played a major role in U.S. policy during this time.  The fear of the spread of communism was based on the split in ideologies between the eastern and western world, and due to the fact that the USSR adopted a policy of expanding warfare to the third world, as it saw this as the future of conflict.  Due to the fact that there were restrictions in place upon Imperialism, the U.S. and its allies had to adopt a policy of creating a sort of shadow state, which essentially split the country of Vietnam in two.  The struggle of the world’s countries against imperialism became a way for the U.S. and USSR to compete without the threat of nuclear war.

Whether anyone really expected a free election to take place let alone take place successfully in 1956 as provided by the Accords of 1954 is up for debate.  It is probable that many people hoped for the free elections to be successful.  Diem himself became disillusioned after finding out that the elected government would still be so tightly controlled by the French.  This seemed to indicate that there was some hope among people that the elections would be successful.  However, it seems that the larger countries may have believed that the elections would fail, by having helped to craft the words of the convention itself.

What is important for us today when involved in tense negotiations both from our national perspective and on an individual level are both the cultural and political aspects of the country that we are involved in negotiations with.  One of the biggest issues of the conflict involved the inability for the policy makers to make a distinction between the ideologies of Vietnam and China among other Southeast Asian countries.  Fear of the spread of communism effected the policies that were implemented in the area.  Furthermore, a more in depth understanding of the culture of Vietnam would have helped those in negotiations to make more informed decisions.

Given the failure of diplomatic agreements to settle the Vietnam conflict, that is, the Geneva Accords of 1954 and the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, the circumstances and conditions under which negotiated settlements to international disputes are likely to succeed or fail are determined by not only the ability of the framers of the settlements to understand those whose disputes they’re trying to settle, but for them to be actually dedicated to settling the disputes, and not have an alternative motive, such as stemming the tide of communism..

The concept of a “revolution of rising expectations,” may be applied to the success of the Vietminh in establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and to the failure of the Saigon regime of South Vietnam in the sense that those who created the northern country had more of a vested interest than those in the south.  The idea that expectations can be raised is difficult in a country that had been set up by a foreign power.

References

Guan, Ang Chen (2008). The Cold War Years. Indochina

Zenthofer, Andreas (2011). Revolution of Rising Expectations. Tilburg University.