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    The Vietnam War was an extremely complex conflict for the United States that differed from previous wars. For most of the early 20th century, Vietnam was of little importance to the US. American views of Vietnam were often prejudiced and based on ideas of Western superiority. During the First Indochina War, US media and policy focused on France's perspective with little attention to Vietnam or South Vietnam. After 1949, when China became communist, the US saw Vietnam through the lens of the Cold War and feared its communism could spread. From 1954-1961, US policy focused on South Vietnam and its leader Ngo Dinh Diem, and the refugee crisis from the Geneva Accords, but shifted to also focus on threats in neighboring Laos

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    The Vietnam War was an extremely complex conflict for the United States that differed from previous wars. For most of the early 20th century, Vietnam was of little importance to the US. American views of Vietnam were often prejudiced and based on ideas of Western superiority. During the First Indochina War, US media and policy focused on France's perspective with little attention to Vietnam or South Vietnam. After 1949, when China became communist, the US saw Vietnam through the lens of the Cold War and feared its communism could spread. From 1954-1961, US policy focused on South Vietnam and its leader Ngo Dinh Diem, and the refugee crisis from the Geneva Accords, but shifted to also focus on threats in neighboring Laos

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    The Vietnam War was an extremely complex conflict for the United States that differed from previous wars. For most of the early 20th century, Vietnam was of little importance to the US. American views of Vietnam were often prejudiced and based on ideas of Western superiority. During the First Indochina War, US media and policy focused on France's perspective with little attention to Vietnam or South Vietnam. After 1949, when China became communist, the US saw Vietnam through the lens of the Cold War and feared its communism could spread. From 1954-1961, US policy focused on South Vietnam and its leader Ngo Dinh Diem, and the refugee crisis from the Geneva Accords, but shifted to also focus on threats in neighboring Laos

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    68 views1 page

    Essay

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    rxgv
    The Vietnam War was an extremely complex conflict for the United States that differed from previous wars. For most of the early 20th century, Vietnam was of little importance to the US. American views of Vietnam were often prejudiced and based on ideas of Western superiority. During the First Indochina War, US media and policy focused on France's perspective with little attention to Vietnam or South Vietnam. After 1949, when China became communist, the US saw Vietnam through the lens of the Cold War and feared its communism could spread. From 1954-1961, US policy focused on South Vietnam and its leader Ngo Dinh Diem, and the refugee crisis from the Geneva Accords, but shifted to also focus on threats in neighboring Laos

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    The dynamics of the Vietnam War make it one of the most complex wars ever fought by

    the United States. Every element of the war was saturated with complexities beyond
    the previous conceptions of war. From the critical perspective, for the first half
    of the twentieth century, Vietnam was of little strategic importance to the United
    States and, even “after World War II, Vietnam was a very small blip on a very large
    American radar screen” (Herring, 14). The U.S. knew very little about Vietnam
    outside of its rice production until the French colonized the country. Even after
    France’s colonization of Vietnam, a great deal of America’s perspective and the
    media’s perspective of Vietnam was “devoid of expertise and based on racial
    prejudices and stereotypes that reflected deep-seated convictions about the
    superiority of Western culture. In U.S. eyes, the Vietnamese were a passive and
    uninformed people, totally unready for self government” (Herring, 13). A survey of
    New York Times articles published during the First Indochina War revealed that the
    U.S. foreign policy analysis, media and public overwhelmingly concentrated on the
    French perspective of the conflict. Little attention was given to the Vietminh
    perspective or to the perspective of the French backed government of South Vietnam.
    This viewpoint continued until 1949 when China’s civil war ended and the Communist
    took control of China. Shortly after taking control Mao Zedong, the Communist
    leader acknowledged the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and the Soviet Union
    quickly followed suit. After that, the U.S. media placed a greater emphasis on
    Cold War rhetoric when dealing with Vietnam. As noted, the Cold War mindset
    permeated much of American culture during this time period; “it was an age of
    ideological consensus, and this was true above all in foreign policy” (Hallin, 50).
    At the conclusion of the First Indochina War, the U.S. foreign policy, public and
    media considered Vietnam as a nation that could spread Communism in Southeast Asia.
    The focus of the United States foreign policy from 1954 to 1957 looked mainly at
    the internal affairs of South Vietnam and at Ngo Dinh Diem, and to a smaller degree
    at the Refugee Crisis after the Geneva Accords. From 1957-1961 the U.S. attention
    shifted heavily on Vietnam’s fate in relation to the turmoil in Laos and Cambodi as
    well as to the Soviet threat. This perception dominated the public opinion, media
    and U.S. foreign policy well into President John F. Kennedy’s Administration.

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