Student Question
What was Nixon's approach to the Vietnam War?
Quick answer:
Nixon's approach to the Vietnam War focused on "Vietnamization," aiming to transfer combat roles to South Vietnamese forces while gradually withdrawing American troops. He sought "Peace with Honor," ending the war but with a sense of victory. Nixon intensified military actions, including extensive bombing and expanding operations into Laos and Cambodia, and pursued aggressive diplomacy through Henry Kissinger. By 1973, he reduced American forces from 569,000 to zero, fulfilling his campaign promise.
Nixon campaigned on getting us out of the Vietnam War. He recognized the way the political winds were blowing after the Tet Offensive and capitalized on our war weariness, among other things, to win the election. Vietnamization made sense to Americans, having the Vietnamese fight a war in their own country instead of us, much as is being argued in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
He also argued Peace with Honor. That is, he wanted to end the war, but he wanted to win it as well. He fought it arguably harder than LBJ did, dropping more tons of bombs during his Presidency than LBJ and widening the war to Laos and Cambodia. He also was more aggressive diplomatically through his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
All during the time period 1969 - 1973, Nixon continually drew down American forces from 569,000 to nothing, just as he had promised.
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What was LBJ's approach to the Vietnam War?
President Johnson's approach to the war was rooted in the belief of the Domino Theory. In this paradigm, it was understood that if one nation in a particular region moved towards Communism, its neighboring nations would move in that direction. With this in mind, the stakes are the highest for any anti- Communist nation to stand up to the forces of Communism, if nothing else to show to other nations that the United States would not allow Communist infiltration of a region to pass without a credible response. Johnson's predecessor, Kennedy, had placed "military advisors" in Vietnam to counter the threat from the North. Johnson inherits this and commits himself to not "losing Vietnam." At this point, Johnson sees the issue as both the stopping of Communism and the testing of American pride. The escalation of the war continues with the increasing of "advisors," whose function is to help the South Vietnamese defend themselves against the Viet Cong/ Northern attacks. This progresses with limited bombing campaigns, "Rolling Thunder," and the increase of financial appropriations for the war, along with increasing the number of United States military personnel in the region. Seeing that this has minimal, if any, tangible effect on the will of the North, Johnson begins to send in armed forces in the forms of significant deployments, and in the process convinces the American public of the need to commit themselves to the war effort in the region. The increase in troops was enhanced by bombing of populated areas in the region, not limiting itself to strategic targets, but designed to weaken the will and resolve of the enemy. With all this in mind, Johnson continued to ensure that the United States had a presence in the region. Once the building resentment and unpopularity of the war in both casualty and perception had resulted, Johnson understood that he could no longer successfully seek another term as President and took measures to reduce the bombing for offensive effect and reserved it as use to defend the soldiers present.
Johnson had a number of approaches to the war, but I guess you could say that his main approach was to increase the number of troops in Vietnam. Troops went from a very low number to around 600,000 during his time in office.
Another thing you could say about his approach is that he was committed to keeping the war within South Vietnam. He did not try to invade the North even though that is where the real problems were centered.
Finally, you could say that an aspect of his approach was to try to kill the enemy rather than to take and hold specific pieces of territory.