The direct military intervention of the United States in the Vietnamese civil war began in the late 50’s. This was preceded by an eight-year armed conflict on the territory of Vietnam, during which France tried to maintain its colonial rule lost in the Second World War.
As early as 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared the creation of an independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam. As a result, by 1954 the country was divided into two parts: North Vietnam under the leadership of Vietnam, the League for the Independence of Vietnam, and South Vietnam, in which France planted a monarchical regime led by Emperor Bao Dai.
The American administration considered the situation in Vietnam in the context of the expansion of Soviet ideology in the Asian region. After the establishment of the communist regime in China and North Korea, Washington was determined not to allow such a development of events for South-East Asia. Not seeing the prospects for further warfare, the French left Vietnam, and the Americans came to replace them. First – at the level of political and military advisers, financial assistance to the South Vietnamese administration, subsequently – “people and weapons”.
American methods of introducing freedom and democracy into local realities were not original: the Prime Minister of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Szem, relied on the support of the United States, removed the emperor from power, proclaimed himself president and imposed a personal dictatorship regime. By 1963, the Americans ceased to arrange Szem: a number of South Vietnamese generals in agreement with US representatives made a military coup, the president and his relatives were killed. However, the military junta that came to power proved to be unstable, and for quite some time the power in South Vietnam changed force every few months.
Against this background, in 1960 all groups opposing the colonial authorities united in the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Vietcong), which, receiving support from the northern part of the country, began guerrilla warfare against the interventionists and their proteges.
By 1964 – the time of official military intervention – in South Vietnam there was already more than 20 thousand American contingent. US servicemen were in a very unpleasant situation: they were forced to defend the extremely unstable and unpopular South Vietnamese power against a background of large-scale resistance. And despite the fact that at the peak of the conflict, the American contingent reached half a million people, the US troops did not manage to establish full control over any significant territory – the guerrilla war was everywhere.
The discrepancy between the slogans about the protection of freedom and democracy to the real political content of the pro-American authorities of South Vietnam had an extremely negative impact on the moral make-up of the American army. Here is only a small section of this problem – from the book of Lieutenant-General of the US Army Philip B. Davidson, who served in Vietnam as the head of the Intelligence Department of the US Command Headquarters:
“Cases of desertion and withdrawal to “wolf ” have become more frequent. The number of servicemen who used drugs was constantly growing. In 1970, there were 65,000 of them in Vietnam (out of a 300,000-strong grouping by the 1970s) … Attacks on commanders began to occur three times more often in 1970 than in 1969 … All available to the military leadership statistics, plus the appearance of bearded and dirty soldiers performing their duties as if from a stick, urged the senior and senior officers in 1970 that it was a matter of losing the military discipline and the collapse of the military contingent. “