{"id":26031,"date":"2023-01-11T15:57:13","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T15:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/?p=26031"},"modified":"2023-02-02T12:09:36","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T12:09:36","slug":"vietnam-war-how-us-involvement-has-influenced-foreign-policy-decisions-over-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2023\/01\/11\/vietnam-war-how-us-involvement-has-influenced-foreign-policy-decisions-over-50-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam war: how US involvement has influenced foreign policy decisions over 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the\u00a0US withdrawal<\/a>\u00a0from Vietnam and the war still casts long shadows over American life.<\/p>\n

\"Vietnam<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The cost in lives was enormous. Over almost 20 years, more than\u00a02.7 million<\/a>\u00a0Americans served in uniform in the conflict, and around\u00a058,318<\/a>\u00a0lost their lives. Estimates of Vietnamese deaths are more than\u00a03 million<\/a>\u00a0civilians and soldiers from both sides. Thousands of US veterans suffered\u00a0from post-traumatic stress disorder<\/a>\u00a0and tried to readjust on their return home.<\/p>\n

Americans struggled to make sense of events in Vietnam. They had to come to terms with the reality that for the first time in the country\u2019s history, they had lost a war. Disturbing\u00a0televised images<\/a>\u00a0of conditions on the ground and war atrocities made them question the wisdom and the morality of US foreign policy.<\/p>\n

Vietnam had been a very different experience from the second world war. The \u201cgood war<\/a>\u201d against the fascist powers in Germany, Italy and Japan had united the country in a fight to save democracy and freedom and made it the leader of the free world. Vietnam had divided the nation and turned it into the world\u2019s bully.<\/p>\n

Soldiers returning from south-east Asia<\/a>\u00a0were received with mixed feelings: anger and hostility in some cases, but mostly indifference and a desire to forget and move on. In the decades that followed the end of the conflict, the national trauma shaped many aspects of American politics, society and culture.<\/p>\n

Vietnam syndrome<\/h3>\n

Since the end of the Vietnam war, most Americans have looked with fear at any US intervention or use of force abroad that might end up in another long and bloody stalemate. In 1973, Congress passed\u00a0the War Powers Resolution<\/a>\u00a0designed to limit the president\u2019s ability to commit forces to conflicts without congressional support. This so-called\u00a0Vietnam syndrome<\/a>, a phrase apparently coined by President Richard Nixon, has been haunting US foreign and military policy ever since.<\/p>\n