Download 10.9 Lecture – Wars in Korea and Vietnam

10.9 Lecture – Wars in
Korea and Vietnam
I. West Versus East in Europe and Korea
A. The Soviet Union sought to prevent the reappearance of hostile
regimes on its borders.
1. The Soviet Union seemed willing to accept government
in neighboring states that included a mix of parities as
long as they were not hostile to local communist groups
or to the Soviets.
2. Western leaders saw the rapid emergence of
communist regimes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Albania as a threat.
a. It took two years for the United States to shift
from viewing the Soviet Union as an ally against
Germany to seeing it as a worldwide enemy.
B. A more explosive crisis erupted in Korea, where the Second World War
had left Soviet troops in control north of the thirty-eighth parallel and
American troops in control to the south.
1. When no agreement could be reached on holding countrywide
elections, communist North Korea and noncommunist South
Korea became independent states in 1948.
2. Two years later North Korea invades South Korea.
a. The United Nations Security Council, in the absence of
the Soviet delegation, voted to condemn the invasion
and called on members of the United Nations to come to
the defense of South Korea.
3. The ensuing Korean War lasted until 1953.
a. The United States was the primary ally of South Korea.
b. The People’s Republic of China supported North Korea.
4. The conflict in Korea remained limited to the Korean peninsula
because the United States feared that launched attacks into China
might prompt China’s ally, the Soviet Union, to retaliate, beginning
the dreaded third world war.
a. China sent troops across the border, and the North
Koreans and Chinese pushed the American and South
Koreans back.
1. The fighting then settled into a static war in the
mountains along the thirty-eighth parallel.
2. The two sides eventually agreed to a truce along
that line; but the cease-fire lines remained fortified,
and no peace treaty was concluded.
5. The possibility of renewed warfare between the two Koreas
continued well past the end of the Cold War and remains a
disturbing possibility today.
C. The Korean War In Depth
1. Soviets armed the North in hopes to take over the South
because it was believed that the Americans would not defend
South Korea.
2. Standoff at the 38th Parallel
a. June 25, 1950 North Korea crossed the 38th parallel
for a surprise attack on South Korea.
b. South Korea asked the United Nations to intervene
1. Troops were sent in under the command of
Douglas MacArthur with the support of 15 nations
including the United States and Britain.
3. By 1950 the North controlled the entire Korean peninsula
except for a tiny area around Pusan in the far southeast.
4. Surprise attack was executed by MacArthur resulting in the
capture of North Koreans and the retreat of many more.
5. Fighting Continues
a. UN forces pushed into North Korea further north to the
point where China was feeling threatened.
b. January 1951 China gets involved and pushes the
South Koreans out of North Korea.
c. China was now allied with North Korea.
d. July 1953 UN forces and North Korea signed a ceasefire agreement.
1. 4 million soldiers and civilians had died.
6. Aftermath of the War
a. Demilitarized zone was created, still existing today
separating the two countries.
b. North Korea was led by dictator Kim II Sung
1. Established collective farms, heavy industry,
and built up the military.
2. Developed economic problems
3. Serious economic problems.
c. South Korea prospered due to help and aid from the
United States and other countries.
1. Developed industry and expanded foreign
trade
2. 1987 adopted a democratic constitution and
free elections.
d. With the threat of North Korea and their nuclear
weapons, the countries have stayed divided.
II. United States Defeat in Vietnam
A. The most important postwar communist movement arose in
the part of Southeast Asia known as French Indochina.
1. The goal was to stop the spread of Communism due to
the actions of the Cold War according to the Western
Democracies.
B. Southeast Asia was a resource rich area controlled by the
French.
1. The development of nationalist independent
movements began.
2. Ho Chi Minh
a. Spent several years in France during World War
I.
b. He helped form the Communist Party in France
c. In 1930, after training in Moscow, he returned
to Vietnam to found the Indochina Communist
Party.
1. He and his supporters took refuge in
China during World War II.
3. At war’s end the new French government was determined to
keep its prewar colonial possessions.
a. Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist coalition, then called the Viet
Minh, fought the French with help from the People’s
Republic of China.
b. After a brutal struggle, the French stronghold of
Dienbienphu fell in 1954, marking the end of France’s
colonial enterprise.
c. Ho’s Viet Minh government took over in the north, and a
noncommunist nationalist government ruled the south.
4. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his foreign policy advisers
debated long and hard about whether to aid France militarily
during the battle for Dienbienphu.
a. They decided not to prop up French colonial rule in
Vietnam, perceiving that the European colonial empires
were doomed.
b. After winning independence, communist North
Vietnam eventually supported a communist guerrilla
movement – the Viet Cong – against the noncommunist
government of South Vietnam.
c. President Eisenhower declared Vietnam as a threat
using the term domino theory.
1. The Southeast Asian nations were like a row of
dominos: the fall of one to communism would
lead to the fall of its neighbors.
2. Their theory became a major justification for
US foreign policy during the Cold War.
C. Vietnam – a divided country
1. Divided at 17 degrees north latitude
2. President John F. Kennedy and his advisers decided to support
the South Vietnamese government of President Ngo Dinh Diem.
a. Diem’s government was corrupt and unpopular.
b. It was feared that a communist victory would
encourage communist movements throughout Southeast
Asian and alter the Cold War balance of power.
c. Kennedy steadily increased the number of American
military advisers from 685 to almost 16,000, while
secretly encouraging the overthrow of Diem.
1. Viet Cong developed in South Vietnam due to
the dislike of Diem.
2. Diem was assassinated.
D. The United States Involvement
1. Lyndon Johnson, who became President, after Kennedy was
assassinated, obtained support from Congress for unlimited
expansion of US military deployment after an apparent North
Vietnamese attack on two US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
a. 1965 185,000 US soldiers were in combat
b. 1968 more than half a million US soldiers were
present.
c. Two difficulties were present for the US
1. US soldiers were fighting a guerrilla war in
unfamiliar jungle terrain.
2. The South Vietnamese government that they
were defending was becoming more unpopular.
d. US failed in ground warfare so they turned to fighting
from the air.
1. US forces bombed millions of acres of
farmland and forest in an attempt to destroy
enemy hideouts.
e. Pushed the South Vietnamese to hate the US and
desire communism more.
2. The US Withdrawals
a. The war grew increasingly unpopular in the United
States.
b. Dissatisfied young people began to protest the
tremendous loss of life in a conflict on the other side of
the world.
c. Due to pressure in the US Nixon started pulling troops
in 1969.
d. Vietnamization occurred which was the slow
withdrawal of US troops.
e. Two years later North Vietnam overran the south and
took it over.
f. 1.5 million Vietnamese were dead and 58,000
American lives were lost.
E. Postwar Southeast Asia
1. Cambodia suffered during the war from attacks due to the
North Vietnamese hiding out.
2. Turmoil
a. Pol Pot developed communist rule called the Khmer
Rouge.
1. Very brutal
b. Pol Pot’s followers slaughtered 2 million people to
bring in Communist rule.
1. 1 quarter of the nation’s population
c. Vietnamese came into support Cambodia and threw
out Pol Pot’s regime.
d. 1993 Cambodia adopted a democratic constitution and
help free elections.
3. Vietnam After War
a. Strict rules and regulations introduced into the South.
1. Many were sent to reeducation camps to learn
and accept communism.
b. Former capital called Saigon, now named Ho Chi Minh
City.
c. 1.5 million fled the country and many died in their
escape.
1. Many of the refugees relocated in the US and
Canada.
d. Today Vietnam welcomes foreign investment.
e. US normalized relations with Vietnam in 1995.