Why did America go to war in Vietnam?

Answer 1

America has fought frequent wars but is it neccesary? No we should not go to war. When we go to war the economy is sometimes affected. When we go to war alot of lives are affected from the people who died. Also alot of inoccent people from the country we are fighting against might be lost causing more drama.

Answer 2

To contain the spread of Communism into Southeast Asia. This was called the "domino effect" that would have weakened US influence in the Pacific. The USSR was providing arms to North Vietnam.

The pretext for directly using US forces was a provocation in the Gulf of Tonkin where the destroyer USS Maddox was attacked by by North Vietnamese patrol boats. President Lyndon Johnson supported the Tonkin Gulf Resolution by Congress and began to commit US air and ground forces to fight in South Vietnam.

Answer 3

That depends of course on what you would call a 'good' reason. But the official policy of the USA concerning Communism had long been the one first formulated by President Truman in the '40s and known as the Containment Policy, conceived as a reaction to Communist takeovers in China, North Korea, and several east-European countries. Basically the policy dictated that the Communists should be "contained" within the areas that they now had and that any effort on their part to expand their influence further would (literally) be repulsed by the USA and its allies, which is why the Korean War was fought.

Basically, the efforts of Communist North Vietnam to take over South Vietnam were seen as the mirror image of what a few years earlier had happened in Korea. and the USA was fully confident that the Communists could be "contained" here as well. First they did this by arming and supporting the South Vietnamese army. When it turned out that the South Vietnamese army was not up to the job, US Military "advisers" first grew in numbers and when that was not enough, US army units were flown in.

So, whether for "good" reasons or not, the USA was only acting according to its own official and, at the time, widely supported policy of containment.

It was during this time that a second policy emerged, called the "Domino Theory": If one Asian country fell to the Communists, others would surely follow. As it turned out, that theory was wrong.

Answer 4

the us sent troops to prevent the south vietnameese government collapsing, but their goal failed

To stop communist aggression.

Answer 5

To stop Communist incursion from North Vietnam