what summarizes the human cost of the vietnam war?

It was the last major event of the Vietnam War. Updates? Updated: March 28, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009. United States Budgetary Costs and Human Costs of 20 Years of War in Iraq and Syria, 2003-2023. Johnson was motivated by both domestic political and international balance of power considerations. Vietnam War, (1954-75), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. It doesn't take a war for nuclear weapons to hurt people. It gives the Greeks a Reporting on the civil dimensions of war is often lacking, and the civil and military budgets of war are developed and implemented separately by the departments and then reviewed (if at all) by separate Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees in each house and by separate elements in the appropriations committees. Those who argue that the United States opponents won the war cite the United States overall objectives and outcomes. : Assessing Chinas April 2023 Military Exercises Against Taiwan, ROK President State Visit to Washington: The Capital Cable #69, The Future of U.S. Natural Gas: A Conversation with Charif Souki, Download PDF file of "U.S. Military Spending: The Cost of Wars", Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, Diversity and Leadership in International Affairs Project, Energy Security and Climate Change Program, As is discussed in several parts of this report, work by Amy Belasco of the CRS has provided two reports that attempted to cost America's wars. an estimated 25,000 American servicemen and 757,143 Vietnamese dead. America was deeply affected by these heavy losses and struggled to understand the meaning, significance and lessons of the Vietnam War. War protesters: it costs too much money, social problems at home, it's not our war, it can't be won, begins WWII against China and Russia, we should not be the 'police power' around the world. or is it saying that the south fought the north with america or did america never ally with the south of vietnam? The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., lists more than 58,300 names of members of the U.S. armed forces who were killed or went missing in action. Vietnam Veterans Memorial, also called The Wall, national monument in Washington, D.C., honouring members of the U.S. armed forces who served and died in the Vietnam War (1955-75). 834 E. Washington Ave., Suite 333 Madison, WI 53703, . The estimated death toll of Us soldiers is 58,200 soldiers and around 200k - 250k vietnam soldiers perished. The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. Though the issue remains contentious, these increased rates have been linked to their exposure to Agent Orange. In December 1960, Diems many opponents within South Vietnamboth communist and non-communistformed the National Liberation Front (NLF) to organize resistance to the regime. Center for Strategic and International Studies Question 1: "did it seem like an utter waste of time and resources?" Some war fighting and support costs are not included in the OCO request. During one, on May 4, 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, National Guardsmen shot and killed four students. The data for FY2018 show that the civil effort is being slashed without any explanation or justification of the cutsparticularly in key areas like economic growthwhere poverty is now steadily increasing and both sets of populations face major humanitarian crisesand in governance, where all of the host country governments are ranked as some of the most corrupt and incapable governments in the world and a lack of popular support is a key issue. In that respect, it failed: the two Vietnams were united under a communist banner in July 1976. Nixon and Johnson's thoughts on protesters thought they were communists, dangerous, too radical - encouraged the FBI to investigate the movement The invasion of these countries, in violation of international law, sparked a new wave of protests on college campuses across America. Military history is often the history of force quality defeating force quantity, and strategies and dollar spending need to be validated by explaining the role and function of deployed personnel. The Allies promised Vietnam freedom from French enslavement if they would help fight the Japanese. those where some times helped by the VC but the VC attacked ares around the mekondelta and around the borders of laos and cambodia. Nixon ended draft calls in 1972, and instituted an all-volunteer army the following year. By 1957, the Viet Cong and other opponents of Diems repressive regime began fighting back with attacks on government officials and other targets, and by 1959 they had begun engaging the South Vietnamese army in firefights. URL: https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/costs-of-the-vietnam-war/ If one uses CBO estimates, the burden on the economy moved from 5% of GDP in the 1980s to a low of 2.8% in FY1998. The program budgeting and integrated force planning efforts pioneered towards the end of the Eisenhower Administrationand put into practice in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrationshave decayed into hollow shells. Citation information In March 1965, Johnson made the decisionwith solid support from the American publicto send U.S. combat forces into battle in Vietnam. The United States however, is fighting what are civil-military wars where the "hold," "stability," and "recovery and development" effort is critical to winning popular support. Did you know? Fearful that the war would jeopardize his domestic agenda, Johnson concealed the extent of the military escalation from the American public. Corrections? Posted 7 years ago. These debates led to a revisiting of Americas Cold War leadership. Known as the Christmas Bombings, the raids drew international condemnation. Only limited break outs of these key data are provided by war. The treaty also called for nationwide elections for reunification to be held in 1956. About us; Stories and Resources . By June, 82,000 combat troops were stationed in Vietnam, and military leaders were calling for 175,000 more by the end of 1965 to shore up the struggling South Vietnamese army. The Afghan and Iraq/Syria wars are more than five times more expensive than World War I. NARA Resources Core Collections on the Vietnam War From the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, "This guide summarizes core holdings on: the war in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos especially during the Nixon and Ford administrations; the flight of refugees from Indochina after April 1975 and the admittance of many to the United States; the accounting of U.S. armed forces MIAs and Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued the work that Kennedy had started. Estimates of the number of people killed in Indochina range from two and a half million to more than four million. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died. Direct link to armor.pro57's post When the United States te, Posted 2 years ago. Many refugees fled Indochina in overcrowded boats, usually converted fishing boats, poorly maintained and unsuited to the open ocean. The Congress, however, can be criticized for failing to insist on adequate reporting of wartime budgets and examining their costs in detail. The French loss at the battle ended almost a century of French colonial rule in Indochina. The later years of the war saw increased physical and psychological deterioration among American soldiersboth volunteers and drafteesincluding drug use, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mutinies and attacks by soldiers against officers and noncommissioned officers. This caused a refugee crisis and thousands of deaths at sea, forcing Western nations to accept large numbers of refugees. A team sent by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to report on conditions in South Vietnam advised a build-up of American military, economic and technical aid in order to help Diem confront the Viet Cong threat. Jack Smith, a psychologist who had served as a Marine in Vietnam, said that everyone blamed everyone else for what had gone wrong: Military men blame policymakers, right-wingers blame the pinkos and the media and protestors, the left blame the right. In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was unveiled in Washington, D.C. On it were inscribed the names of 57,939 American men and women killed or missing in the war; later additions brought that total to 58,200. The end result in both countries was a resurgence in threat capabilities that forced the U.S. to redeploygreatly increasing the marginal cost of the war. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The ensuing political instability in South Vietnam persuaded Kennedys successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to further increase U.S. military and economic support. was it education, the size of the family etc? South Vietnam was a viable nation-state by 1972, afflicted by internal armed opposition but not overwhelmed by it. If one counts the Cold War, the United States has been at war for virtually every year since 1941. The United States has been actively in combat since late 2001, and there is little prospect that it can end the need to use force to check terrorism and violent extremism within the next decade. According to a survey by the Veterans Administration, some 500,000 of the 3 million troops who served in Vietnam suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and rates of divorce, suicide, alcoholism and drug addiction were markedly higher among veterans. For some young people, the war symbolized a form of unchecked authority they had come to resent. Inscribed on the black granite walls are the names of more than 58,000 men and women who gave their lives or remain missing. The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. The Memorial is dedicated to honor the courage . The government most likely knew about these dangers. This section compares current total U.S. baseline and war spending with the spending of other states. Ironically, members of Congress are fond of criticizing the Administration for lacking a strategy. Such profiles are a key warning of basic problems in planning, programming, and budgeting. 5. However, from a constitutional perspective, this conflict did not technically count as a war. There have been several legal attempts to seek compensation from the US government and chemical manufacturers. These chemicals also had an insidious impact on both Vietnamese civilians and American soldiers and their allies. By 1962, the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam had reached some 9,000 troops, compared with fewer than 800 during the 1950s. Check all of the boxes that apply. Even if one uses the higher estimate of military spending used by Todd Harrison, the total is now under 6.0%. One caveat to this, however, was that men who were in college could be excused from the draft. U.S. military advisers, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. It is important to note that separate work by Todd Harrison of CSIS in assessing the overall OCO account Enduring Dilemma of Overseas Contingency Operations Funding, Transition45 Series, January 11, 2017states that both Congress and the Obama administration moved items from the base budget to the OCO budget as a way of circumventing the BCA budget caps. With his approval ratings dropping in an election year, Johnson called a halt to bombing in much of North Vietnam (though bombings continued in the south) and promised to dedicate the rest of his term to seeking peace rather than reelection. Use the notes you completed during the lesson to write a paragraph explaining the effects of the end of World War I on the U.S. economy. Direct link to nick nelson's post The Allies promised Vietn, Posted 6 years ago. Neta C. Crawford (2023) SUMMARY AND PAPER > U.K. and U.S. Defense Worker Views on the Environmental Costs . Vietnams infrastructure, one of the few positive legacies of French colonialism, was left in ruins. they worked together but the north attacked areas around the the first 3 sectors of vietnam like the DMZ, the highlands and around saigon. The North Vietnamese continued to insist on complete and unconditional U.S. withdrawalplus the ouster of U.S.-backed General Nguyen Van Thieuas conditions of peace, however, and as a result the peace talks stalled. The civil war in Vietnam lasted from 1955 to 1975, with direct U.S. military involvement from 1964 to 1973. . These war costs stalled some of Lyndon Johnsons Great Society reforms, including anti-poverty measures and improvements to social security. Over the following years, additions to the list have brought the total past 58,200. Patrick Hagopian. The Special Inspector Generals also have not been tasked with addressing the overall cost of each conflict, the overall effectiveness of U.S. civil and military efforts, or the nature and success of U.S. plans and strategies. Psychologically, the effects ran even deeper. A related estimate by the Watson Institute puts the cost at $4.8 trillion through FY2016. They reflect the acute pressure that the rising cost of the Iraq War put on funding for the Afghan conflict during FY2005 through FY2008; They also show that reduction in troop levels did not bring proportionate cuts in total war costs. From 1975 to the early 1980s, the world press was filled with horror stories about refugee boats sinking or disintegrating at sea, while thousands of refugees drowned, starved or were murdered by pirates. American planes dropped seven million tons of ordnance three times the amount they had dropped in World War II as well as napalm and chemical defoliants. My brother eventually died from the effects of his own agent orange exposure. The United States entered Vietnam with the principal purpose of preventing a communist takeover of the region. Reports of the Tet Offensive stunned the U.S. public, however, especially after news broke that Westmoreland had requested an additional 200,000 troops, despite repeated assurances that victory in the Vietnam War was imminent. Between three million and five million people were also disabled, disfigured or seriously wounded. The escalating US involvement in Southeast Asia was driven by the logic of the. Summary: Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese waged an anti-colonial war against France, which received $2.6 billion in financial support from the United States. It was 146% of the $619.7 billion total ($560.7 Baseline plus the $58.8 billion in OCO costs). The origins of American involvement in Vietnam date back to the end of the Second World War, when the Vietnamese were struggling against the continued French colonial presence in their country. Background Vietnam had many troubles before the Vietnam War. There were a number of long-term and short-term reasons to explain why the USA became involved in Vietnam in the late 1950s. We strive for accuracy and fairness. With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam. "John F. Kennedy expanded US support for the South Vietnamese government, including an increase in US military advisers, the doubling of military assistance, and authorization of the use of napalm, herbicides, and defoliants". If these alternative estimatesand many othersare taken into account, it is all too clear that the United States now has no official estimate of the cost of its wars. The economic impact of the war was felt in both nations, especially Vietnam, where years of sustained American bombing and defoliation caused inestimable damage to farmland and infrastructure. introduction in the play In September 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the birth of an independent Vietnam. But while Ho and his supporters wanted a nation modeled after other communist countries, Bao and many others wanted a Vietnam with close economic and cultural ties to the West. The next few years would bring even more carnage, including the horrifying revelation that U.S. soldiers had mercilessly slaughtered more than 400 unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai in March 1968. What were the assumptions underlying the US involvement in Southeast Asia? At the time of Vietnam there was also a large student population that resisted being sent as well as a draft. Key metrics are provided for the U.S. use of airpower, showing a major rise in support of Afghan forces in CY2017. The Costs Don't. Amount Bilmes estimates the United States will pay in health care, disability, burial and other costs for . Lip service references to a "whole of government approach" thinly disguise a real-world separation of what should be a fully integrated civil-military approach, and what is really a "hole in government" approach where the State Department and USAID often seem at least partially decoupled from the realities of warfighting and the Department of Defense focuses on tactical success rather than the political, economic, or broader strategic goals in warfare.

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