Quick questions on Vietnam War 1954-1975: VCE Modern History Unit 4 Cold War

Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnamese independence in Hanoi on 2 September 1945 after the Japanese surrender, quoting the American Declaration of Independence. France returned to reassert its colony. The First Indochina War (December 1946 to July 1954) pitted the French Expeditionary Corps and a Vietnamese national government under former emperor Bao Dai against Ho's Viet Minh.

The US backed Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam (later President of the Republic of Vietnam from 26 October 1955). Diem rigged a referendum to depose Bao Dai (98.2 per cent for Diem) and refused to hold the 1956 reunification elections, which the State Department believed Ho Chi Minh would win comfortably.

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident (2 and 4 August 1964) saw the destroyer USS Maddox engage North Vietnamese torpedo boats; the second incident probably did not occur. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (7 August 1964) was passed by Congress 416 to 0 in the House and 88 to 2 in the Senate, authorising Johnson to use "all necessary measures" to repel attacks against US forces.

On 30 to 31 January 1968 (Tet, Vietnamese lunar new year), around 80,000 PAVN and NLF troops attacked more than 100 cities and towns across South Vietnam, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals. NLF commandos briefly entered the grounds of the US embassy in Saigon. The imperial city of Hue was held for 26 days (and the Hue Massacre saw around 2,800 residents killed by the NLF before recapture).

Richard Nixon was inaugurated on 20 January 1969. His national security adviser Henry Kissinger ran negotiations with Hanoi's Le Duc Tho. "Vietnamisation" combined gradual American troop withdrawal with expanded South Vietnamese forces, intensified bombing of North Vietnam, and expanded operations against communist sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos.

The Paris Peace Accords were signed on 27 January 1973 by the US, the Republic of Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (the NLF's political wing). The Accords provided for a ceasefire, a US withdrawal within 60 days, the return of American prisoners of war, and the political reunification of Vietnam through negotiation.

Indochina. Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot on 17 April 1975; the subsequent genocide killed around 1.7 to 2 million people. Laos fell to the Pathet Lao in August 1975. Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978 to topple the Khmer Rouge, fighting a 10-year war.

Fredrik Logevall (Embers of War, 2012; Choosing War, 1999) emphasises American decisions were never inevitable. The US could have stayed out at multiple junctures (1945, 1954, 1961, 1965). Logevall won the Pulitzer Prize for Embers of War.

Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot on 17 April 1975; the subsequent genocide killed around 1.7 to 2 million people. Laos fell to the Pathet Lao in August 1975. Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978 to topple the Khmer Rouge, fighting a 10-year war.

The War Powers Resolution (passed over Nixon's veto on 7 November 1973) limited presidential war-making to 60 days without Congressional approval. Conscription ended in January 1973. The "Vietnam Syndrome" constrained American military intervention until at least the 1991 Gulf War.

The Soviet Union and China both supported Hanoi but did not extract a strategic prize commensurate with the American defeat. The Sino-Soviet split (open from 1969) and Nixon's opening to China (Beijing visit, February 1972) showed that Vietnam was a regional defeat within a more complicated global game.

The First Indochina War (1946 to 1954) was a French colonial war. The Second Indochina War (1955 to 1975) is the "Vietnam War" in American usage. The Vietnamese refer to the "American War" to distinguish it from earlier struggles.

Tactically yes; strategically and politically a US defeat. Both can be true and the question matters.

The National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) was the southern insurgent organisation founded in 1960. The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) was the regular North Vietnamese army. After Tet 1968, PAVN regulars increasingly dominated the conflict.

No major American military force was defeated in the field. The Paris Accords (January 1973) ended American combat. The collapse of the South in 1975 was a defeat of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, after US Congress had cut aid.