Vietnam syndrome
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Vietnam syndrome is a term in
Failure in Vietnam
In the domestic debate over the reasons for the US being unable to defeat North Vietnamese forces during the war, conservative thinkers, many of whom were in the
Do we lack power?... Certainly not if power is measured in brute terms of economic, technological, and military capacity. By those standards, we are still the most powerful country in the world.... The issue boils down in the end, then, to the question of will.
The term "Vietnam syndrome" thereafter proliferated in the press and policy circles as a way of explaining the United States, one of the world's
In the fall of 1983, President Reagan put his beliefs into action by ordering the invasion of Grenada. A long-simmering internal leadership dispute within the ruling Marxist-Leninist party on the Eastern Caribbean island had suddenly spun out of control, leading to political executions and innocent civilian deaths in the capital city on Oct. 19.[5] Reagan was persuaded[by whom?] that swift American military action was necessary to protect about 1,000 American residents on the microstate, and also to restore Westminster-style democracy and end growing Soviet Bloc influence over the former British colony. Reagan pushed past the hesitancy of the Pentagon leadership, and the expected domestic and international blowback, to authorize a surprise U.S.-led intervention at dawn on Oct. 25. His presidential directive specifically instructed the Pentagon to take strict secrecy measures to head off any pre-emptive action by the Cubans or the Soviets.[6] "Frankly, there was another reason I wanted secrecy", Reagan later confided in his autobiography. "It was what I call the 'post-Vietnam syndrome,' the resistance of so many in Congress to the use of military force abroad for any reason, because of our nation's experience in Vietnam.... I suspected that if we told the leaders of Congress about the operation, even under terms of the strictest confidentiality, there would be someone who would leak it to the press together with the prediction that Grenada was going to become 'another Vietnam.'.... We didn't ask anybody, we just did it."[7]
Ronald Reagan's speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars
In the later 1970s and the 1980s,
Asserting a need for a more aggressive and activist foreign policy, Reagan also suggested that Americans could have defeated the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, alleged that the American public had turned against the war from the influence of North Vietnamese propaganda, and implied that officials had let down the soldiers and had been "afraid to let them win" the war.[citation needed]
Reagan equated the "Vietnam syndrome" with a reluctance on the part of the American public to support US military interventions but also with feelings of guilt about the devastation brought about because of the Vietnam War and with feelings of doubt over the morality of America's intentions and actions during the war. Reagan, however, argued that America had fought for "a noble cause" and blamed the war in Vietnam exclusively on North Vietnam's aggression:[citation needed]
For too long, we have lived with the "Vietnam Syndrome." Much of that syndrome has been created by the North Vietnamese aggressors who now threaten the peaceful people of Thailand. Over and over they told us for nearly 10 years that we were the aggressors bent on imperialistic conquests. They had a plan. It was to win in the field of propaganda here in America what they could not win on the field of battle in Vietnam. As the years dragged on, we were told that peace would come if we would simply stop interfering and go home.
It is time we recognized that ours was, in truth, a noble cause. A small country newly free from colonial rule sought our help in establishing self-rule and the means of self-defense against a totalitarian neighbor bent on conquest. We dishonor the memory of 50,000 young Americans who died in that cause when we give way to feelings of guilt as if we were doing something shameful, and we have been shabby in our treatment of those who returned. They fought as well and as bravely as any Americans have ever fought in any war. They deserve our gratitude, our respect, and our continuing concern.
There is a lesson for all of us in Vietnam. If we are forced to fight, we must have the means and the determination to prevail or we will not have what it takes to secure the peace. And while we are at it, let us tell those who fought in that war that we will never again ask young men to fight and possibly die in a war our government is afraid to let them win.[8]
Burial of syndrome by military actions
The
The quick victory during the Gulf War was widely believed to be the end of the Vietnam syndrome. US President George H. W. Bush triumphantly declared after the war, "The ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert."[14]
Bosnian War
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See also
References
- guerrilla war, the Vietnam syndrome means, if nothing else, a fundamental reluctance to commit American military power anywhere in the world, unless it is absolutely necessary to protect the national interests of the country.
- JSTOR 4411323.
- ^ Norman Podhoretz, "Making the World Safe for Communism", Commentary 61, no. 4 (April 1976).
- ISBN 9781134086429.
- OCLC 1123182247.
- ^ "Response to Caribbean Governments' Request to Restore Democracy on Grenada". National Security Decision Directives - Intelligence Resource Program. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
- OCLC 22617415.
- ^ Reagan, Ronald (18 August 1980). Address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Chicago. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.pid?pid=85202
- ^ Sandler, Norman D. (28 May 1984). "Reagan's view of Vietnam War unwavering". United Press International. Archived from the original on Oct 6, 2022.
- ^ Beinart, Peter (2024-01-29). "Think Again: Ronald Reagan". Foreign Policy.
- ^ Chen, Edwin; Richter, Paul (2 Mar 1991). "U.S. Shakes Off Torment of Vietnam". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on Sep 25, 2015.
- Baltimore Sun, 13 Dec. 1983, "Days of Weakness Over, Reagan Tells War Heroes"
- ^ Clines, Francis X. (December 13, 1983). "Military of U.S. 'Standing Tall,' Reagan Asserts". The New York Times. Retrieved January 22, 2020.
- ^ George C. Herring, "From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) p. 912
- ISBN 9781134425570.