A related estimate by the Watson Institute puts the cost at $4.8 trillion through FY2016. All Rights Reserved. Greeks. The physical devastation of the war, coupled with the socialist policies imposed by new regimes, caused years of famine and suffering in south-east Asia. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minhinspired by Chinese and Soviet communismformed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam. Two decades of military intervention and bankrolling friendly regimes cost the United States almost $US170 billion (close to $1 trillion in todays terms). This section updates part of another CRS studyone by Stephen Daggetthat attempted to cost past American wars from the American Revolution through the Persian Gulf War, and the early phases of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Map showing the division between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. This was 161% of the $560.7 billion Baseline that include base, defense-related nuclear and other related budget costs. Johnson was motivated by both domestic political and international balance of power considerations. Tensions escalated into armed conflict between the two sides, and in 1961 U.S. President John F. Kennedy chose to expand the military aid program. The Afghan and Iraq/Syria wars are more than five times more expensive than World War I. have empathy for the Between three million and five million people were also disabled, disfigured or seriously wounded. The Congress has also created a Special Inspector General for Iraq (SIGIR) and then a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR). What can you le Tens of thousands of soldiers received dishonorable discharges for desertion, and about 500,000 American men from 1965-73 became draft dodgers, with many fleeing to Canada to evade conscription. 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. Vietnam War memory quiz events 1946-1964, Vietnam War memory quiz events 1965-1975, Vietnam War memory quiz terms and concepts (I), Vietnam War memory quiz terms and concepts (II). 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. Thousands struggled to find and hold down jobs, form new relationships and keep their marriages intact. The total cost of all U.S. aid to Afghanistan through FY2016 is $115.3 billion, which is 16 percent of the total OCO cost of $728.9 billion from FY2001 to FY2016. What were the assumptions underlying the US involvement in Southeast Asia? He authorized a series of bombing campaigns, most notably Operation Rolling Thunder, and also committed hundreds of thousands of US ground troops to the fight. It would take years to recover. 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. All recent estimates show that the burden the Afghan and Iraq/Syria wars placed on the economy did not equal the burden that the peacetime Reagan build up created, and that the percentage has dropped sharply since most U.S. combat troops left Afghanistan and Iraq. Roughly half of the OCO budget ($30 billion) is now being used for programs and activities that were previously funded in the base budget. The effort to create meaningful Future Year Defense Programs seem to have been given a final death blow by the Budget Control Act (BCA)legislation originally designed to be so stupid that the Congress could not possibly accept it. Working under the domino theory, which held that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many other countries would follow, Kennedy increased U.S. aid, though he stopped short of committing to a large-scale military intervention. It is particularly unrealistic because this assumption is critical to estimating steady reduction in military spending, sizing the impact of rising entitlement and mandatory budget costs, and the size of the deficit. De-escalation, negotiation, and Vietnamization, The United States negotiates a withdrawal, 9 Questions About the Vietnam War Answered, https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War, Vietnam War - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Vietnam War - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). The war exacted an enormous human cost: estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 966,000 to 3 million. One caveat to this, however, was that men who were in college could be excused from the draft. reason to finally surrender Patrick Hagopian. Meaning of human cost. Based on the current dollar value, the Vietnam War cost the equivalent of about $1 trillion. 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. The practical impact of the Vietnam War on the domestic United States was also profound. It also entered into a period of dtente (agreement) with Cold War rivals the Soviet Union and communist China. An estimated 18 million gallons of defoliants, bearing codenames like Agent Blue and Agent Orange, were dropped by US planes over the course of the Vietnam War. The closest the Congress has come to establishing a credible system of formal review is to create limited public reporting requirements on the Iraq and Afghan wars for the DoD, and the requirement for Iraq lapsed at the end of combat activity in 2011. The struggle for Vietnam was one of the 20th centurys great human tragedies. Meaning of human cost. The Wooden Horse: A Gift Direct link to Carla Cristina Almeida's post I have a question about t, Posted 6 years ago. Per capita GDP as of 2013 was $2,073, with an unemployment rate of just 2.1% and a poverty rate of 13.5%. Conservative estimates suggest the war claimed around 1.9 million Vietnamese lives, as well as the lives of 200,000 Cambodians and 100,000 Laotians. These activities are not designated as emergency or OCO/GWOT and are subject to the BCA limits. 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. They are more than 18 times more expensive than the first Gulf War in 1991. Would anyone know as to why it is called this? In 2016, Vietnam's GDP growth was 6.2%, driven by export-oriented manufacturing and robust domestic demand. An even greater number were maimed, disfigured, orphaned, displaced or forced to flee as refugees. Other allies later joined the war. In view of the surprisingly good performance of the South Vietnamese army at Tet, and responding to growing pressure in the United States to begin a withdrawal of U.S. troops, the Nixon administration decided to accelerate a program to provide South Vietnam . A historians view: The arguments about the war were heated and visceral and led Americans to question one anothers morality and good faith. It affected 700,000 American veterans. The Korean peninsula off the east cost of Asia has had a long history of foreign invaders. A. 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. B. Nixon ended draft calls in 1972, and instituted an all-volunteer army the following year. Why did the United States become involved in Vietnam? Furthermore, domestic unrest and the financial cost of war made peaceand troop withdrawalsa necessity, not a choice. Reporting by the Executive Branch seems almost designed to obscure the real costs of conflict, and avoid linking them to an examination of strategy, its effectiveness, and the prospects for conflict termination. 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. Report While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued the work that Kennedy had started. military knowledge. The French loss at the battle ended almost a century of French colonial rule in Indochina. Opponents of the war argued that civilians, not enemy combatants, were the primary victims and that the United States was supporting a corrupt dictatorship in Saigon. The nation spent more than $120 billion on the conflict in Vietnam from 1965-73; this massive spending led to widespread inflation, exacerbated by a worldwide oil crisis in 1973 and skyrocketing fuel prices. Copyright: The content on this page may not be republished without our express permission. Learn about the war that enmeshed the United States in a battle against communism in Southeast Asia for more than twenty years. Why are first-hand accounts important? All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. The cost of all-volunteer forces limits the total force pool. The size of U.S. military spending is difficult to estimate in comparable terms. This section compares current total U.S. baseline and war spending with the spending of other states. Direct link to Angela Hilario's post I've read that the Vietna, Posted 4 years ago. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Neither this bombing or the ground war was confined by the borders of Vietnam. 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. Even today, there are an estimated five million pieces of unexploded ordnance still scattered around Vietnam. A decade of warfare left Vietnam, particularly its northern provinces, utterly devastated. The contribution and sacrifices made by host country and allied forces is not recognized. Discussions of the cost of the Vietnam War have tended to underemphasize human capital considerations. This started with their homecoming and reception. 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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Though the majority of Vietnam veterans returned home without serious problems, a large number found the readjustment to civilian life difficult. It was the last major event of the Vietnam War. Vinh (population 72,000), Vietnam's Dresden, was subjected to 4,131 attacks over a four year period (and 4,700 overall in the war), resulting in the destruction of nearly of all of its homes, 31 schools, the university, four hospitals, the main bookstore and cinema and two churches along with an historic 18th century Buddhist pagoda that served as cultural center of the city, a museum of the . Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century. Additionally, supported by aid from China and the Soviet Union, North Vietnam strengthened its air defenses. Public trust in the United States government was shattered by the Vietnam War and Watergate. US Air Force commander Curtis Le May once threatened to bomb [Vietnam] back to the Stone Age, a promise that was very nearly delivered. The rise of communist regimes saw more than two million people flee south-east Asia. Congress passed the. Wars cost money to fight, and the Civil War was no exception. Someone please:(. Over the following years, additions to the list have brought the total past 58,200. They illustrate two reporting problems: The charts and tables in this section focus on total DoD spending by year, and OCO expenditure by war. Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in what had been its longest and most controversial war. As Mr. Dagget notes, there are serious uncertainties in the cost estimates of past wars, but it is striking that if the cost to date of the Afghan and Iraq/Syria wars are shown in constant dollars, even the comparatively low end estimate of $2 trillion through FY2018 would makes these wars more expensive than every other period of conflict in American history except the American revolution, the Civil War, and World War II. Would have Kennedy have done equally as bad or worse had he had the chance? Vietnamese farmers could not return to some areas for years and when they did, they faced the danger of triggering landmines and unexploded aerial bombs left by departing forces. Feeding, supplying and paying the armies and navies was, by far, the largest expenditure of the war. The difficulties in defining military expenditures do create differences in estimates of the percent of GDP, but they are comparatively minor. experiences and message transcend the headlines and pierce through the political noise and debates to remind us of the human cost of war and displacement. When the United States technically "lost" the war, did it seem like an utter waste of time and resources? Following its 1945 defeat in World War II, Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control. Metrics showing allied funding and aid activity help put the U.S. spending effort in the proper perspective. Families had to fight to survive Hope this helps :) Post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans The deaths of over a million communist soldiers Advertisement Citation information There have been no serious attempts to develop Future Year Defense Program costs in recent years, largely because of the Budget Control Act, and DoD outyear budget forecasts have been political placeholders. The human cost of war is perhaps the most critical single metric of warfighting. 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. In contrast, critics on the political right argued the Vietnam War had been winnable but was lost by politicians who restricted terms of engagement, refused to authorise more firepower (including the use of tactical nuclear weapons) and left the army short of men and supplies. One key aspect of the current cost of U.S. wars is thatdespite their high costthey represent a comparatively low burden on the U.S. economy in terms of GDP, total federal spending, labor, capital, and use of the U.S. industrial base. After the United States withdrew from the conflict, North Vietnam invaded the South and united the country under a communist government. Date updated: December 20, 2022 There have been several legal attempts to seek compensation from the US government and chemical manufacturers. On November 15, 1969, the largest anti-war demonstration in American history took place in Washington, D.C., as over 250,000 Americans gathered peacefully, calling for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. Any full costing of America's wars needs to include these costs. 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. The Presidents FY2017 budget request included $1,553.6 billion for contingency operations funded in the base budget. In August 1964, the US government received word that two North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. 1) The deaths of over a million communist soldiers 2) Post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans Which legislation limited the influence of the president? He fully subscribed to the domino theory and to the containment strategy, and also feared appearing weak in the eyes of his domestic political opponents. Between July 1966 and December 1973, more than 503,000 U.S. military personnel deserted, and a robust anti-war movement among American forces spawned violent protests, killings and mass incarcerations of personnel stationed in Vietnam as well as within the United States. My brother eventually died from the effects of his own agent orange exposure. The number of civilians killed ranges from 627,000 to two million. Here, simply seeing OCO spending data is essentially useless. those where some times helped by the VC but the VC attacked ares around the mekondelta and around the borders of laos and cambodia. That is simply how they viewed the war from their perspective. The civil war in Vietnam lasted from 1955 to 1975, with direct U.S. military involvement from 1964 to 1973. . The true figures, however, are probably much higher. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year. Trojans. By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. or is it saying that the south fought the north with america or did america never ally with the south of vietnam? The budget data created a functionally meaningless pool of theater support personnel with little or no explanation, no allocation by war, and that make up 65% of all military personnel assigned to both Afghanistan and Syria/Iraq. The United States had provided funding, armaments, and training to South Vietnams government and military since Vietnams partition into the communist North and the democratic South in 1954. Throughout both conflicts, reporting has focused on total personnel rather than on the function and capability of the personnel engaged. There was little that had not been bombed, blasted or shot up from roads to railways, buildings to bridges, ports to power stations. Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the home front turned against the war as well: In October 1967, some 35,000 demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon. By 1966, large areas of South Vietnam had been designated as free-fire zones, from which all innocent civilians were supposed to have evacuated and only enemy remained. This not only claimed lives but also devastated cities, buildings, infrastructure, farmland and vegetation. This website is created and maintained by Alpha History. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. Vietnam veterans also had to contend with physical problems, such as the effects of chemical defoliants. Direct link to David Alexander's post Question 1: "did it seem , Posted 4 years ago. Moreover, the Cold War may be over, but the United States still faces strategic challenges from Russia and the emergence of China as a major global power in what is already a multipolar world. The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. Yet, the theory of human capi-tal has been applied widely, as for example in estimating the costs of illness or injury.1 In 1931, J. Clark estimated the cost of death and disability resulting from the First World War [2]. Updated: March 28, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009. The main reason the war escalated so badly and quickly was because LBJ and Nixon right? The war in Iraq, for example, put serious pressure on U.S. capability to properly deploy the numbers and skills needed in Afghanistan, as well as helped force use of the Reserves and National Guard. from Johns Hopkins and his MA and Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. About us; Stories and Resources . Were LBJ and Nixon bad decision makers or was it just too much to handle? Heavy bombing by B-52 aircraft or shelling made these zones uninhabitable, as refugees poured into camps in designated safe areas near Saigon and other cities. In August of 1964, after DRV torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. These debates led to a revisiting of Americas Cold War leadership. It granted him broad latitude in handling the struggle against communism in Southeast Asia. Direct link to armor.pro57's post When the United States te, Posted 2 years ago. 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW 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. The War Powers Resolution The chart shows that the number of draftees _____ before the War Powers Resolution. Anne's diary helped the world understand what it was like living in hiding during In 1955, however, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN), often referred to during that era as South Vietnam. I can only speak for myself. These reports never address the costs of war, or planning, programming, and budgeting. What would you have done in Ho's place? The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. to the Global confidence in America as the arsenal of democracy also suffered. Were they correct? Civilian casualties are not assessed in spite of the fact that this has become a critical political and operational issue, and subject of both debate and threat propaganda. Before World War Two Vietnam . On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive (named for the lunar new year), a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. By 1969 more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam. Efforts to integrate net assessment with budget submissions were effectively killed by the Joint Staff decades earlier, during the Reagan Administration. The vast exodus of refugees from Indochina led to humanitarian camps being set up in Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and other Asian countries. However, from a constitutional perspective, this conflict did not technically count as a war. De Blasio: How many . One by Lina J. Blimes puts the total cost at $4 to $6 trillion by end FY2016. Or were both parties perhaps working together? Many Americans simply chose not to speak of the Vietnam conflict, described by diplomat George Kennan as the most disastrous undertaking in 200 years of US history. See answer Advertisement gavrielle Answer: People could not get shelter, resources they needed to survive.
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