Vietnam War

The Vietnamese Background

Before understanding the full history and the essence of the Vietnam conflict, it’s imperative first to understand the background that existed prior to the US involvement in the war. Vietnam is an ancient land with its culture steeped deep inside history and its relations with neighbouring Buddhist countries and the colonial powers of the 19th century. A very major part of the conflict that arose back then was because of the direct clash between Vietnamese values, the resistance to French rule and Vietnam’s natural association with communism because of China in the north and communist influenced Indochina region, asserted by the Soviet Union. Since Vietnamese society was such, that communism had become a popular ideology in the nation.

Vietnam during the 1800s used to remain a French colony. Its annexation to the small colonial empire of France completed in the 1850s with complete pacification by 1893. What followed for the next seven decades were phases of peace and skirmishes between French authorities and Vietnamese people that ultimately escalated to the great Vietnam War of the 1970s. French rule would remain short-lived however, because of the second world war that would witness complete annexation of France by Germany and transforming it into a client state.