Paper Example. The Process of Negotiation With America and the North Vietnam War

The Vietnam War is one of the most extended war episodes in history and among the most severe conflicts that ever emerged not only in the Cold War but went down in modern world history. It was one of the longest wars that America fought, which took place in the 20th century. The overall impact of the War is believed to have impacted on the generations of the United States (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). The Vietnam War furthermore goes into America's book of history as the first War that it was defeated in all that it has been involved in. It dated back in 1964, where the United States decided to involve in the War and ended after a long struggle where the United States decided to withdraw its military personnel from South Viet Nam's capital of Saigon in 1975. In this particular term paper, the main concern is going to be the American's role in the Vietnam War, mainly focusing on the negotiation process.

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The Vietnam War

Before arriving at the process of negotiation, it is important to provide historical background and information on how America became part of the War. That is during the colonialism period, and there was a big confrontation between the American colonials and the British dominion. The European colonials were continually expanding their territories towards the west, which led to the widespread of the Union. In the 19th century, the divide was expanding, which led to two major divisions that are the agricultural South and the Industrial North (Janik, & Hodbodova, 2008). America was experiencing rapid economic development, which made it to get involved in the War. There were increased immigration rates and the rapid development of the urban centers hence contributing to industrialization in the country. The immigrants provided manpower for the needed industrial development hence encouraging industrial growth as well as transforming the culture of the United States (Janik, & Hodbodova, 2008). This made the United States remain one of the most powerful states in the world. Later in World War II, there was a corporation between the French government and the Imperial Japanese forces. At that time, Vietnam was under the control of the French administrators, where they were permitted by the Japanese to retain the nominal power in the War.

The French Indochina made the United States change its standpoint, were at first, they took little interest, but when the Japanese took over the area, Unite States saw it as the only source of food and the source of the raw materials which would support its rapidly growing industries (Janik, & Hodbodova, 2008). The United States, therefore, continued to support the war, and following the assassination of the United States President John F. Kennedy, the new President Lyndon inherited the presidency.

The Negotiation to End Vietnam War

Henry Kissinger was at the forefront of doing negotiations that were meant to end the Vietnam War. The process was very long. In January 1973, the great Vietnam war ended after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, which was called the Agreement Ending War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). It marked the formal end of the Vietnam War, which had claimed the lives of over 58000 Americans and about one million Vietnamese lives while others were left wounded, and the American society was deeply divided (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). There were two different types of separated negotiations carried out those are, one which was public, and the second one, which was a secret mission. The main focus of the two negotiations was with the aim of ending the War. In doing the negotiations, there were several public meetings that were held, where all parties involved in the War were attending.

The parties included the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and lastly, the National Front for the Liberation of the South, which convened for the first time in the year 1969 (Jian, 1995). In the public peace talks among the parties, the signing of the Paris Peace Accords was among the few productive sessions among the previous 174 meetings that yielded no results (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). The secret meetings were taking place in Paris, where they commenced in February 1970. This is where the United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese Politburo member Le Duc Tho were the most influential negotiators in finding peace in Vietnam. The secret negotiations that were carried out were most successful because they led to the Paris Peace Accords.

Kissinger, with the help of President Nixon, they passed through various challenges that led to the negotiation campaign for them to achieve an acceptable outcome to the Vietnam War (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). The challenges included overcoming the military forces that North Vietnam to vanquish South Vietnam and persuading them that they were all after negotiation and peace was the common interest of people. The second challenge was that he sought to respond increasingly insistent pressure that came from Congress and the domestic anti-war protesters to withdraw entirely from Indochina. The third challenge was for every agreement; they lacked the military, which made the South Vietnamese, which made Kissinger be involved in the persuasion so that the South Vietnamese President Thieu to accept it. The main aim of getting involved in such all-risks was to find a peaceful nation.

Individuals Involved in Negotiations

The negotiation to end the Vietnam War was a very long process that involved the intervention of various individuals. The first group of individuals was Truman and Johnson. Vietnam was occupied by Japan during the Second World War, where Indochina was a colony of over 42 million people (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). Therefore, the post-war in Vietnam led to anti-colonialists to stage War and try to fight for independence.

President Truman was assisting in adding France in the War of Indochina, which came to be known as the domino theory, which came after the onset of the Korean War in 1950 (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). The domino theory suggested that when a particular country falls under Communist control, the other dominoes found in the same region will follow. Therefore, the spread of such communists had to be resisted, which never happened, hence having strategic implications on the United States. In July 1954, France was defeated at Dien Bien Phu, which led to the signing of the Geneva Accords hence dividing Vietnam at the 17th parallel, followed by the election of a new president in 1955 in South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). It, therefore, led to the realization of the United States, where at the end of the Eisenhower Administration had provided over $1 billion in assistance accompanied by 692 United States military advisors who were assisting in training the South Vietnamese Army.

As a result, to increase communism in Vietnam, United States President John F Kennedy decided to increase the presence of the United States in Vietnam from 900 to 16,263 military advisors (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). Later in 1963, a coup from the United States killed Diem, and later Nguyen Van Thieu, who was the coup leader, became the President of South Vietnam in the year 1967.

Lyndon Johnson became the President in the year 1964 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. President Johnson was among the people that advocated for peace in Indochina, wherein the year 1964, in the Congress, it was passed that Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was authorizing Johnson to restore peace using force (Kaiser, 2000). The United States, through the public and policymaking community, viewed the Communist countries as monolithic in the 1950s and 60s, but such a relationship between the USSR and China was one of the tense to the US in the 1960s (Kaiser, 2000). This is after the Soviet Union, and China was competing for North Vietnam (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). After the French defeat, China decided to support Hanoi, where it highly invested in the North. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution led to the convincing of the North leader Ho Chi Minh, followed by Beijing channeling its personnel to train the Army in the North and also to build and repair most of the infrastructure in the country.

The Chinese Premier in 1965 decided to convince North Vietnam to disassociate itself from Moscow. Later, an offensive move against the South Vietnamese was established in the year 1965, which was the beginning of the United States' involvement in the Vietnamese War. Various troops from the United States were later in the year deployed in Vietnam. The effort to bring negotiations on the table led to President Johnson to announce that he would not seek re-election because the situation was out of hand.

From his failure, Nixon and Kissinger came in to intervene in the situation. Richard Nixon was the United States president who was elected in who had the hopes that he would greatly assist in ending the War that was going on in Vietnam, which has already cost the United States. The efforts were later seen fruitful wherein 1968, America showed signs of settling the disputes that were going all over the country, and the response from North Vietnam was an ultimatum (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). The act led to the opening of various negotiations, where Nixon instead of advocating for peace, he approved the Operation menu of bombing against North Vietnamese and supply in the neighboring Cambodia from which the Hanoi attacks were inflicting a lot of the American soldiers. Kissinger was among the individuals who led the bombing while maintaining that the bombing was done in areas that were less populated and that the appropriate parties were correctly informed. He organized anti-war forces back in the United States.

It led to numerous demonstrations in the United States, which was demanding for the disengagement from Vietnam in return to release the American soldiers of War. Therefore, the Congress was held in 1971, which demanded that America should withdraw from the North Vietnamese War. There were various domestic backlashes against the War, where Nixon and the administration came up with regular withdrawals with the major hopes of uniting the public and activity cut off the military efforts in Vietnam. The first decision involved withdrawing around 25000 troops in 1969 June and later 40500 in September the same year, and lastly, 12000 in 1972 and only 27000 soldiers of the United States were left in Vietnam (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016).

This is one of the strategies that Kissinger applied because he believed that Hanoi would take advantage of the troop cuts, which continually reduced the presence of the United in Vietnam. Therefore, he believed that North Vietnam would decide to take up the negotiation, which the main aim of being given victory. But the United States decided that they would still put pressure on Hanoi by replacing the departing troops with air and naval forces, which were not among the total troop numbers. Kissinger later for the first time in a secret negotiation with Le Duc Tho in Paris meeting from February to April, where Kissinger came up with a proposal that US-North Vietnamese withdrawal from South Vietnam will be made within 16 months (Sebenius, & Kogan, 2016). Later, he also proposed that the United States was to completely leave South Vietnam.