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Vietnam War

The Vietnam War is a very complicated and opinionated subject. The causes of the war can be confusing, and often times vary from source to source. In this paper I will examine the situation in Vietnam and try to explain the root causes of the war. I will also offer a comprehensive explanation of why the United States went into the war along with the situation it was in and other options it had.
In order to understand the Vietnam War you must first understand the background of and the situation in Vietnam. Vietnam had been a French colony for many years, and by the end of World War II, most of the Vietnamese wanted their freedom. Vietnamese tradition mainly revolved around rice farming and the village. The Vietnamese village was largely self sustaining. Most Vietnamese were subsistence farmers, and the village elder made many of the decisions. There were no taxes, and when the new Vietnamese government under Diem tried to impose their rules, such as taxes, on the villages, the villagers did not want to cooperate.
During World War II the Japanese started to take interest in the Vietnam area. The Japanese army invaded and took control of most of the country, to France's dismay. Towards the end of the war the French wanted Vietnam back. When the Japanese finally surrendered to the United States, the army withdrew from Vietnam. Although the Japanese had left, the French had another problem; the Vietnamese wanted their independence. An uprising began, backed by the Chinese, and the United States financially backed the French war to put the uprising down. The U.S. provided about 80% of funds for the war because if the Vietnamese were victorious, they feared that the Chinese would introduce communism there. The war became difficult and costly, however, and France eventually gave Vietnam its independence in 1954.
All this time a man named Ho Chi Minh, a strict follower of Lenin and Marx, began to stir up trouble. He met with Stalin, the head of Russia, and Mao...