Back Виетнамтәи аибашьра Abkhazian Viëtnamoorlog Afrikaans Vietnamkrieg ALS የቬትናም ጦርነት Amharic Guerra de Vietnam AN वियतनाम युद्ध ANP حرب فيتنام Arabic لحرب د ڤييطنام ARY حرب فييتنام ARZ Guerra del Vietnam AST

Vietnam War

"Second Indochina War" redirects here. For the war between India and China, see Nathu La and Cho La clashes.
For a full history of wars in Vietnam, see List of wars involving Vietnam. For the documentary television series, see The Vietnam War (TV series).

Vietnam War
Part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War in Asia
Clockwise from top left:
DateNovember 1955 – 30 April 1975
(19 years, 5 months, 4 weeks and 1 day)[A 1][1]
Location
Result North Vietnamese victory
Territorial
changes		 Reunification of North Vietnam and South Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976
Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
Strength

≈860,000 (1967)

  • North Vietnam:
    690,000 (1966, including PAVN and Viet Cong)[A 5]
  • Viet Cong:
    ~200,000 (estimated, 1968)[3]
  • China:
    170,000 (1968)
    320,000 total[4][5][6]
  • Khmer Rouge:
    70,000 (1972)[7]: 376 
  • Pathet Lao:
    48,000 (1970)[8]
  • Soviet Union: ~3,000[9]
  • North Korea: 200[10]

≈1,420,000 (1968)

  • South Vietnam:
    850,000 (1968)
    1,500,000 (1974–1975)[11]
  • United States:
    2,709,918 serving in Vietnam total
    Peak: 543,000 (April 1969)[7]: xlv 
  • Khmer Republic:
    200,000 (1973)[citation needed]
  • Laos:
    72,000 (Royal Army and Hmong militia)[12][13]
  • South Korea:
    48,000 per year (1965–1973, 320,000 total)
  • Thailand: 32,000 per year (1965–1973)
    (in Vietnam[14] and Laos)[citation needed]
  • Australia: 50,190 total
    (Peak: 8,300 combat troops)[15]
  • New Zealand: Peak: 552 in 1968[16]: 158 
  • Philippines: 2,061
  • Spain: 100–130 total
    (Peak: 30 medical troops and advisors)[17]
Casualties and losses
  • North Vietnam & Viet Cong
    30,000–182,000 civilian dead[7]: 176 [18][19]: 450–453 [20]
    849,018 military dead (per Vietnam; 1/3 non-combat deaths)[21][22][23]
    666,000–950,765 dead
    (US estimated 1964–1974)[A 6][18][19]: 450–451 
    232,000+ military missing (per Vietnam)[21][24]
    600,000+ military wounded[25]: 739 
  • Khmer Rouge: Unknown
  • Laos Pathet Lao: Unknown
  •  China: ~1,100 dead and 4,200 wounded[6]
  •  Soviet Union: 16 dead[26]
  •  North Korea: 14 dead[27][28]

Total military dead/missing:
≈1,100,000
Total military wounded:
≈604,200
(excluding GRUNK/Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao)

  •  South Vietnam:
    195,000–430,000 civilian dead[18][19]: 450–453 [29]
    Military dead: 313,000 (total)[30]
    • 254,256 combat deaths (between 1960 and 1974)[31]: 275 

    1,170,000 military wounded[7]
    ≈ 1,000,000 captured[32]
  •  United States:
    58,281 dead[33] (47,434 from combat)[34][35]
    303,644 wounded (including 150,341 not requiring hospital care)[A 7]
  •  Laos: 15,000 army dead[36]
  • Khmer Republic: Unknown
  • South Korea: 5,099 dead; 10,962 wounded; 4 missing
  •  Australia: 521 dead; 3,129 wounded[37]
  •  Thailand: 351 dead[7]
  •  New Zealand: 37 dead[38]
  •  Taiwan: 25 dead[39]
    17 captured[40]
  • Philippines: 9 dead;[41] 64 wounded[42]
Total military dead:
333,620 (1960–1974) – 392,364 (total)
Total military wounded:
≈1,340,000+[7]
(excluding FARK and FANK)
Total military captured:
est. 1,000,000+
FULRO fought an insurgency against both South Vietnam and North Vietnam with the Viet Cong and was supported by Cambodia for much of the war.

The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and a major conflict of the Cold War. While the war was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, the north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other countries in the Eastern Bloc, while the south was supported by the US and anti-communist allies. This made the conflict a proxy war between the US and Soviet Union. Direct US military involvement lasted from 1965 until its withdrawal in 1973. The fighting spilled over into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

After the fall of French Indochina with the 1954 Geneva Conference, the country gained independence from France but was divided into two parts: the Viet Minh took control of North Vietnam, while the US assumed financial and military support for South Vietnam.[52][A 8] The North Vietnamese controlled Viet Cong (VC), a South Vietnamese common front of militant leftists, socialists, communists, workers, peasants and intellectuals, initiated guerrilla war in the south. The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) engaged in more conventional warfare with US and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces. North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1958, establishing the Ho Chi Minh trail to supply and reinforce the VC.[53]: 16  By 1963, the north had sent 40,000 soldiers to fight in the south.[53]: 16  US involvement increased under President John F. Kennedy, from 900 military advisors at the end of 1960 to 16,300 at the end of 1963.[54][25]: 131 

Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the US Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to increase military presence, without a declaration of war. Johnson ordered deployment of combat units and dramatically increased American military personnel to 184,000 by the end of 1965, and to 536,000 by the end of 1968.[54] US and South Vietnamese forces relied on air supremacy and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations. The US conducted a strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam[25]: 371–374 [55] and built up its forces, despite little progress. In 1968, North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive; a tactical defeat, but a strategic victory, as it caused US domestic support to fade.[25]: 481  In 1969, North Vietnam declared the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. The 1970 deposing of Cambodia's monarch, resulted in a PAVN invasion of the country, and then a US-ARVN counter-invasion, escalating Cambodia's Civil War. After Richard Nixon's inauguration in 1969, a policy of "Vietnamization" began, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN, while US forces withdrew due to domestic opposition. US ground forces had mostly withdrawn by 1972, the 1973 Paris Peace Accords saw all US forces withdrawn[56]: 457  and were broken almost immediately: fighting continued for two years. Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, while the 1975 spring offensive saw the Fall of Saigon to the PAVN, marking the end of the war. North and South Vietnam were reunified on 2 July the following year.

The war exacted enormous human cost: estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 970,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 US service members died.[A 7] Its end would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions leave Indochina, an estimated 250,000 perished at sea.[60][61] The US destroyed 20% of South Vietnam's jungle and 20–50% of the mangrove forests, by spraying over 20 million U.S. gallons (75 million liters) of toxic herbicides;[62][56]: 144–145 [63] a notable example of ecocide.[64] The Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, while conflict between them and the unified Vietnam escalated into the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the US, the war gave rise to Vietnam syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvement,[65] which, with the Watergate scandal, contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s.[66]


Cite error: There are <ref group=A> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=A}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ The Paris Agreement on Vietnam: Twenty-five Years Later (Conference Transcript). Washington, D.C.: The Nixon Center. April 1998. Archived from the original on 1 September 2019. Retrieved 5 September 2012 – via International Relations Department, Mount Holyoke College.
  2. ^ Military History Institute of Vietnam 2002, p. 182. "By the end of 1966 the total strength of our armed forces was 690,000 soldiers."
  3. ^ Doyle, Edward; Lipsman, Samuel; Maitland, Terence (1986). The Vietnam Experience The North. Time Life Education. pp. 45–49. ISBN 978-0-939526-21-5.
  4. ^ "China admits 320,000 troops fought in Vietnam". Toledo Blade. Reuters. 16 May 1989. Archived from the original on 2 July 2020. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
  5. ^ Roy, Denny (1998). China's Foreign Relations. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-8476-9013-8.
  6. ^ a b Womack, Brantly (2006). China and Vietnam. Cambridge University Press. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-521-61834-2.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Tucker, Spencer C (2011). The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-960-3.
  8. ^ "Area Handbook Series Laos". Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  9. ^ O'Ballance, Edgar (1982). Tracks of the bear: Soviet imprints in the seventies. Presidio. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-89141-133-8.
  10. ^ Pham Thi Thu Thuy (1 August 2013). "The colorful history of North Korea-Vietnam relations". NK News. Archived from the original on 24 April 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  11. ^ Le Gro, William (1985). Vietnam from ceasefire to capitulation (PDF). US Army Center of Military History. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-4102-2542-9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 February 2023.
  12. ^ "The rise of Communism". www.footprinttravelguides.com. Archived from the original on 17 November 2010. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  13. ^ "Hmong rebellion in Laos". Members.ozemail.com.au. Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  14. ^ "Vietnam War Allied Troop Levels 1960–73". Archived from the original on 2 August 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2016., accessed 7 November 2017
  15. ^ Doyle, Jeff; Grey, Jeffrey; Pierce, Peter (2002). "Australia's Vietnam War – A Select Chronology of Australian Involvement in the Vietnam War" (PDF). Texas A&M University Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2022.
  16. ^ Blackburn, Robert M. (1994). Mercenaries and Lyndon Johnson's "More Flage": The Hiring of Korean, Filipino, and Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War. McFarland. ISBN 0-89950-931-2.
  17. ^ Marín, Paloma (9 April 2012). "Spain's secret support for US in Vietnam". El País. Archived from the original on 4 November 2019. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
  18. ^ a b c d e Hirschman, Charles; Preston, Samuel; Vu, Manh Loi (December 1995). "Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate" (PDF). Population and Development Review. 21 (4): 783. doi:10.2307/2137774. ISSN 0098-7921. JSTOR 2137774. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 October 2013.
  19. ^ a b c d e Lewy, Guenter (1978). America in Vietnam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-987423-1.
  20. ^ "Battlefield:Vietnam – Timeline". PBS. Archived from the original on 4 June 2023.
  21. ^ a b Moyar, Mark. "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965–1968." Encounter Books, December 2022. Chapter 17 index: "Communists provided further corroboration of the proximity of their casualty figures to American figures in a postwar disclosure of total losses from 1960 to 1975. During that period, they stated, they lost 849,018 killed plus approximately 232,000 missing and 463,000 wounded. Casualties fluctuated considerably from year to year, but a degree of accuracy can be inferred from the fact that 500,000 was 59 percent of the 849,018 total and that 59 percent of the war's days had passed by the time of Fallaci's conversation with Giap. The killed in action figure comes from "Special Subject 4: The Work of Locating and Recovering the Remains of Martyrs From Now Until 2020 And Later Years," downloaded from the Vietnamese government website datafile on 1 December 2017. The above figures on missing and wounded were calculated using Hanoi's declared casualty ratios for the period of 1945 to 1979, during which time the Communists incurred 1.1 million killed, 300,000 missing, and 600,000 wounded. Ho Khang, ed, Lich Su Khang Chien Chong My, Cuu Nuoc 1954–1975, Tap VIII: Toan Thang (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2008), 463."
  22. ^ "Chuyên đề 4 CÔNG TÁC TÌM KIẾM, QUY TẬP HÀI CỐT LIỆT SĨ TỪ NAY ĐẾN NĂM 2020 VÀ NHỮNG NĂM TIẾP THEO". Datafile.chinhsachquandoi.gov.vn. Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  23. ^ "Công tác tìm kiếm, quy tập hài cốt liệt sĩ từ nay đến năm 2020 và những năn tiếp theo" [The work of searching and collecting the remains of martyrs from now to 2020 and the next] (in Vietnamese). Ministry of Defence, Government of Vietnam. Archived from the original on 17 December 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  24. ^ Joseph Babcock (29 April 2019). "Lost Souls: The Search for Vietnam's 300,000 or More MIAs". Pulitzer Centre. Archived from the original on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  25. ^ a b c d Hastings, Max (2018). Vietnam an epic tragedy, 1945–1975. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-240567-8.
  26. ^ James F. Dunnigan; Albert A. Nofi (2000). Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War: Military Information You're Not Supposed to Know. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-25282-3.
  27. ^ "North Korea fought in Vietnam War". BBC News Online. 31 March 2000. Archived from the original on 12 March 2023. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  28. ^ Pribbenow, Merle (November 2011). "North Korean Pilots in the Skies over Vietnam" (PDF). Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 June 2023. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
  29. ^ Thayer, Thomas C. (1985). War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam. Westview Press. ISBN 978-0-8133-7132-0.
  30. ^ Rummel, R. J. (1997), "Vietnam Democide", Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War, University of Hawaii System, archived from the original (GIF) on 13 March 2023 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |loc= ignored (help)
  31. ^ Clarke, Jeffrey J. (1988). United States Army in Vietnam: Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973. Center of Military History, United States Army. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam suffered 254,256 recorded combat deaths between 1960 and 1974, with the highest number of recorded deaths being in 1972, with 39,587 combat deaths
  32. ^ "The Fall of South Vietnam" (PDF). Rand.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 January 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  33. ^ Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (4 May 2021). "2021 NAME ADDITIONS AND STATUS CHANGES ON THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL" (Press release). Archived from the original on 29 April 2023.
  34. ^ National Archives–Vietnam War US Military Fatal Casualties, 15 August 2016, archived from the original on 26 May 2020, retrieved 29 July 2020
  35. ^ "Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics: HOSTILE OR NON-HOSTILE DEATH INDICATOR." Archived 26 May 2020 at the Wayback Machine US National Archives. 29 April 2008. Accessed 13 July 2019.
  36. ^ T. Lomperis, From People's War to People's Rule (1996)
  37. ^ "Australian casualties in the Vietnam War, 1962–72". Australian War Memorial. Archived from the original on 14 February 2023. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  38. ^ "Overview of the war in Vietnam". New Zealand and the Vietnam War. 16 July 1965. Archived from the original on 26 July 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  39. ^ "America Wasn't the Only Foreign Power in the Vietnam War". 2 October 2013. Archived from the original on 18 April 2023. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  40. ^ "Vietnam Reds Said to Hold 17 From Taiwan as Spies". The New York Times. 1964. Archived from the original on 7 March 2023.
  41. ^ Larsen, Stanley (1975). Vietnam Studies Allied Participation in Vietnam (PDF). Department of the Army. ISBN 978-1-5176-2724-9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2023.
  42. ^ "Asian Allies in Vietnam" (PDF). Embassy of South Vietnam. March 1970. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 May 2023. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  43. ^ Shenon, Philip (23 April 1995). "20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 May 2023. Retrieved 24 February 2011. The Vietnamese government officially claimed a rough estimate of 2 million civilian deaths, but it did not divide these deaths between those of North and South Vietnam.
  44. ^ a b c Obermeyer, Ziad; Murray, Christopher J. L.; Gakidou, Emmanuela (23 April 2008). "Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme". British Medical Journal. 336 (7659): 1482–1486. doi:10.1136/bmj.a137. PMC 2440905. PMID 18566045. From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war deaths ... 3.8 million in Vietnam
  45. ^ Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia, 1970–1979". Forced Migration and Mortality. National Academies Press. pp. 102–104, 120, 124. ISBN 978-0-309-07334-9. As best as can now be estimated, over two million Cambodians died during the 1970s because of the political events of the decade, the vast majority of them during the mere four years of the 'Khmer Rouge' regime. ... Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the [civil war] in the order of 300,000 or less.
  46. ^ Banister, Judith; Johnson, E. Paige (1993). Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community. Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-938692-49-2. An estimated 275,000 excess deaths. We have modeled the highest mortality that we can justify for the early 1970s.
  47. ^ Sliwinski, Marek (1995). Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique [The Khmer Rouge genocide: A demographic analysis]. L'Harmattan. pp. 42–43, 48. ISBN 978-2-7384-3525-5.
  48. ^ "Name of Technical Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon to be added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial". Department of Defense (DoD). Archived from the original on 20 October 2013.
  49. ^ a b Lawrence, A.T. (2009). Crucible Vietnam: Memoir of an Infantry Lieutenant. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-4517-2.
  50. ^ Olson & Roberts 2008, p. 67.
  51. ^ "Chapter 5, Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954–1960". The Pentagon Papers (Gravel Edition), Volume 1. Boston: Beacon Press. 1971. Section 3, pp. 314–346. Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 17 August 2008 – via International Relations Department, Mount Holyoke College.
  52. ^ Eckhardt, George (1991). Vietnam Studies Command and Control 1950–1969. Department of the Army. p. 6. Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  53. ^ a b Ang, Cheng Guan (2002). The Vietnam War from the Other Side. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7007-1615-9.
  54. ^ a b "Vietnam War Allied Troop Levels 1960–73". Archived from the original on 2 August 2016. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  55. ^ Li, Xiaobing (2010). Voices from the Vietnam War: Stories from American, Asian, and Russian Veterans. University Press of Kentucky. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-8131-7386-3.
  56. ^ a b Kolko, Gabriel (1985). Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience. Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0-394-74761-3.
  57. ^ America's Wars (PDF) (Report). Department of Veterans Affairs. May 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 January 2014.
  58. ^ Anne Leland; Mari–Jana "M-J" Oboroceanu (26 February 2010). American War and Military Operations: Casualties: Lists and Statistics (PDF) (Report). Congressional Research Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 May 2023.
  59. ^ Aaron Ulrich (editor); Edward FeuerHerd (producer and director) (2005, 2006). Heart of Darkness: The Vietnam War Chronicles 1945–1975 (DVD) (Documentary). Koch Vision. Event occurs at 321 minutes. ISBN 1-4172-2920-9. Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  60. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  61. ^ Cite error: The named reference :6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  62. ^ Cite error: The named reference :02 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  63. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  64. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  65. ^ Kalb, Marvin (22 January 2013). "It's Called the Vietnam Syndrome, and It's Back". Brookings Institution. Archived from the original on 24 December 2022. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
  66. ^ Horne, Alistair (2010). Kissinger's Year: 1973. Phoenix. pp. 370–371. ISBN 978-0-7538-2700-0.

Developed by StudentB