Conflict in Indochina 1954–1979

Conflict in Indochina 1954–1979 is one of six Peace and Conflict options in Section III: one 25-mark extended response (choose one of two alternatives), about 1,000 words. The syllabus key features are nationalism and communism in Indochina, the nature and impact of US involvement, the strategies and tactics of the opposing sides, the impact of the conflict on civilians, and the reasons for the communist victories.

• Survey: decolonisation and the First Indochina War (1946–54); the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu (1954); the Geneva Conference.
• Vietnam 1954–1964: political, social, economic and military developments in North and South Vietnam; US policy to 1964.
• The Second Indochina War: US policy and escalation from 1964; strategies and tactics; the Tet Offensive (1968); the impact on civilians; anti-war movements in the USA and Australia; US withdrawal; the reasons for the communist victory in Vietnam.
• Laos and Cambodia: the spread of the war; its impact on civilians; communist victories (1975); Democratic Kampuchea under Pol Pot, to the Vietnamese invasion (1978–79).

Remember that the option is Indochina, not just Vietnam. Many essay alternatives can be answered better with evidence from Laos and Cambodia.

• France ruled Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) from the late 19th century. Ho Chi Minh founded the Viet Minh in 1941 and declared Vietnamese independence on 2 September 1945.
• The First Indochina War (1946–54) ended with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu (7 May 1954). From 1950 the USA paid a growing share of France's war costs.
• Geneva Accords (21 July 1954): ceasefire; temporary division at the 17th parallel; reunification elections due in July 1956; Laos and Cambodia independent. No delegation signed the Final Declaration; the USA and Diem's government refused to be bound by it.
• Domino theory: Eisenhower (April 1954) warned that if Vietnam fell, its neighbours would follow. SEATO (1954) extended protection to South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

The North

• The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), led by Ho Chi Minh and the Workers' (Communist) Party.
• Land reform (1953–56) redistributed land but executed thousands of alleged landlords; Ho apologised for ‘errors’ in 1956.
• From 1959 the party decided to support armed struggle in the South and began building the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Le Duan became the dominant leader.

The South

• Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic nationalist, became Prime Minister in 1954 and President of the Republic of Vietnam after a rigged referendum in October 1955. He refused to hold the 1956 elections.
• His regime was narrow: dominated by his family (his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu ran the security police), favouring Catholics, repressing opponents.
• The National Liberation Front (NLF), called the Viet Cong by its enemies, was founded in December 1960.
• The Strategic Hamlet Program (from 1962) moved peasants into fortified villages and caused resentment.
• At Ap Bac (January 1963) a much larger ARVN force was beaten by the Viet Cong.
• The Buddhist crisis (1963): protests against discrimination; the monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself to death in Saigon (June 1963).
• A US-tolerated military coup overthrew Diem, who was killed on 2 November 1963. Years of unstable military governments followed.

US policy to 1964

Eisenhower sent aid and advisers; Kennedy raised the number of advisers to about 16,000 by late 1963 and supported counter-insurgency. In August 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave Johnson authority to use force without a declaration of war.

Strategies and tactics

Tet and its consequences

• The Tet Offensive (from 30–31 January 1968) attacked more than 100 cities and towns. It failed militarily, but it destroyed claims that the war was nearly won.
• My Lai (16 March 1968): US soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed villagers; it became public in November 1969.
• On 31 March 1968 Johnson limited the bombing and announced he would not seek re-election. Peace talks began in Paris in May 1968.

Nixon and withdrawal

• Vietnamisation (1969): US troops withdrawn while the ARVN was built up; the Nixon Doctrine (1969).
• The war widened: secret bombing of Cambodia (from 1969), the US–ARVN incursion into Cambodia (April–May 1970), which provoked protests including the shootings at Kent State (4 May 1970), and the ARVN operation in Laos (Lam Son 719, 1971).
• The 1972 Easter Offensive was defeated with US air power; the ‘Christmas bombing’ of Hanoi (December 1972).
• Paris Peace Accords (27 January 1973): US forces left within 60 days; North Vietnamese troops stayed in the South.
• Congress restricted further action (the Case–Church Amendment and the War Powers Resolution, 1973) and cut aid. Saigon fell on 30 April 1975; Vietnam was formally reunified in 1976.

Anti-war movements

• USA: teach-ins and marches from 1965; the draft and rising casualties; television coverage; the March on the Pentagon (1967); Kent State (1970); the Pentagon Papers (1971). Historians debate whether the movement shortened the war or mainly reflected wider public weariness.
• Australia: Australia sent advisers (1962) and combat troops (1965); conscripts were chosen by birthday ballot under the National Service Act 1964. The Battle of Long Tan (18 August 1966). Opposition grew from Save Our Sons (1965) to the Moratorium marches of May 1970, which drew large crowds in Melbourne and other cities. Most Australian forces had left by the end of 1971; the Whitlam government ended conscription in December 1972. About 60,000 Australians served and more than 500 died.

Laos

• A civil war between the royal government and the communist Pathet Lao, backed by North Vietnam.
• The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran through eastern Laos. The CIA ran a ‘secret war’ using Hmong forces under General Vang Pao.
• The USA dropped about 2 million tonnes of bombs on Laos (1964–73); unexploded cluster bomblets still kill and injure people.
• The Pathet Lao took power, and the Lao People's Democratic Republic was proclaimed in December 1975.

Cambodia

• Prince Sihanouk tried to keep Cambodia neutral but tolerated North Vietnamese bases.
• US secret bombing began in 1969; Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk in March 1970; civil war followed. Sihanouk allied with the Khmer Rouge from exile.
• The Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975. Under Pol Pot, Democratic Kampuchea emptied the cities, abolished money, markets, schools and religion, and forced people into collective farms. Former officials, educated people, monks and minorities (the Cham, ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese) were persecuted; Tuol Sleng (S-21) was the main interrogation prison.
• An estimated 1.5–2 million people died (1975–79) — roughly a quarter of the population.
• After border attacks, Vietnam invaded in December 1978 and took Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979. China, which backed the Khmer Rouge, attacked northern Vietnam in February–March 1979.

• Deaths: estimates vary; Vietnam's government in 1995 gave about 2 million Vietnamese civilian deaths. About 58,000 US service personnel died.
• Displacement: about 800,000–1 million people moved south in 1954–55; millions became refugees during the war; the ‘boat people’ crisis followed 1975.
• Environment and health: about 75 million litres of herbicides were sprayed (1962–71), with lasting health effects.
• Atrocities by both sides: Hue (1968) and My Lai (1968).
• After 1975: re-education camps in Vietnam; genocide in Cambodia; Hmong refugees from Laos.

Interpretations earn credit when they support your argument; you do not need to name historians to reach the top band.

Worked example (not a bank question). _‘Assess the significance of the Diem regime in the escalation of conflict in Vietnam to 1965.’_

1. Thesis: Diem's regime was highly significant because its narrow base and repression created the conditions for insurgency, but Hanoi's decision for armed struggle and US Cold War policy turned that insurgency into a major war.
2. Diem's rule: cancelled elections, repression, the strategic hamlets, the Buddhist crisis.
3. The communist response: the 1959 decision, the NLF (1960), the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
4. US commitment: advisers, toleration of the 1963 coup, the Gulf of Tonkin, combat troops in 1965.
5. Weighing: instability after 1963 shows the problem was larger than Diem.
6. Conclusion with a clear assessment.

• Writing only about Vietnam and the USA; Laos, Cambodia and Australia are in the syllabus.
• Calling Tet a communist military victory.
• Confusing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with a declaration of war.
• Treating all communists in Indochina as one bloc; Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge went to war.
• Narrating events in order instead of arguing.

• Use precise terms: containment, domino theory, insurgency, attrition, search and destroy, pacification, Vietnamisation, credibility gap, protracted war, genocide.
• Link strategy to outcome: say whether each strategy achieved its aim.
• For civilian impact, compare the three countries and include both sides' actions.
• Keep a few figures ready: 17th parallel; about 543,000 US troops at the peak; 30 April 1975; 1.5–2 million deaths in Democratic Kampuchea.

• The Cold War 1945–1991: containment, the domino theory and détente explain US policy.
• Indonesia 1945–2005 and Conflict in the Pacific 1937–1951 show the wider story of decolonisation in South-East Asia after Japanese occupation.
• Australia 1918–1949 ends where Australia's Cold War commitments in Asia begin.