Las guerras de Vietnam

Few wars have marked an era and a country as profoundly as the Vietnam War. The era was the 1960s, the country the United States. But it wasn't strictly a single war, but rather three wars that raged relentlessly for more than two decades, bleeding this Southeast Asian nation dry. The first began after Japan's surrender in 1945. Vietnam, then part of French Indochina, claimed its independence through a guerrilla war against the colonial power. This war concluded with the French withdrawal following their defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. This led to a Korean-style solution: the division of the country into two states: the North, with a communist government led by Ho Chi Minh and its capital in Hanoi, and the South, with a pro-Western regime and its capital in the historic city of Saigon, the former seat of the French colonial administration. Thus, what had been a somewhat marginal European colony became the focus of the geopolitical interests of the two superpowers of the time. To prevent a civil war from erupting, the Geneva Accords, which ended the French occupation, stipulated a referendum on unification in 1958, but it was never held. The Soviets and the Chinese established positions in the North, and the United States, fearing a domino effect and the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, increased its support for the South Vietnamese government by sending military advisors and economic aid. But the North was not inclined to maintain the status quo. Its leaders aspired to unify the country by eliminating South Vietnam, which they considered a puppet of the United States. This marked the beginning of the dreaded civil war, fueled by communist guerrillas led by the National Liberation Front of Vietnam, or Viet Cong. They gradually gained ground and put the Saigon government in serious trouble, which led to increased US involvement on the ground. The Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 provided the pretext for direct military intervention. Under the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, the United States massively deployed troops to Vietnam, initiating a military escalation that would mark the beginning of the third war, this time fully internationalized. The North received support from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, while the South received support from the US military, which at the height of the conflict deployed more than half a million troops in Vietnam equipped with modern weaponry. The US strategy was based on air superiority and firepower. The massive bombing of North Vietnam and the use of chemical agents such as napalm and Agent Orange sought to break the will of the enemy entrenched in the jungle. But this was very different from other wars the Americans had fought. The Viet Cong possessed a deep knowledge of the terrain, the support of a large part of the local population, and the backing of the North. The war became a bloody clash between two models of combat: the American conventional war, based on technology and the pursuit of a decisive battle, and the Viet Cong's guerrilla warfare, characterized by mobility, camouflage, ambushes, and sabotage. The American military, despite its might, found itself trapped in a war of attrition, facing an elusive enemy that blended into the civilian population. The Vietnam War lasted, as I mentioned before, more than two decades, and being so recent, it is very well documented. That's why I'm going to dedicate two programs to it, this one and next week's. In this first installment, we'll understand its origins and delve into the American intervention up to the Tet Offensive in 1968, a turning point that foreshadowed its final and decisive phase. In The Counter Seal: 0:00 Introduction 4:28 The Vietnam Wars 1:27:15 Romans in the Canary Islands 1:34:03 The Hungarian Invasions Bibliography: "The Vietnam War: An Epic Tragedy" by Max Hastings - https://amzn.to/3CeTv8e "NAM" by Mark Baker - https://amzn.to/3NZeE93 "The Other History of the Vietnam War" by Jonathan Neale - https://amzn.to/3NYCcuP "A Brief History of the Vietnam War" by Raquel Barrios Ramos - https://amzn.to/48CYjk5 · Telegram Channel: https://t.me/lacontracronica · "Against the French Revolution"... https://amzn.to/4aF0LpZ · "Hispanics: A Brief History of the Spanish-Speaking Peoples Hispanic History… https://amzn.to/428js1G • “The Counter-History of Spain: Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of a Country in 28 Episodes”… https://amzn.to/3kXcZ6i • “Luther, Calvin, and Trent: The Reformation That Never Was”… https://amzn.to/3shKOlK • “The Counter-History of Communism”… https://amzn.to/39QP2KE #FernandoDiazVillanueva #Vietnam #Indochina