President Richard Nixon took office in 1969, and told the people of the US he had a new strategy on the Vietnam war. His plan was called “Vietnamization” and it’s purpose was to end American involvement in the Vietnam War. This meant shifting all military responsibility to the south of Vietnam and leaving them in charge of the war. It involved training them and strengthening their army, in order to withdrawal all US military troops from South Vietnam. The idea was to prepare South Vietnam from a communist take over from North Vietnam, without making it seem like the US abandoned South Vietnam to the communists. In January 1973 the US wanted peace with North Vietnam and both came to agreements. The US was to withdrawal remaining troops in South Vietnam for an ” Immediate cease fire” how ever a few years later South Vietnam fell into communist power in 1975
http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnamization
It’s unbelievable to think of America being such a powerful country that lost the war of Vietnam against the communist forces. In reality it wasn’t our war anyways. We just didn’t want communism to spread. What I really think happened though is America realized it wasn’t our war and decided it wasn’t worth so many American lives. If they really wanted to defeat North Vietnam they would’ve done it but Americans never really wanted it- they did not have ownership over this war and that showed in how they treated the returning veterans. Throughout history we see how America always tries to flex its power and act like a global police officer, this time the jungles of Vietnam made them think twice about following through with their plans.