What were Nixon’s Strategies for Ending the Vietnam War? (AQA GCSE History): Revision Note

Summary

President Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 after promising to bring about an “honourable peace” in Vietnam. His policy of Vietnamisation required South Vietnam’s soldiers to do more of the fighting against the Vietcong rather than alongside the US troops. However, he also resumed heavy bombing raids on North Vietnam and ordered both US aircraft and soldiers to pursue the Vietcong into the neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia. Many Americans believed he was expanding the war rather than ending it. 

Vietnamisation

• Richard Nixon was the US president from 1968 to 1974

  • He was determined to prevent the spread of communism in Asia and did not want to lose the war in Vietnam

• Nixon knew how unpopular the war was becoming with the American people

  • He needed to find a way to reduce the number of Americans who were being killed fighting in Vietnam

• The plan to achieve these two things was called Vietnamisation

• It involved:

  • Paying huge sums to expand, train and equip the South Vietnamese army (ARVN)

  • Gradually reducing the number of US troops who were fighting in Vietnam

• By the end of 1969, around 85,000 US troops (or 15% of the fighting force) had left Vietnam and returned home

Chemical warfare in Vietnam

• Although the number of US troops involved in combat on the ground decreased, attacks from the air increased under Nixon

• This included continuing Operation Ranch Hand, which involved spraying millions of litres of chemicals, such as Agent Orange, from planes

  • The aim was to destroy the crops and jungle hiding places that the Vietcong relied upon

• The widespread use of such chemicals had terrible environmental and human impacts for decades

  • The chemicals stayed in the soil and caused birth defects in the babies of pregnant women who had been exposed to them

Bombing campaigns (1970–72)

• President Johnson had paused the heavy bombing campaign of North Vietnam in an effort to improve relations and start peace talks

  • Heavy bombing was resumed and intensified under Nixon

• Nixon believed that a massive aerial bombing campaign kept US servicemen relatively safe while disrupting supplies to the Vietcong

  • He also believed the death and destruction it caused in cities in North Vietnam would pressure its communist government to enter peace talks 

Attacks on Cambodia and Laos

• The supply routes that provided the Vietcong with weapons and food, known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, went through the neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia

  • Many of the bases from which the Vietcong launched their attacks were also in Laos and Cambodia

• Nixon ordered secret bombing raids to take place on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and on Vietcong bases in Cambodia in March 1969

  • The aerial bombing was unsuccessful, so Nixon ordered US troops to invade Cambodia and attack the Vietcong bases in April 1970

• Nixon had promised to end the war during the 1968 election, but it appeared as if he was expanding it 

  • When he announced that another 150,000 US troops would be needed in Asia, it triggered a wave of protests across the US

• Laos was invaded in 1971, but this time, the ARVN troops did the fighting

  • They were equipped with the latest US weaponry and equipment and supported by US military aerial bombing raids and artillery 

  • The ARVN invasion failed, and they were soon forced out of Laos

• The performance of the ARVN caused both the US and the North Vietnamese to question how effective Vietnamisation had been

  • Sensing that the ARVN were weak and ineffective soldiers, North Vietnam launched an invasion of South Vietnam in early 1972

• Nixon had intended to weaken the Vietcong and bring the end of the war closer

  • Instead, he had encouraged his enemies in North Vietnam

  • He also enraged many Americans who believed he was escalating a war he had been elected to end