Vietnam

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Military power creates temptation: The excess military power of the US led the nation to become tempted into using its military power in a situation that was peripheral to the national interest

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The US should have approached the situation in Vietnam by using diplomacy or even assisting with the reunification of the North and South Vietnam

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Many U.S. soldiers who participated in the Vietnam War were draftees instead of an all – volunteer military

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By the mid – 1960s, Americans began to realize that the direction of the war offered little chance of victory and carried a heavy cost in lives and economics

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The Vietnam War cost an estimated $347 billion dollars compared to the Revolutionary War ($1 billion), US Civil War ($44 billion), WWI ($197 billion), Korean War ($264 billion) and Persian Gulf War ($61 billion)

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Escalating the war by invading North Vietnam might have brought about China’s involvement and increased the cost substantially

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The Vietnam War led to deep social divisions within the US – in 1970, four students at Kent State University were killed by the Ohio National Guard during an antiwar demonstration

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The unpopular war in Vietnam (which the US Congress had authorized) led to the enactment of the War Powers Resolution (WPR, 1973) to try to rein in the president’s self – claimed war power

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By 1969, American troops began to withdraw from Vietnam and all troops were gone by 1973

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Ultimately, Vietnam was reunited under Hanoi’s control in 1975

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Vietnam increased American (citizens) resistance to the cold war urge to fight communism everywhere

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Americans saw more clearly that the bipolar system was coming to an end, especially, as relations between the USSR and China were deteriorating