Planning for essay
In my essay i will be talking about whether ‘search and destroy’ and ‘defoliation’ tactics were effective or ineffective, i will also explain what they are and how they done it. The main reason for America to get involved in the Vietnam war was to stop the spread of communism, as Vietnam is surrounded by many different counties , America had thought that if Vietnam turned communist then the ‘domino theory’ would happen.
America’s aim of ‘search and destroy’ was to get ground troops to go to villages that has been rumoured to have Viet Cong people in and search around the village. They would force the villagers out of there, and search the villages for weapons. Once all the villagers were out they would burn down the houses so that can’t go back to their village again and kill all the men as they thought they were connected with the Viet Cong. Air mobility was effective for the search and destroy tactic, this was effective because it got the troops to place to place quickly and easily. It was also effective because they could look out of it and see across the vast jungles and look where the villages are.
However the ‘search and destroy’ tactic was ineffective as well, Americans main objective was to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. Although that was there aim it didn’t go to plan because they burned down their villages, raped there woman and killed all their children. I know this because “the soldiers used intimidation and violence to get information” this made the Vietnamese people to hate and turn on the American army as they were being violent. This again means that the ‘search and destroy’ tactic isn’t working and all this is doing is turning the Vietnamese people away and making them think that the communism would be better.
Overall I think that the ‘search and destroy’ tactic was ineffective because all it was doing was losing the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people and making them think that communism is the best solution as the communist countries are helping them fight the capitalists, therefore they will think they are all good and that there helping them fight back and survive.
Defoliation is a deadly chemical cocktail, containing dioxin. This deadly chemical killed over millions of acres of the jungle to weaken the Vietcong. This was used to weaken the Vietcong because Americans speciality was to have a head on head war the Vietcong were clever and used their surroundings of the