Vietnam: The Two Wars

In the aftermath of World War II, Indo-China became a battleground of competing ideologies; colonialism versus independence, capitalism versus communism. Vietnam found itself central to the this battle. As the Vietnamese fought for independence after Japanese occupation, both France and the United States became involved in protecting their interests. Both eventually suffered military defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese in the century’s longest running military conflict. The French fought the war to regain their colonial outpost from 1946 to 1954 and the Americans continued it from 1964 until 1973 in an effort to thwart the spread of communism in the region..