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THis lecture is how did involvement in southeast asia by the united states
and the USSR led to both the Korean and Vietnam wars.
So the theme or Thesis you should understand is the Cold War
The hostility between the US and the Soviet Union
and the reason it never becomes a hot war is because of the Nuclear weapons. You never
want those two countries to fight because they would use Nuclear weapons.
So they are going to fight by proxy or fighting through other people. One of the first places this happens
is first Korea. Korea after world war II had been divided into
two Korea’s North and South. The 38th
parallel or the line of latitude here is the line of latitude the 38th parallel
here it is today it actually is the same split today the 38th paralell
So um, in June of 1950 one hundred thousand
North Korean troops using Soviet weapons and tanks invaded S. Korea
Truman asked the United Nations to approve the use of force.
Under UN rules though anyone of the major Nations could single
handedly veto a measure. One of those Nations was the Soviet Union. The reason they didn’t veto it
is because the day of the vote the Soviet representative was absent
in protest of the admittance of the Nationalist of China
So there was more cold war politics taking place.
The UN troops are sent and thats a big deal because its not America fighting soviet troops it’s UN
So here’s the invasion. The invasion
happens in Red here all the way down to the
very southern tip of south Korea. Here’s is the 38th parallel.
Their literally ready to demolish them
General MAcArthur the guy who came up with island hopping
leads a very famous and amphibious invasion in Chong and cuts
it in half and pushes all the way
North, all the way up to
the chosin reservoir on the border
between China and North Korea. MacArthur's strategy is
terrific. so he pushes them all the way back
so they recapture sole which is down here and they face a decision.
so they keep going north of the 38th paralell china issues a waring saying
if you cross the 38th paralel we will retaliate. and the macarthur and the americans
decide to keep going north and their literally on the border when
300,000 chinese soldiers cross the yalu river and attack
the amaericans and its just a blood bath for that battle. its a very famous
battle still talked about today. so the chinese were too strong for the un forces
the 8th army is forced all the way to retreat
off of sol and macarthur publicly calls
the use of the atomic bomb. president truman felt that macarthur
too far and they fire him, a very famous firing youll study that
a lot next year and so the un forces
push north korea back the 38th parallel and the boreder in 1953
when the uh fighting stops and the border is still set today on the 38th parallel
so 5 million soldiers and civillians died in the war heres some
picture of the soldiers who surrendered and that actually still exists today the 38t parallel
um ok now switch to Vietnam
this Ho Chi Mihn leader of the
communists in south vietnam and he led nationalosts into free independence
in the movementagainst French and Japanese in early communists for supports
and china im sorry france had acually controlled
vietnam they called it french indo china
the most famous food that comes out of vietnam is called pho its actually a french word
that means beef soup so that if you go a pho place in vietnam today its because its a french vietnamese fusion cooking
so france actually stood in the way of an independent vietnam
Chi Mihn had gone to Treaty of Versailles in 1919 looking for selfdetermination was denied so now he becomesa communist so Americans were really nervous
about what was happening in asia and they
had a theory called domino theory and the Us saw southeast asia like a
row of dominoes so if one country fell to communism all of them would fall
so Ho chi
Mihn and the communists fougth to regain their countries
with peasant support and they kind of following the model of
Mao Zedong where they would gain the support of the peasants and
they were starting to win the battle and peace talks started between the two countries and ended up with a divided vietnam
like Korea was North Korea led by Ho Chi Mihn
and South Vietnam led by Nao Dinh Diem
now nao dinh diem who was actually quuite corrupt but we supported him because he was against communism
as part of the Truman doctrine so
Vietcong where communist south guerilla soldiers
who were all in north vietnam but residing in south vietnam and
Nao dinh diem was very very unpopular and opposition grew
by john F kennedy where a south vietnamese general planned a
coup and they assassinated Nao dinh diem and so they US
because we support this coup we send massive bombings
raids in vietnam even tough we never really declared war in vietnam
the guerilla warfare in unfamiliar jungle terrain
was a massive disadvantage and the south vietnamese government was
really unpopular and the only reason we supported them was because they rejected communism
and the soviets and china strongly supported south Vietnam.
troops and amunition and because we were unable to win the ground war
we brought more bombs in vietnam then we did in WW2
um so we get involved
from 1953 -1973 and we realize theres no way out
of this war and so the president of the early seventies
was richard nixon and he developed a policy that your going to be responsible for called
vietnamesation and he says were gonna make the war vietnam
war and were gonna pulls the troops out slowly because the war was really really unpopular here in the US
the last of the US forces left vietnam and within two years north Vietnam
overruns south vietnam and today its a communist country
so um sadly after the war officials in
in vietnam sent thousands of people to reeducation camps to training in communist
thinking and thoughts they nationalized industry and controlled business
throughout vietnam and communist oppression caused
millions to flee from vietnam as they scattered across south east asia
many of them actually left vietnam as quickly as they could and they settled here
in southern califorina in a town called westminster
Subtitles by the Amara.org community