In January 1961, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushschev gave a speech in Moscow in which he predicted there would be a global movement toward socialism and stated that the "wars of national liberation " would have been crucial in this process. He also offered Soviet support to resistance movements to overthrow fascists and capitalists. US President John F. Kennedy explained this speech as a confirmation of the Soviet Union's intention to use replacement forces as a means of furthering its own interests rather than choosing direct engagement with the United States. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay This confirmed suspicions that the USSR only seeks to expand its interests. In fact, it was interpreted as a declaration of war on capitalist nations. President John F. Kennedy and the White House struggled to convince the American public of the threat posed by communist forces in Southeast Asia. The ideological battle with communism is what helped JFK push for America's participation in the Vietnam War, and where that wasn't enough, the idea of ​​potential strategic gains was emphasized. Kennedy believed that “the Indochinese states were French puppet states,” examples of empire and colonialism that can be found everywhere. Ending communism's southern push makes sense, but not just by relying on force of arms. The task is, rather, to build strong indigenous non-communist sentiment in these areas and rely on it as the spearhead of defense. To do so, independently and in defiance of nationalistic goals, would lead to failure, according to Kennedy. But ultimately, President JFK failed in his attempt to gain the long-term support of the American people. Furthermore, the president and the White House were unable to lay a solid and pragmatic foundation for achieving America's objectives in Vietnam. Even after committing so many resources to fighting the Vietnamese communists, America ultimately achieved nothing. The above point is vital to bridging the gap between the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and that of Lyndon B. Johnson. Helps understand the overall escalation of the war under Kennedy. Much of America's defeat in Vietnam stemmed from two things. On the one hand, secrecy within both the White House and the Pentagon has led to errors of indecision. But on the other hand, the failures caused by the corruption and sheer incompetence of the Diem regime (as well as subsequent South Vietnamese governments). An example of the first point (White House/Pentagon indecision) would be that while the US Army recommended rapid and decisive aerial bombing, McGeorge Bundy (National Security Advisor from 1961 to 1966) and John McNaughton (Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1964 to 1967) supported the bombings which progressively increased. A lack of agreement of this kind inevitably led to American failure. The incompetence/corruption of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime of South Vietnam (1955-1963) can also be seen as an accelerating factor behind the first point. While the United States focused on helping South Vietnam eliminate the communists, it did not take into consideration the political instability of the Diem regime. Behind the outward success of Diem's ​​regime, however, lay fatal problems...many local officials and police involved in extortion, corruption, and theft of government property...many of these officials were, like Diem himself, Northerners and Roman Catholicsthey further alienated them from the local population. All of this led to the addition of more American enemies to the containment effort, including communist guerrilla groups (the Viet Cong) and even non-communists in South Vietnam. This cartoon shows how the United States is drowning in a swamp with the name Vietnam , desperately clinging to an armed solution and a failing doctrine. With the Vietnam War triggering containment policies by the United States, the next step is to analyze how it affected neighboring Southeast Asian states. The aftermath of the Vietnam War allowed the Cambodian communist group, the Khmer Rouge, to seize power in Cambodia: made possible by the destruction caused along the border shared with Vietnam. Furthermore, Cambodia has also experienced problems such as war refugees and the problem of military bases built by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) within Cambodia itself. Therefore, the Khmer Rouge were able to overthrow a weakened government and take control of the country. To stop the flow of communist rebels between Vietnam and the neighboring nation of Laos, the U.S. military was willing to conduct aerial bombardments along these nations. borders on a large scale. Indeed, some have argued that American and CIA military efforts in Laos surpassed those in Vietnam: for the Laotians hiding in the mountains and jungles to escape what is considered the heaviest bombing in history, the campaign was certainly not a secret. Striking Laos in the north and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the south, the U.S. Air Force launched an average of one strike every eight minutes for nearly ten years. In virtually identical fashion, American military actions in Vietnam (as well as along the Cambodian borders) weakened the government of neighboring Laos, making it easy for the Pathet Lao to come to power in the latter. Taking the above into account, it is easy to assume that American attempts to contain communism in Southeast Asia have ironically caused the exact domino effect feared by the former. In an effort to end the communist takeover of Vietnam, they caused communist governments to come to power in both Cambodia and Laos. While US failures in containment during the 1960s are evident in this survey so far, questionable successes are ideal to mention: starting with Indonesia. America's (perhaps paranoid) commitment to countering the threat of communism reflects the CIA's willingness to turn a blind eye to crimes committed against humanity by non-communist militants. Governments of Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, the mass killings of alleged communists at the hands of the Indonesian army and Muslim militias in 1965-66 are a brutal and effective example. In December 1965, the American consulate in Indonesia reported that preachers in mosques were telling followers that all those who joined the Communist Party must be killed, saying they belong to "the lowest order of , whose bloodshed is comparable to 'killing of chickens'. In the neighboring Philippines, the rise of the Hukbalahap Rebellion (HUK) in 1967 strongly attracted the attention of the CIA. Harsh measures were soon taken to crush the communist HUK, both by the American and Philippine governments. America's dogged commitment to stopping the formation of a communist government in the Philippines has become increasingly evident through declassified CIA documents. The United States might have succeeded in containing communism in Indonesia and the Philippines, the atrocities committed to accomplish this bring the American fight against communism into question. After analyzing the chaos caused by containment policies in Southeast Asia from 1960 to 1970, we,.