In 1969, North Vietnam declared the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. In late January, 1968, during the lunar new year (or Tet) holiday, North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a.

: 481 By the end of the year, the VC held little territory and were sidelined by the PAVN. In 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive though it was a military defeat for them, it became a political victory, as it caused U.S. also conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam, : 371–374 and continued significantly building up its forces, despite little progress being made. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. Johnson ordered the deployment of combat units for the first time, and dramatically increased the number of American troops to 184,000. military presence in Vietnam, without a formal declaration of war. Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. : 131įollowing the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, the U.S. Kennedy, from just under a thousand military advisors in 1959 to 23,000 by 1964. involvement increased under President John F. : 16 By 1963, the north had sent 40,000 soldiers to fight in the south. North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1958, establishing the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply and reinforce the VC.

The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), engaged in more conventional warfare with U.S. The Viet Cong (VC), a South Vietnamese common front under the direction of the north, initiated a guerrilla war in the south. assumed financial and military support for the South Vietnamese state. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist states by 1975.Īfter the French military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 – following their defeat in the First Indochina War – the Viet Minh took control of North Vietnam, and the U.S. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975.

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