Any aspect of the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

Focusing on the Ho Chi Minh Trail

The containment doctrine that America pursed by the mid fifties was the grand strategy that sanctioned and propelled the Vietnam war (1 ) America had it its interests , Norman podhoretz et al (1980 ) argues that America was not only protecting Vietnam , although it was an important part of its mission , it was also defending the rest of Asia that would soon be threatened by communism if Vietnam fell . Gabriel kolko (1985 ) postulated that the USA after world war II has always had intent

of imposing a particular political and economic on the world (3 ) Others argues that the war served to stimulate production of war resource (in the form of arms )hence protecting the economic goals that America had in had in Vietnam (4 ) This whole scenario is as complex as , the maze woven by the Hanoi government in the name of the Ho Chi Minh Trail (5 ) The North Vietnamese had strategy and Ho Chi Minh Trail is one such aspect that that intrigued all and sundry (6

The Ho Chi Minh Trail

The structure

Named after the North Vietnamese leader , the Ho Chi Minh Trail was the military logistic system that connected Northern Vietnam to South Vietnam , running through the jungle areas of Cambodia and Laos (7 ) It is the Americans who referred to it after the North Vietnamese President otherwise , among the Vietnamese it was called the Truong Son Road . The Ho Chi Minh Trail existed centuries long before the Vietnam War . For

the Vietnamese it was named after the very mountain ranges it traversed (6 . The trail was complex . Not a single way and was made up of truck routes , paths for foot or bicycle riders , and river navigation systems (9 ) The Ho Chi Minh Train , existed centuries before the Vietnam war . The trail was in the past a system used in trade and communication in the region (10 ) The trail which traversed , a least habituated but rugged mountainous region that was up to 1800 meters (11 high . It was within a dense jungle with a triple canopy and thick indigenous rainforests which kept it clearly hidden (12 ) The trail however received much attention in 1959 when the Hanoi government established the 559th Transportation group , under General Vo Bams leadership (13

The goal of this regiment was to improve and maintain the system in a bid to hasten the unification of Vietnam (14 )During the North Vietnam and Ngo Dinh Diem led conflict , the early times of war involved the use of the trail for infiltration of manpower (15 )The Hanoi government had to struggle with supply deliveries once the USA navy started interdicting its supply Lines at sea (16 )The Ho Chi Minh trail worked the alternative role therefore , of providing storage in caches in the b regions , that later became , the Operation Base Area (BA , and as such shelters for the National Front for Liberation of South Vietnam (NFL ) and People Army of Vietnam...