The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was really a completely political war.  It was a proxy war between the United States and Russia.  Russia and the United States fought many proxy wars so as to have beacons of communism and capitalism all around the world.  It began when  communist North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam.  The North Koreans saw this as a colonial war, fighting away the French who were aided by the United States and later South Vietnam.  The war started in 1955 and ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon to the Vietnam People's Army.  The war greatly affected Laos and Cambodia as well, leaving up to 500,000 people dead.  Estimates of Vietnamese casualties vary from under 1 million to above 3 million.  It was opposed by a very large proportion of the population on grounds that it was seen as an imperialist or colonial war, and that the United States's involvement in the war was greatening tensions in the region and leading to more bloodshed.  The United States involvement in the war officially ended in 1973, although fighting lasted until 1975, though all United States combat troops had been home for 2 years.  I think that this was one of the most useless wars for America to have gotten involved with.  It was entered for political reasons such as fighting communism, but the political benefit was lost relatively early on in the war.  The war was opposed from 1962 and the United States then tripled the number of troops in Vietnam.  This war was also a failure in protecting the world from the threat of communism, for the United States left the war before it was over and allowed the communist North Vietnam to take over South Vietnam.  This war was very unsuccessful, hurt America, and made America look like a fool, for we failed to accomplish anything but prolonging the conflict.

http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War