An Analysis of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964 as a Major Turning Point in the Vietnam War

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An Analysis of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964 as a Major Turning Point in the Vietnam War
The importance of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964 was a major turning point and not another event because it acted as a catalyst to escalating the military involvement of the United States in Vietnam. Without a just cause to go to war, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution allowed the United States government to provide conventional military assistant to South Vietnam without having to make a direct Declaration of War. President Lyndon Johnson authorized this form of small-scale warfare agenda to define a new form of governmental policy that committed itself to military conflict without the necessity of defining it as a “war” in its traditional...

.....turning point of the Vietnam War because the threat of communism against South Vietnam could not be turned down in light of Cold War politics. After a communist state—North Vietnam—had attacked U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, the necessity to create Johnson’s conventional war became irreversible. Since the North Vietnamese were funded by China in its military attacks on American’s ally in South Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a crucial turning point in the war that antagonized the Cold War fervor that led to a massive escalation of war against North Vietnam.
References
Davidson, P. (1991). Vietnam at war: The history: 1946-1975. Oxford University: Oxford University Press.
Karnow
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