From Olivia Garard, Strategy Bridge: “The Vietnam War is an aggregate of two very different wars: the Vietnamese war for independence and the American war to contain Communism. Linguistically, this contradiction is manifest in each country’s labels used to describe the war. America refers to the conflict as the Vietnam War, whereas Vietnam considers it either the American War in Vietnam or the Second Indochina War. From the American point of view, the Vietnam War was fought against the specter of Communism with Vietnam defined explicitly as the enemy. However, the Vietnamese considered the American War in Vietnam to be an American construct, an invasion and battle against their ability and right to define themselves. America, after the French in the First Indochina War, became the second imperialist defeated by the Vietnamese in their quest for independence and self-determination. The Vietnamese saw continuity between the two wars because they were—from their perspective—the same war of independence. The fervent nationalism did not change or dissipate between the First and the Second Indochina War—only the enemy did. These labels of the war are symptomatic of the fundamental and existential incompatibilities of the war America was fighting and the war Vietnam was fighting.”
Tet à Tête: Vietnamese Exploitation of American Misapprehension
From Olivia Garard, Strategy Bridge: “The Vietnam War is an aggregate of two very different wars: the Vietnamese war for independence and the American war to contain Communism. Linguistically, this contradiction is manifest in each country’s labels used to describe the war. America refers to the conflict as the Vietnam War, whereas Vietnam considers it either the American War in Vietnam or the Second Indochina War. From the American point of view, the Vietnam War was fought against the specter of Communism with Vietnam defined explicitly as the enemy. However, the Vietnamese considered the American War in Vietnam to be an American construct, an invasion and battle against their ability and right to define themselves. America, after the French in the First Indochina War, became the second imperialist defeated by the Vietnamese in their quest for independence and self-determination. The Vietnamese saw continuity between the two wars because they were—from their perspective—the same war of independence. The fervent nationalism did not change or dissipate between the First and the Second Indochina War—only the enemy did. These labels of the war are symptomatic of the fundamental and existential incompatibilities of the war America was fighting and the war Vietnam was fighting.”
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