To what extent was the growing opposition in the USA responsible for Johnsons failure to defeat communist forces in Vietnam in the years 1963-1968?
Some people may believe that the growing opposition in the US was the main factor towards Johnsons failure to beat communism due to reasons such as the failure of US tactics and US morale hitting rock bottom. However there are a variety of other factors which may also have had an input, these include the extreme amount of media coverage and youth/civil rights protests.
Firstly, it is obvious that the failure of US tactics, leading to opposition within the us, played a vital role towards Johnsons failure at beating the communists. This is after the US public realised that various tactics such as Operation Rolling Thunder, Search And Destroy Missions and Chemical Warfare often harmed innocent people, causing am outrage at the way the war was being fought. This is then further displayed by how between the years 63-68, 3895 US soldiers were killed in Vietnam, ending in many calls for Johnson to pull out of Vietnam, a war which many believed the USA had no place to be involved in. Johnson knew the public opinion was extremely important due to the fast approaching election, and so couldn’t push the army to its full potential due to fear of losing his place as president, thus showing how the growing opposition in the USA was responsible for Johnsons failure to defends communist forces in the years 1963-68.
On the other hand, I can easily be argued that the extensive amount of media coverage the US was getting in Vietnam could have been responsible to Johnsons failure. This is because the media often covered the worst bits of the war, such as the effects of napalm on civilians, which of course was not taken too well by the people back home. For example, when General Nguyen Ngoc Loan was televised brutally shooting a vc member in public, there was uproar aimed at Johnson, which could easily be a factor towards his failure at containing the communist forces, because of media restraints.
Again, the US opposition played an important role for another reason, this being the US morale and how the hearts and minds of the American people were simply not in favour of Johnson and his regime. This fact links back to how in Vietnam, 3895 US deaths occurred, and with these constant deaths happening around the soldiers and being reported to people in the us, it ended up turning people to opposing Johnson and his ideas, thus possibly showing how the opposition in the US could have been a key factor towards why Johnson failed to defeat communist forces in the years 1963-69.
Finally, another reason other than US opposition for Johnsons failure would be the American youth at the time, who were seemingly going through a ‘fad’ of joining protest groups, following in the footsteps of Martin Luther Kings successful civil rights campaign. Many Youths were easily persuaded to join these groups, some just ‘jumping on the band wagon’ but they were very adamant on protesting again sending soldiers to Vietnam, therefore putting extreme amounts of pressure on Johnson and the tactics he is using, and so being a differing factor towards Johnsons failure to defeat the communist forces in the years 1963-69.
To conclude, despite the army’s morale and the American youths both being pushing factors towards Johnsons failure in the battle against communism in Vietnam, It seems obvious that the public opinion was the single most responsible factor for this due to Johnson wanting to win the election more than he wanted to keep Vietnam and so was becoming very constrained by the US public opinion, which meant he couldn’t risk more US lives in hopes of winning the war, thus meaning the public opinion was responsible for Johnsons failure to defeat communist forces in the years 1963-68.