A. Short - The Origins of the Vietnam War

THE ORIGINS OF THE VIETNAM WAR

ORIGINS OF MODERN WARS
General editor: Harry Hearder

Titles already published:

THE ORIGINS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
James Joll

THE ORIGINS OF THE ARAB-ISRAELI WARS
Ritchie Ovendale

THE ORIGINS OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
Ian Nish

THE ORIGINS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS
T. C. W. Blanning

THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE
P. M. H. Bell

THE ORIGINS OF THE KOREAN WAR
Peter Lowe

THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Akira Iriye

THE ORIGINS OF THE VIETNAM WAR
Anthony Short

THE ORIGINS OF
THE VIETNAM WAR

Anthony Short

First published 1989 by Longman Group Limited

Published 2013 by Routledge
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Copyright 1989, Taylor & Francis.

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ISBN 13: 978-0-582-49081-9 (pbk)

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Short, Anthony
The origins of the Vietnam War.
(Origins of modern wars)
1. Vietnamese wars, 19541975. Causes
I. Title II. Series
959.7042

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Short, Anthony.
The origins of the Vietnam War.
(Origins of modern wars)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Vietnamese Conflict, 19611975Origins.
2. VietnamHistory20th century. 3. United States
Foreign relationsVietnam. 4. VietnamForeign
relationsUnited States. 5. United StatesForeign
Relations1945-. I. Title. II. Title: Origins
of the Viet Nam War. III. Series.
DS557.6.S53 1989 959.70432 88-27194

Set in 10/11pt Linotron Times

CONTENTS

With the publication of this, the eighth, volume in the series, the short lull which has followed Akira Iriye's The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific is over, and it seems likely that a second wave of volumes is beginning. It is therefore an appropriate moment for the editor to reiterate the aims of the series, and perhaps he will be forgiven for indulging in the first person.

When I first had the idea of editing a series of books on the causes of individual wars long before I found a publisher who was wise enough to undertake the project I was asking myself why it was that academics in other disciplines political science, sociology, psychology, even zoology were prepared to speculate on the causes of wars in general, while historians were inhibited from doing so. T. C. W. Blanning, in his The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars, discussed shrewdly and amusingly the speculations of anthropologists, ethnologists, sociologists and psychologists. It seemed to me that what historians could contribute were specific analyses of the origins of individual wars, using a knowledge and understanding which the other social scientists would inevitably lack. Historians (whether they teach in departments of History, Politics or International Relations, or are, indeed, outside the academic world altogether) would bring to bear on the problem their scholarship and their research into the history of various countries and societies, and their understanding of the operation of international relations in the immediate, and not so immediate, past. In doing so they would contribute to a revival of what used to be called diplomatic history, by placing it into a much deeper perspective than it had enjoyed in the writings between the wars. That diplomatic history has something to offer in this deeper perspective, which can better be termed international history, can hardly be doubted. Already in 1965 Jacques Godechot referred to the lack of favour which has unjustly been shown towards diplomatic history in recent years (Les rvolutions 17701799, Presse Universitaire de France). The injustice is now being to a great extent eliminated.

To encourage academic historians to provide an objective view of the origins of the wars in fields in which they were specialists seemed to me a worthwhile task. The series could have a double purpose. It would bring to the university public a series of syntheses of the literature on the subject and of the author's individual research and interpretation. It would thus serve on the one hand a strictly academic, scholarly, purpose. But on the other hand, I hoped that the series would contribute a body of writing which would enlighten our understanding of the causes of war in general. Dr David Gillard was kind enough to say in a review in the THES that the series will be of the utmost value to all scholars, politicians, diplomats and journalists with a professional interest in why some international crises are resolved by war rather than by negotiation. If only a very few politicians and journalists read only one or two of the volumes something will have been gained in international understanding.

I felt that the two aims were not contradictory or mutually exclusive. The author would usually view his task in writing the volume as a purely academic one the acceptance of a challenge to get at the truth of one particular historic tragedy. But the very fact that his search was an impartial and dispassionate one would validate his work in the more general context.

Anthony Short's splendid book on The Origins of the Vietnam War takes us from the early days when the American government at first genuinely wanted to mediate between the French and the Vietminh, to the culminating tragedy of full-scale American involvement. Mr Short shows that de Gaulle's government believed Vietnamese freedom could be obtained within the French Union, and was unaware of the significance of the word independence for the emerging third-world countries. The French never used the word independence with regard to Vietnam, and in this respect showed a greater inability to adjust to the post-war world than that displayed by the British. On the other hand Short makes it clear that the Americans (notably Acheson) went through a process of thought with regard to Nationalist China, and the probable ultimate success of communism there, with the Communists exploiting a revolutionary spirit in the midst of the poverty and misery of centuries. But the Americans failed to recognize an analogy between what was happening in China and what was likely to happen in Vietnam.