1975, two years after the Americans left, South Vietnam was united with the North - it was now a communist state. What was the lasting effect of war on America and Vietnam?
Results of the Vietnam WarVietnam united
Although the Americans left Vietnam in 1973, they continued to support the South Vietnamese army - the ARVN - with financial and military aid.In April 1975 the South Vietnamese regime collapsed and Vietnam was united.The impact on Vietnam
The North Vietnamese army - the NVA - massacred thousands of South Vietnamese after the Americans had left. Many people tried to flee South Vietnam (eg the "boat people").The Vietnamese had to fight wars against Cambodia and China before their independence was secured.Vietnam was ruined - its infrastructure was destroyed, thousands of its people had been killed, and its farmland was polluted by American chemical warfare. It remains one of the poorest countries in the world.The impact on America
58,000 Americans died in Vietnam.The war had cost so much that President Johnson's Great Society programme of social reform had to be cancelled.Loss of confidence: America had failed to "contain" communism. In 1973, Nixon announced that America was abandoning the Truman Doctrine. It was nearly 20 years before America again intervened militarily in world affairs. - The domino theory was proved to be wrong. The fall of South Vietnam to communism was not immediately followed by a similar effect in other countries.News of atrocities such as the killings at My Lai lost the US its claim to moral superiority, and its status as the world's defender of freedom and right.700,000 Vietnam veterans suffered psychological after-effects.
