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From Indochina to Vietnam: Revolution and War in a Global Perspective
Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam (Volume 1)
This beautifully crafted and solidly researched book explains why and how the United States made its first commitment to Vietnam in the late 1940s. Mark Atwood Lawrence deftly explores the process by which the Western powers set aside their fierce disagreements over colonialism and extended the Cold War fight into the Third World. Drawing on an unprecedented array of sources from three countries, Lawrence illuminates the background of the U.S. government's decision in 1950 to send military equipment and economic aid to bolster France in its war against revolutionaries. That decision, he argues, marked America's first definitive step toward embroilment in Indochina, the start of a long series of moves that would lead the Johnson administration to commit U.S. combat forces a decade and a half later.
Offering a bold new interpretation, the author contends that the U.S. decision can be understood only as the result of complex transatlantic deliberations about colonialism in Southeast Asia in the years between 1944 and 1950. During this time, the book argues, sharp divisions opened within the U.S., French, and British governments over Vietnam and the issue of colonialism more generally. While many liberals wished to accommodate nationalist demands for self-government, others backed the return of French authority in Vietnam. Only after successfully recasting Vietnam as a Cold War conflict between the democratic West and international communism—a lengthy process involving intense international interplay—could the three governments overcome these divisions and join forces to wage war in Vietnam.
One of the first scholars to mine the diplomatic materials housed in European archives, Lawrence offers a nuanced triangulation of foreign policy as it developed among French, British, and U.S. diplomats and policymakers. He also brings out the calculations of Vietnamese nationalists who fought bitterly first against the Japanese and then against the French as they sought their nation's independence. Assuming the Burden is an eloquent illustration of how elites, operating outside public scrutiny, make decisions with enormous repercussions for decades to come.
Offering a bold new interpretation, the author contends that the U.S. decision can be understood only as the result of complex transatlantic deliberations about colonialism in Southeast Asia in the years between 1944 and 1950. During this time, the book argues, sharp divisions opened within the U.S., French, and British governments over Vietnam and the issue of colonialism more generally. While many liberals wished to accommodate nationalist demands for self-government, others backed the return of French authority in Vietnam. Only after successfully recasting Vietnam as a Cold War conflict between the democratic West and international communism—a lengthy process involving intense international interplay—could the three governments overcome these divisions and join forces to wage war in Vietnam.
One of the first scholars to mine the diplomatic materials housed in European archives, Lawrence offers a nuanced triangulation of foreign policy as it developed among French, British, and U.S. diplomats and policymakers. He also brings out the calculations of Vietnamese nationalists who fought bitterly first against the Japanese and then against the French as they sought their nation's independence. Assuming the Burden is an eloquent illustration of how elites, operating outside public scrutiny, make decisions with enormous repercussions for decades to come.
- GenresHistory
370 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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October 31, 2021
In 1950, Cold War tensions and many urgent questions of foreign policy weighed on the American government. The most urgent of them was Indochina, the distant territory where the French military had been waging a costly war against Vietnamese revolutionaries for more than three years. The status of Indochina had deeply divided the Western allies and provoked bitter, inconclusive debates among American policy-makers for years. Now, on May 8, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson was told the French and British governments what they desperately wanted to hear: Washington would provide military and economic aid for the French war effort. The United States was prepared to assume part of the burden of waging war in Vietnam. A vital moment in the development of American policy toward Indochina was marked.
Less than a decade earlier, the Southeast Asian country had barely registered in American consciousness. Within a few years after the Second World War, everything had changed. “Indo-China Has Become Vital Cold War Front,” read a New York Times headline on February 12, 1950, three months before Acheson’s assurance to Britain and France. (Mark Twain, I realized, was right when he wrote that God created war so that Americans would learn geography.) It was now the "Greece of the Far East," the battleground where the fate of Asia was allegedly decided, just as Europe’s seemed to depend on the outcome of fighting between Greek communists and the democratic Greek government.
In his book, Mark Atwood Lawrence argues that the decision to provide American aid for the French war marked the first decisive step toward America's deep involvement in Indochina affairs, the start of a long series of moves that would eventually lead the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson to commit American ground troops to Vietnam. As the American government began shipping weapons, aircraft, and other military supplies to Vietnam and as it established the first American mission in Saigon, many of its officials had already embraced the basic assumptions that would guide American policy towards Vietnam for twenty-five years. They saw Vietnamese insurgents as the agents of international Communism and believed that their success would serve the interests of Moscow and Beijing. They also believed that the American government, through material aid and political guidance, could establish a new Vietnamese political order reconciling the nationalist aspirations of the local population with the preservation of Western security. "To understand America’s war in Vietnam, one must reckon seriously with the years before 1950, a period that figures only marginally in most Americans’—and even in many historians’—perceptions of the U.S. experience in Southeast Asia," writes Lawrence.
By early summer of 1950 the American military had begun sending not only planes but also naval vessels, vehicles, weapons, ammunition, spare parts, and communications equipment to Indochina. American specialists initiated public health, agricultural development, and other civilian programs. The outbreak of the Korean War on June 25 caused American aid to intensify substantially as American officials strived to fortify Western defenses against possible Chinese aggression in Southeast Asia. By the end of the year the Truman administration had increased its commitments to Indochina to about $133 million.
All American and French efforts notwithstanding, France did not move any closer to victory. As before, Viet Minh guerrillas controlled the Vietnamese countryside, through military prowess and greater appeal to the peasantry, while French forces could rarely extend their reach outside the cities and certain well-fortified locations. Vietnamese troops successfully avoided major engagements, while inflicting heavy losses on French units. In spring of 1954, with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the whole effort came to a crashing end.
As Lawrence asserts, what was a decisive moment in the history of Southeast Asia did not affect the American policy-makers' thinking much, though. They were, of course, aware that the withdrawal of the French from Indochina meant that if it wished to exert influence in post-war Vietnam, Washington could not do so as a member of an alliance that left most of the responsibility to France. The Geneva Conference’s decision to divide Vietnam at the seventeenth parallel also changed the situation. "Although the accords specified that the division had merely the short-term purpose of enabling former combatants to regroup and demobilize in separate zones, the existence of a noncommunist administrative entity in the south clearly suggested a chance to keep half the country — and the wealthier half, at that — out of the communist orbit," explains the author. However, all those changes did not at all alter the American government's reasoning about American interests in Vietnam. It continued to see the Vietnamese nationalist insurgency as Communist only and to believe that a Communist victory in Vietnam would mean the downfall of the rest of Southeast Asia.
The French defeat convinced the American government it could reshape Vietnamese politics in a way that would balance Western and Vietnamese interests. It now had the opportunity to apply American solutions directly, no longer encumbered by allies tainted by colonialism and dishonesty in their endless assurances of reform. Between 1954 and 1965 the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations undertook that challenge, drawing the United States ever more deeply into Vietnam as they sought to create a viable South Vietnamese state that would satisfy local nationalism while serving Western interests. There was nothing inevitable about the American decision for large-scale war in 1965. The John F. Kennedy administration had serious doubts about America’s Vietnam commitment and might have limited American involvement if President John F. Kennedy had survived for a second term as president. Yet none of the administrations, regardless of how many opportunities they had to change the course of the Vietnam conflict, did so. The assumptions adopted in the early 1950s drove American policy straight to 1965 and beyond.
According to Lawrence, the tragedy of American policymaking in 1944-1950 was that the Truman administration squandered the considerable influence it had over France to force a better outcome to the Indochina problem. That influence was discarded by officials who thought America should first and foremost protect French prestige and influence. The stakes in Europe were high at the time. Except for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s interest in taking Indochina away from France, the American government demanded only that the French government make some significant concessions to Vietnamese nationalism, such as future independence, in return for international recognition of French rights in Indochina. However, conservatives rejected even that balanced approach and justified sending considerable material aid to support French colonialist policy in Indochina by introducing a new idea about what Vietnam's importance was.
That idea, as Americans would learn from bitter personal experience, was full of inconsistencies and problems. The notion of the Viet Minh as an exclusively Communist organization that served the interests of Moscow and Beijing obscured the more complex combination of goals that propelled the Vietnamese revolution and explained its remarkable exclusively Communist organization that served the interests of Moscow and Beijing obscured the more complex combination of goals that propelled the Vietnamese revolution and explained its remarkable strength and adaptability. The Communist guerrilla's success depended not only on Chinese and Soviet aid, but also on its knowledge of and ability to respond to the needs of the ordinary Vietnamese people. While some American policy-makers understood that, their awareness never shaped policy at the highest level. There the narrow, inaccurate assumptions from the 1950s continued to prevail, as the American government strived to eradicate Ho Chi Minh's nationalism and establish a compliant one in its place. They achieved no success.
ASSUMING THE BURDEN is a compelling study that traces the origins of the Vietnam quagmire to the 1950s, when American policy-makers began to craft Cold War solutions that bore "the outward trappings of liberty," which allowed them to believe that they were holding true to their country’s anti-colonial traditions, fortified their self-perception as advocates of progress, and shielded them from challenges from those who demanded fundamental transformations.
Less than a decade earlier, the Southeast Asian country had barely registered in American consciousness. Within a few years after the Second World War, everything had changed. “Indo-China Has Become Vital Cold War Front,” read a New York Times headline on February 12, 1950, three months before Acheson’s assurance to Britain and France. (Mark Twain, I realized, was right when he wrote that God created war so that Americans would learn geography.) It was now the "Greece of the Far East," the battleground where the fate of Asia was allegedly decided, just as Europe’s seemed to depend on the outcome of fighting between Greek communists and the democratic Greek government.
In his book, Mark Atwood Lawrence argues that the decision to provide American aid for the French war marked the first decisive step toward America's deep involvement in Indochina affairs, the start of a long series of moves that would eventually lead the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson to commit American ground troops to Vietnam. As the American government began shipping weapons, aircraft, and other military supplies to Vietnam and as it established the first American mission in Saigon, many of its officials had already embraced the basic assumptions that would guide American policy towards Vietnam for twenty-five years. They saw Vietnamese insurgents as the agents of international Communism and believed that their success would serve the interests of Moscow and Beijing. They also believed that the American government, through material aid and political guidance, could establish a new Vietnamese political order reconciling the nationalist aspirations of the local population with the preservation of Western security. "To understand America’s war in Vietnam, one must reckon seriously with the years before 1950, a period that figures only marginally in most Americans’—and even in many historians’—perceptions of the U.S. experience in Southeast Asia," writes Lawrence.
By early summer of 1950 the American military had begun sending not only planes but also naval vessels, vehicles, weapons, ammunition, spare parts, and communications equipment to Indochina. American specialists initiated public health, agricultural development, and other civilian programs. The outbreak of the Korean War on June 25 caused American aid to intensify substantially as American officials strived to fortify Western defenses against possible Chinese aggression in Southeast Asia. By the end of the year the Truman administration had increased its commitments to Indochina to about $133 million.
All American and French efforts notwithstanding, France did not move any closer to victory. As before, Viet Minh guerrillas controlled the Vietnamese countryside, through military prowess and greater appeal to the peasantry, while French forces could rarely extend their reach outside the cities and certain well-fortified locations. Vietnamese troops successfully avoided major engagements, while inflicting heavy losses on French units. In spring of 1954, with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the whole effort came to a crashing end.
As Lawrence asserts, what was a decisive moment in the history of Southeast Asia did not affect the American policy-makers' thinking much, though. They were, of course, aware that the withdrawal of the French from Indochina meant that if it wished to exert influence in post-war Vietnam, Washington could not do so as a member of an alliance that left most of the responsibility to France. The Geneva Conference’s decision to divide Vietnam at the seventeenth parallel also changed the situation. "Although the accords specified that the division had merely the short-term purpose of enabling former combatants to regroup and demobilize in separate zones, the existence of a noncommunist administrative entity in the south clearly suggested a chance to keep half the country — and the wealthier half, at that — out of the communist orbit," explains the author. However, all those changes did not at all alter the American government's reasoning about American interests in Vietnam. It continued to see the Vietnamese nationalist insurgency as Communist only and to believe that a Communist victory in Vietnam would mean the downfall of the rest of Southeast Asia.
The French defeat convinced the American government it could reshape Vietnamese politics in a way that would balance Western and Vietnamese interests. It now had the opportunity to apply American solutions directly, no longer encumbered by allies tainted by colonialism and dishonesty in their endless assurances of reform. Between 1954 and 1965 the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations undertook that challenge, drawing the United States ever more deeply into Vietnam as they sought to create a viable South Vietnamese state that would satisfy local nationalism while serving Western interests. There was nothing inevitable about the American decision for large-scale war in 1965. The John F. Kennedy administration had serious doubts about America’s Vietnam commitment and might have limited American involvement if President John F. Kennedy had survived for a second term as president. Yet none of the administrations, regardless of how many opportunities they had to change the course of the Vietnam conflict, did so. The assumptions adopted in the early 1950s drove American policy straight to 1965 and beyond.
According to Lawrence, the tragedy of American policymaking in 1944-1950 was that the Truman administration squandered the considerable influence it had over France to force a better outcome to the Indochina problem. That influence was discarded by officials who thought America should first and foremost protect French prestige and influence. The stakes in Europe were high at the time. Except for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s interest in taking Indochina away from France, the American government demanded only that the French government make some significant concessions to Vietnamese nationalism, such as future independence, in return for international recognition of French rights in Indochina. However, conservatives rejected even that balanced approach and justified sending considerable material aid to support French colonialist policy in Indochina by introducing a new idea about what Vietnam's importance was.
That idea, as Americans would learn from bitter personal experience, was full of inconsistencies and problems. The notion of the Viet Minh as an exclusively Communist organization that served the interests of Moscow and Beijing obscured the more complex combination of goals that propelled the Vietnamese revolution and explained its remarkable exclusively Communist organization that served the interests of Moscow and Beijing obscured the more complex combination of goals that propelled the Vietnamese revolution and explained its remarkable strength and adaptability. The Communist guerrilla's success depended not only on Chinese and Soviet aid, but also on its knowledge of and ability to respond to the needs of the ordinary Vietnamese people. While some American policy-makers understood that, their awareness never shaped policy at the highest level. There the narrow, inaccurate assumptions from the 1950s continued to prevail, as the American government strived to eradicate Ho Chi Minh's nationalism and establish a compliant one in its place. They achieved no success.
ASSUMING THE BURDEN is a compelling study that traces the origins of the Vietnam quagmire to the 1950s, when American policy-makers began to craft Cold War solutions that bore "the outward trappings of liberty," which allowed them to believe that they were holding true to their country’s anti-colonial traditions, fortified their self-perception as advocates of progress, and shielded them from challenges from those who demanded fundamental transformations.
February 17, 2023
politicians arguing back and forth for 300 pages
April 26, 2025
Fantastic scholarship based on primary sources that explains how the US became entangled in the Vietnam war. A bit dry, but incredibly thorough.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews