Military causes for the US defeat in Vietnam
In response to the growing involvement of the USA in Vietnam, the Vietcong began a highly effective campaign against the North. Students learn about this topic by using two video clips:
Video Clip 1 | Video Clip 2

• Economically, they secured aid from China and the USSR
• Strategically, they poured into North Vietnam via the ‘Ho Chi Minh Trail’ – a 1000 mile route along the border with Laos with heavy jungle coverage so that detection from the air was very difficult.
• Socially, they cleverly worked with North Vietnamese peasants there on their farms in an ingenious ‘hearts and minds’ policy designed to build up popular support for the communist cause in the south.
• Militarily, they adopted ‘guerilla’ (‘hit and run’) tactics against enemy forces.