The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955^{[A 1]} to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and a major conflict of the Cold War. While the war was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, the north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other countries in the Eastern Bloc, while the south was supported by the US and anti-communist allies. This made it a proxy war between the US and Soviet Union. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct US military involvement ending in 1973. The conflict spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

Quick Facts Date, Location ...

Vietnam War

Part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War in Asia

Clockwise from top left:

American Huey helicopters inserting South Vietnamese ARVN troops, 1970
North Vietnamese PAVN troops in action, c. 1966
American marines using a flamethrower, 1967
South Vietnamese general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan summarily executing Viet Cong officer Nguyễn Văn Lém during the Tet Offensive, 1968
Two Douglas A-4C Skyhawks flying past the aircraft carrier USS Kearsarge, 1964
Burial of civilians killed in the Massacre at Huế, 1968

Date	November 1955 – 30 April 1975 (19 years, 5 months, 4 weeks and 1 day)^{[A 1]}^[5]
Location	South Vietnam North Vietnam Cambodia Laos South China Sea Gulf of Thailand (spillover conflict in China, and Thailand)
Result	North Vietnamese victory
Territorial changes	Reunification of North Vietnam and South Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976

Belligerents

Commanders and leaders

Strength

≈860,000 (1967)

North Vietnam:
690,000 (1966, including PAVN and Viet Cong)^{[A 5]}
Viet Cong:
~200,000 (estimated, 1968)^[7]
China:
170,000 (1968)
320,000 total^[8]^[9]^[10]
Khmer Rouge:
70,000 (1972)^[11]^: 376
Pathet Lao:
48,000 (1970)^[12]
Soviet Union: ~3,000^[13]
North Korea: 200^[14]

≈1,420,000 (1968)

South Vietnam:
850,000 (1968)
1,500,000 (1974–1975)^[15]
United States:
2,709,918 serving in Vietnam total
Peak: 543,000 (April 1969)^[11]^: xlv
Khmer Republic:
200,000 (1973)^{[citation needed]}
Laos:
72,000 (Royal Army and Hmong militia)^[16]^[17]
South Korea:
48,000 per year (1965–1973, 320,000 total)
Thailand: 32,000 per year (1965–1973)
(in Vietnam^[18] and Laos)^{[citation needed]}
Australia: 50,190 total
(Peak: 8,300 combat troops)^[19]
New Zealand: Peak: 552 in 1968^[20]^: 158
Philippines: 2,061
Spain: 100–130 total
(Peak: 30 medical troops and advisors)^[21]

Casualties and losses

North Vietnam & Viet Cong
30,000–182,000 civilian dead^[11]^: 176^[22]^[23]^{: 450–453}^[24]
849,018 military dead (per Vietnam; 1/3 non-combat deaths)^[25]^[26]^[27]
666,000–950,765 dead
(US estimated 1964–1974)^{[A 6]}^[22]^[23]^{: 450–451}
232,000+ military missing (per Vietnam)^[25]^[28]
600,000+ military wounded^[29]^: 739
Khmer Rouge: Unknown
Pathet Lao: Unknown
China: ~1,100 dead and 4,200 wounded^[10]
Soviet Union: 16 dead^[30]
North Korea: 14 dead^[31]^[32]

Total military dead/missing:
≈1,100,000
Total military wounded:
≈604,200
(excluding GRUNK/Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao)

South Vietnam:
195,000–430,000 civilian dead^[22]^[23]^{: 450–453}^[33]
Military dead: 313,000 (total)^[34]
- 254,256 combat deaths (between 1960 and 1974)^[35]^: 275
1,170,000 military wounded^[11]
≈ 1,000,000 captured^[36]
United States:
58,281 dead^[37] (47,434 from combat)^[38]^[39]
303,644 wounded (including 150,341 not requiring hospital care)^{[A 7]}
Laos: 15,000 army dead^[44]
Khmer Republic: Unknown
South Korea: 5,099 dead; 10,962 wounded; 4 missing
Australia: 521 dead; 3,129 wounded^[45]
Thailand: 351 dead^[11]
New Zealand: 37 dead^[46]
Taiwan: 25 dead^[47]
17 captured^[48]
Philippines: 9 dead;^[49] 64 wounded^[50]

Total military dead:
333,620 (1960–1974) – 392,364 (total)
Total military wounded:
≈1,340,000+^[11]
(excluding FARK and FANK)
Total military captured:
≈1,000,000+

Vietnamese civilian dead: 405,000–2,000,000^[23]^{: 450–453}^[51]^[52]
Vietnamese total dead: 966,000^[22]–3,010,000^[52]
Cambodian Civil War dead: 275,000–310,000^[53]^[54]^[55]
Laotian Civil War dead: 20,000–62,000^[52]
Non-Indochinese military dead: 65,494
Total dead: 1,326,494–3,447,494
For more information see Vietnam War casualties and Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War

FULRO fought an insurgency against both South Vietnam and North Vietnam with the Viet Cong and was supported by Cambodia for much of the war.

Close

After the fall of French Indochina with the 1954 Geneva Conference, the country gained independence from France but was divided into two parts: the Viet Minh took control of North Vietnam, while the US assumed financial and military support for South Vietnam.^[56]^{[A 8]} The North Vietnamese controlled Viet Cong (VC), a South Vietnamese common front of militant leftists, socialists, communists, workers, peasants and intellectuals, initiated guerrilla war in the south. The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) engaged in more conventional warfare with US and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces. North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1958, establishing the Ho Chi Minh trail to supply and reinforce the VC.^[57]^: 16 By 1963, the north had sent 40,000 soldiers to fight in the south.^[57]^: 16 US involvement increased under President John F. Kennedy, from 900 military advisors at the end of 1960 to 16,300 at the end of 1963.^[58]^[29]^: 131

Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the US Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to increase military presence, without a declaration of war. Johnson ordered deployment of combat units and dramatically increased American military personnel to 184,000 by the end of 1965, and to 536,000 by the end of 1968.^[58] US and South Vietnamese forces relied on air supremacy and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations. The US conducted a strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam^[29]^{: 371–374}^[59] and built up its forces, despite little progress. In 1968, North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive; a tactical defeat, but a strategic victory, as it caused US domestic support to fade.^[29]^: 481 In 1969, North Vietnam declared the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. The 1970 deposing of Cambodia's monarch, resulted in a PAVN invasion of the country, and then a US-ARVN counter-invasion, escalating Cambodia's Civil War. After Richard Nixon's inauguration in 1969, a policy of "Vietnamization" began, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN, while US forces withdrew due to domestic opposition. US ground forces had mostly withdrawn by 1972, the 1973 Paris Peace Accords saw all US forces withdrawn^[60]^: 457 and were broken almost immediately: fighting continued for two years. Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, while the 1975 spring offensive saw the Fall of Saigon to the PAVN, marking the end of the war. North and South Vietnam were reunified on 2 July the following year.

The war exacted enormous human cost: estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 970,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 US service members died.^{[A 7]} Its end would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions leave Indochina, an estimated 250,000 perished at sea.^[61]^[62] The US destroyed 20% of South Vietnam's jungle and 20–50% of the mangrove forests, by spraying over 20 million U.S. gallons (75 million liters) of toxic herbicides;^[63]^[60]^{: 144–145}^[64] a notable example of ecocide.^[65] The Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, while conflict between them and the unified Vietnam escalated into the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the US, the war gave rise to Vietnam syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvement,^[66] which, with the Watergate scandal, contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s.^[67]