This investigation will explore the question: How financially significant was the Vietnam war to the US economy? This investigation will analyze the events and the economical development of the United States all the way from November 1st 1955 through April 30th 1975. Focusing on the decisions that president Lyndon Johnson took, and how it influence the economical breakthrough during the war. Also considering in depth the lost of stock prices during and after the war.
The first source of investigation that will be evaluated and used in the analysis would be “ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES of WAR on the U.S. ECONOMY” from the Institute of Economic and peace. This has great detailed economic analysis, including graphs showing the great impact during war in the United States of America. This also comparing the impact of other wars in the country with the Vietnam War. Analyzing president Johnson’s influence during the war with his Great Society domestic programs. Looking over important government spending and financial inflations of the military. Analyzing the consequences over de GDP increase and the Oil shock inflation during the years 1965-1968. Taking in consideration the great increase over consumption in the country. The purpose of analyzing this source takes place with the depth of investigation over the GDP in the United States, analyzing financial methods the United Stated during the war that tried to give back the economical power to the country.
The second source that will be evaluated would be and e-book named “Top 49 Questions about Vietnam War”.This is a book that has various opinions and analysis from very important historians, also statements from people that went to the war, and lived through this events. Regarding that the analysis of the different perceptions and opinions is a good way to compare the perception of the different ways and affections the war had over the community of the United States of America. It can also support the data from the Vietnamese perception during the war, containing a few statements from soldiers and people that lived through the events. Having different opinions is a good way to reinforce information and statements of what went through this events. Focusing on the economy of the United States of America this source has various economic analysis regarding the great influence it had during the 1960’s. Analyzing in depth the decisions president Lyndon Johnson made bringing the United States to one of the worst economical crysis in the history of the country.
When a country goes through war, it affects them emotionally, morally, financially and so on. Every country in the world has gone through a war. These has been going on since history has been written. Obviously the effect of the war is not the same for every country, the Vietnam war between the US and Vietnam affected both of these countries Severely. Know a days the United States is one of the countries with the best economy and military equipment.
Historians say the U.S. invested over $168 billion dollars in the Vietnam War. Even though the U.S. had a great period economically speaking during the years 1962 through 1965, this was a very good era for the United States, since they had a slight inflation and almost all americans were employed.
When president Lyndon Johnson became president after Kennedy’s death he said and declared that there would be a War over poverty. This giving a whole lot of thought over the decisions taken by president Johnson. Vietnam was different from previous conflicts in the sense that there was no increase in military expenditures to mark the beginning of the war, since the military accumulation remained as the result of the Cold War. the the peak year of military spending was in 1968 when it reached 9.5% of GDP, compared to last year’s the conflict in 1973, when military spending fell to 5.9% of GDP. Fiscally, non-military spending was also significant in the peak year of the conflict, compared to the Korean War where military disbursements they were almost three times non-military disbursements. This was largely due to President Johnson's Great Domestic programs of society.
The Vietnam war had many influences over the decisions taken over presidents kennedy’s assassination, after almost 60 years since the assassination the files regarding the United States ex-president were revealed. People tend to say that president Kennedy was assassinated because he was trying to stop the war and that this would not benefit the United States economically speaking. For Americans and Vietnamese, the war was costly and divisive South Vietnam depended on economic and military aid from the United States, while North Vietnam received aid from the Soviet Union and China.The United States, which suffered the loss of more than 58,000 men and spent billions of dollars, seemed little import the outcome and the fate of Vietnam.The American political power was in a moral, economic and military crisis and accepted the process of international detente for the Vietnamese victory.
American diplomacy observed a system of balance of powers inspired by classical European diplomacy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the aim of reducing the confrontation with the USSR, and limit the growing economic rivalry with its "allies": Europe and Japan. It became evident that the United States had lost the capacity to act everywhere, globally, and sought to share with other poles of capitalist power the burden of the struggle against the advance of the world revolution.
From the economic point of view , the crisis of the capitalist system was accentuated with the bankruptcy of the International Monetary System based on the dollar, the growing unemployment in the industrialized capitalist countries, the rise in oil prices and its consequences for the set of developed economies . All these facts were the symptoms of a deep structural crisis of the capitalist system, the largest since the crisis of 1929-1933, which threatened, as a whole, the internal stability of the capitalist system.
As part of this socio-economic process, dangerous global threats emerged: poverty, hunger in vast areas of the so-called Third World, depletion of energy resources, the beginning of nuclear proliferation and the possibility of a war with these weapons of extermination. in masses.
The brutal actions and considerable military decline, of the United States mobilized the international public opinion. Before and after 1975, the United States was rejected universally by the occupation of South Vietnam.
Within the United States, a progressive pacifist movement was formed, composed of politicians, scientists and intellectuals who protested energetically against the technological war and the disastrous consequences it left for the Vietnamese people.
Time also of a broad movement of international solidarity with just causes, of the strength of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, in defense of the true interests of the underdeveloped peoples and the creation of a New International Economic Order