CHIMELUOGO FRANCISCA MUOKWE

This study examines the United States and USSR involvement inVietnamthroughout the Vietnam War and also explores the ways in which the Vietnam War affected the Cold War. The Vietnam War was the longest war in American history, beginning with the United States’ involvement in the French colonial struggle during the early 1950s and ending with the tragic and humiliating fall of Saigon in April 1975. The United States was involved in Vietnam under leadership from six different Presidential administrations, and, because of the length of the war, many aspects of the Cold War changed as the conflict in Vietnam progressed and escalated.1 This study examines nature of war diplomacy in the Vietnam war and the impact of USSR and USA.

The abstract concludes that Vietnam was a definitive example of limited war, where the diplomatic objectives of the superpowers preventing global escalation frequently clashed with the local objectives of their Vietnamese allies. The conflict ultimately demonstrated the limitations of superpower influence in the face of determined nationalist movements and the complexities of multi-polar diplomacy in a supposedly bipolar world.