The Indochina Wars: Great Power Involvement - Escalation and Disengagement

Abstract The paper tries to present the Indochina wars (1945-1975) in historical perspective focussing especially on the involvement of the great powers: the United States, the Soviet Union and China. It stresses the particular interests of the three powers and emphasizes the triangle dynamics which added fuel to the conflict. In accordance with this dynamics, an understanding providing for US disengagement, reaches between the United States and Moscow on the one hand and Peking on the other, took out the wind of the sails of the conflict. Accord in the outer circle of the conflict undercut also the dynamics in the inner circle. The Paris agreement was specially tailored to US military withdrawal. Weak in the political domain it led to the military solution.