[PDF] The 1970 Cambodian Campaign eBook

Author : John M. Shaw
Publisher :
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 37,26 MB
Release : 2005
Category : History
ISBN :

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When American and South Vietnamese forces, led by General Creighton Abrams, launched an attack into neutral Cambodia in 1970, the invasion ignited a firestorm of violent antiwar protests throughout the United States, dealing yet another blow to Nixon's troubled presidency. But, as John Shaw shows, the campaign also proved to be a major military success. Most histories of the Vietnam War either give the Cambodian invasion short shrift or merely criticize it for its political fallout, thus neglecting one of the campaign's key dimensions. Approaching the subject from a distinctly military perspective, Shaw shows how this carefully planned and executed offensive provided essential support for Nixon's "decent interval" and "peace with honor" strategies-by eliminating North Vietnamese sanctuaries and supply bases located less than a hundred miles from Saigon and by pushing Communist troops off the Vietnamese border. Despite the political cloud under which the operation was conducted, Shaw argues that it was not only the best of available choices but one of the most successful operations of the entire war, sustaining light casualties while protecting American troop withdrawal and buying time for Nixon's pacification and "Vietnamization" strategies. He also shows how the United States took full advantage of fortuitous events, such as the overthrow of Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk, the redeployment of North Vietnamese forces, and the late arrival of spring monsoons. Although critics of the operation have protested that the North Vietnamese never did attack out of Cambodia, Shaw makes a persuasive case that the near-border threat was very real and imminent. In the end, he contends, the campaign effectively precluded any major North Vietnamese military operations for over a year. Based on exhaustive research and a deep analysis of the invasion's objectives, planning, organization, and operations, Shaw's shrewd study encourages a newfound respect for one of America's genuine military successes during the war.

Author : Bennie Clendening
Publisher :
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 20,88 MB
Release : 2021-06-14
Category :
ISBN :

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The Cambodian campaign (also known as the Cambodian incursion and the Cambodian invasion) was a brief series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia in 1970 by South Vietnam and the United States as an extension of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. Thirteen major operations were conducted by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) between 29 April and 22 July and by U.S. forces between 1 May and 30 June. The Vietnam War could have been called a comedy of errors if the consequences weren't so deadly and tragic. In 1951, while war was raging in Korea, the United States began signing defense pacts with nations in the Pacific, intending to create alliances that would contain the spread of Communism. As the Korean War was winding down, America joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, pledging to defend several nations in the region from Communist aggression. One of those nations was South Vietnam.

Author : Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 84 pages
File Size : 24,53 MB
Release : 2018-02-05
Category :
ISBN : 9781985030169

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*Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of accounts of the fighting by soldiers *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "When elephants fight, ants should stand aside." - Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia, on the Vietnam War The Vietnam War could have been called a comedy of errors if the consequences weren't so deadly and tragic. In 1951, while war was raging in Korea, the United States began signing defense pacts with nations in the Pacific, intending to create alliances that would contain the spread of Communism. As the Korean War was winding down, America joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, pledging to defend several nations in the region from Communist aggression. One of those nations was South Vietnam. By the end of 1967, with nearly half a million troops deployed, more than 19,000 deaths, and a war that cost $2 billion a month and seemed to grow bloodier by the day, the Johnson administration faced an increasingly impatient and skeptical nation. Early in 1968, a massive coordinated Viet Cong operation - the Tet Offensive - briefly paralyzed American and South Vietnamese forces across the country, threatening even the American embassy compound in Saigon. With this, the smiling mask slipped even further, inflaming the burgeoning antiwar movement. As the results of the Tet Offensive made clear, American forces were hamstrung by political constraints and a wide range of self-imposed limitations, and the United States struggled to deal with the greater strategic nimbleness of the North Vietnamese during the late 1960s. The tremendous power of the American military, blending technological strength and professional skill, gave the Americans the advantage in many, though of course not all, tactical encounters. On the strategic and operational level, however, the North Vietnamese held many of the trump cards. Constrained by a heavily defensive strategy, the U.S. found itself mostly forced to respond to the North's initiatives, and a reactive strategy placed even an extremely potent combatant at a severe disadvantage. The NVA and Viet Cong used this favorable situation to create numerous bases just across the Cambodian border from South Vietnam, enabling them to launch attacks and then retreat to their "neutral" refuge where the U.S. usually refused to authorize its troops to follow them. As U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said, "Washington had convinced itself that the four Indochinese states were separate entities, even though the communists had been treating them as a single theater for two decades and were conducting a coordinated strategy with respects to all of them." (Shaw, 2005, 3). Furthermore, the North Vietnamese developed a shortened supply route through Cambodia to lessen dependence on the partially compromised Ho Chi Minh Trail traversing Laos. Sihanouk allowed Hanoi to use the deep water port of Sihanoukville to bring weaponry and supplies in from ships sailing out of communist China, from where the Viet Cong moved them the short distance to the South Vietnamese border, along the so-called Sihanoukville Trail, without fear of American interdiction. This strategic situation changed briefly, however, during the 1970 Cambodian Campaign, when American and South Vietnamese forces crossed the border into Cambodia and brought the battle to the previously immune enemy there. The Cambodian Campaign during the Vietnam War: The History of the Controversial Invasion of Cambodia and Laos looks at the secret mission and the manner in which it roiled American sentiment at home. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the bombing of Cambodia like never before.

Author : Lavada Clizbe
Publisher :
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 17,45 MB
Release : 2021-06-14
Category :
ISBN :

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The Cambodian campaign (also known as the Cambodian incursion and the Cambodian invasion) was a brief series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia in 1970 by South Vietnam and the United States as an extension of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. Thirteen major operations were conducted by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) between 29 April and 22 July and by U.S. forces between 1 May and 30 June. The Vietnam War could have been called a comedy of errors if the consequences weren't so deadly and tragic. In 1951, while war was raging in Korea, the United States began signing defense pacts with nations in the Pacific, intending to create alliances that would contain the spread of Communism. As the Korean War was winding down, America joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, pledging to defend several nations in the region from Communist aggression. One of those nations was South Vietnam.

Author : Anibal Popken
Publisher :
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 26,10 MB
Release : 2021-06-14
Category :
ISBN :

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The Cambodian campaign (also known as the Cambodian incursion and the Cambodian invasion) was a brief series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia in 1970 by South Vietnam and the United States as an extension of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. Thirteen major operations were conducted by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) between 29 April and 22 July and by U.S. forces between 1 May and 30 June. The Vietnam War could have been called a comedy of errors if the consequences weren't so deadly and tragic. In 1951, while war was raging in Korea, the United States began signing defense pacts with nations in the Pacific, intending to create alliances that would contain the spread of Communism. As the Korean War was winding down, America joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, pledging to defend several nations in the region from Communist aggression. One of those nations was South Vietnam.

Author : James A. Tyner
Publisher : Kent State University
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 21,73 MB
Release : 2020
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781606354056

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President Nixon's announcement on April 30, 1970, that US troops were invading neutral Cambodia as part of the ongoing Vietnam War campaign sparked a complicated series of events with tragic consequences on many fronts. In Cambodia, the invasion renewed calls for a government independent of western power and influence, eventually resulting in a civil war and the rise of the Khmer Rouge. Here at home, Nixon's expansion of the war galvanized the longstanding anti-Vietnam War movement, including at Kent State University, leading to the tragic shooting deaths of four students on May 4, 1970. This short book concisely contextualizes these events, filling a gap in the popular memory of the 1970 shootings and the wider conceptions of the war in Southeast Asia. In three brief chapters, James A. Tyner and Mindy Farmer provide background on the decade of activism around the United States that preceded the events on Kent State's campus, an overview of Cambodia's history and developments following the US incursion, and a closing section on historical memory--poignantly tying together the subject matter of the preceding chapters. As we grapple with the legacy of the Kent State shootings, Tyner and Farmer assert, we should also grapple with the larger context of the protests, of the decision to bomb and invade a neutral country, and the violence and genocide that followed.

Author : William J. Rust
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 349 pages
File Size : 44,6 MB
Release : 2016-06-10
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0813167450

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This historical study examines America’s Cold War diplomacy and covert operations intended to lure Cambodia from neutrality to alliance. Although most Americans paid little attention to Cambodia during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency, the global ideological struggle with the Soviet Union guaranteed US vigilance throughout Southeast Asia. Cambodia’s leader, Norodom Sihanouk, refused to take sides in the Cold War, a policy that disturbed US officials. From 1953 to 1961, his government avoided the political and military crises of neighboring Laos and South Vietnam. However, relations between Cambodia and the United States suffered a blow in 1959 when Sihanouk discovered CIA involvement in a plot to overthrow him. The failed coup only increased Sihanouk’s power and prestige, presenting new foreign policy challenges in the region. In Eisenhower and Cambodia, William J. Rust demonstrates that covert intervention in the political affairs of Cambodia proved to be a counterproductive tactic for advancing the United States’ anticommunist goals. Drawing on recently declassified sources, Rust skillfully traces the impact of “plausible deniability” on the formulation and execution of foreign policy. His meticulous study not only reveals a neglected chapter in Cold War history but also illuminates the intellectual and political origins of US strategy in Vietnam and the often-hidden influence of intelligence operations in foreign affairs.

Author : William K. Nolan
Publisher : Dell Publishing Company
Page : 566 pages
File Size : 37,77 MB
Release : 1991
Category : History
ISBN : 9780440208808

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"Most of us remember (the 1970 Cambodian campaign) best for the killings of four young people at Kent State. Nolan wants us to remember that it killed a lot of young Americans in Cambodia as well." -- The Capital Tittles (Madison, WI) "This is combat narrative at its best. Nolan has mastered the soldier's slang and weaves it expertly into the account .... full of combat anecdotes detailing battlefield leadership successes and failures." -- Military Review

Author : Kenneth Conboy
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 422 pages
File Size : 14,67 MB
Release : 2013-06-25
Category : History
ISBN : 0700619003

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For most Americans, Cambodia was a sideshow to the war in Vietnam, but by the time of the Vietnam invasion of Democratic Kampuchea in 1978 and the subsequent war, it had finally moved to center stage. Kenneth Conboy chronicles the violence that plagued Cambodia from World War II until the end of the twentieth century and peels back the layers of secrecy that surrounded the CIA's covert assistance to anticommunist forces in Cambodia during that span. Conboy's path-breaking study provides the first complete assessment of CIA ops in two key periods-during the Khmer Republic's existence (1970-1975), in support of American military action in Vietnam, and during the Reagan and first Bush presidencies (1981-1991), when the CIA challenged Soviet expansion by supporting exiled royalists, Republicans, and even former Communists trying to expel the Vietnamese from their country. Through interviews with dozens of CIA Cambodia veterans-as well as special forces officers from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Australia-he sheds new light on the contributions made by foreign intelligence services. Through information gleaned from the U.S. Defense Attache's Office in Phnom Penh, he offers a detailed look at the development of the Khmer Rouge military structure, while his use of Vietnamese-language histories released by the People's Army of Vietnam helps more fully illuminate the PAVN's participation in the Cambodian wars. More than a simple expos of CIA activities, however, The Cambodian Wars is also an authoritative history of that country's struggles over half a century. Conboy examines Cambodia as kingdom, colony, republic, revolutionary state, and Vietnamese satellite, and offers fresh insight into the actions of key players-Norodom Sihanouk, Lon Nol, Sisowath Sirik Matak, Son Ngoc Thanh, and others-that will enlighten even those who think they know that country's history. Three decades in the making, The Cambodian Wars tells a little known chapter in the Cold War in which non-communists pulled off a surprising victory. Featuring dozens of photos covering events from 1970 to the trial of Pol Pot in 1997, it is must reading for anyone interested in contemporary Southeast Asian history, CIA covert operations, and the Vietnam War.