HOW WARS END: The Vietnam War

Abstract

The contentious debate about how the U.S.‐Vietnam War ended is mired in partisan politics. The debate centers on two major issues: whether the antiwar movement or the diplomacy/strategy of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger helped to end the war or prolong it. The author tries to clarify the debate by examining the events leading to the 1973 Paris cease‐fire agreement within the context of historical generalizations concerning “war termination”—concluding that the accord conformed to standard patterns of war endings. By mid‐1972, the conditions required for bringing an end to the Vietnam War finally appeared. Neither American nor Vietnamese policymakers judged the military situation to be favorable; both sides considered their overall prospects to be better with a cease‐fire than without one; and the political and economic costs of the war to both sides were now seen as intolerable. In the United States, the antiwar movement had at last influenced public and official opinion to accept the termination of this tragic war. Commentaries follow by Melvin Small, Dee Garrison, Robert J. McMahon, and Robert D. Schulzinger.