The Vietnam Syndrome and Its Effects on the U.S. Public and Foreign and Domestic Policy Decisions During the Post-Vietnam Era Between 1975-1991

Abstract

First, the Vietnam Syndrome had a significant cultural impact on the American public which altered the U.S. public’s collective cultural view of war from an interventionist to an anti-interventionist stance. Naturally, this shift in public perception influenced U.S. presidents’ foreign and domestic policy decisions from President Gerald Ford to President George H.W. Bush. Second, the Vietnam Syndrome’s anti-interventionist effect challenged the established security of containment policy through military intervention, forcing presidents and their administrations to implement different rhetorical approaches and messages to unshackle, in their view, America from the anti-interventionist effects of the Vietnam Syndrome on foreign policy decisions. Third, as a means to defeat the lasting impacts of the Vietnam Syndrome, the Bush administration and the U.S. military enhanced U.S. domestic policy through a multi-stage propaganda and media censorship campaign to rally public, congressional, and international support for the Persian Gulf War; which, upon America’s victory in the war, established the New World Order and re-established America’s security abroad.