Vietnam, Cambodia and Afghanistan: escalation, collapse and superpower withdrawal
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Flip to reveal answersWhat was the Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964)?
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All 12 Flashcards — Vietnam, Cambodia and Afghanistan: escalation, collapse and superpower withdrawal
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Question
What was the Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964)?
Answer
A disputed naval clash between US and North Vietnamese ships that Congress used to justify open-ended US military escalation in Vietnam.
Question
What was the Tet Offensive (1968)?
Answer
A large, coordinated Viet Cong/North Vietnamese attack on cities across South Vietnam; a military defeat for the communists but a propaganda disaster for the US, which shattered claims that victory was near.
Question
What was 'Vietnamisation'?
Answer
President Nixon's policy (from 1969) of withdrawing US troops while arming and training South Vietnamese forces to take over the fighting themselves.
Question
What happened in 1975 in Vietnam?
Answer
North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon, South Vietnam collapsed, and the country was reunified under communist rule.
Question
Name two long-term effects of the Vietnam War on Vietnam.
Answer
Millions of deaths and Agent Orange environmental/health damage; deep poverty and international isolation through the 1980s after reunification.
Question
Why did Sihanouk fail to keep Cambodia stable?
Answer
He could not control the economy or stop the Vietnam War spilling across the border (Ho Chi Minh Trail, US bombing), which destabilised the country and helped the Khmer Rouge recruit support.
Question
What was Khmer Rouge ideology under Pol Pot?
Answer
Extreme agrarian communism that saw cities as 'parasitic'; aimed to abolish money, private property, religion and education, forcing the population into rural forced labour ('Year Zero').
Question
What ended Khmer Rouge rule, and what followed?
Answer
A Vietnamese invasion (1978–79) overthrew Pol Pot after border raids, but this triggered a further civil war through the 1980s until UN-supervised elections in 1993.
Question
Why did the USSR invade Afghanistan in 1979?
Answer
It feared the unpopular communist PDPA government would collapse to Islamist or pro-Western forces on the Soviet border, so it intervened to prop it up.
Question
Who were the mujahideen, and who supported them?
Answer
Islamic guerrilla fighters resisting Soviet-backed rule in Afghanistan; secretly funded and armed by the USA (via Pakistan), Saudi Arabia and China.
Question
What happened after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan (1989)?
Answer
The PDPA government survived without Soviet troops until 1992, when it fell to mujahideen factions, leaving Afghanistan fractured among rival warlord groups.
Question
Compare the Vietnam War and the Soviet–Afghan War in one sentence.
Answer
Both saw a superpower's conventional forces worn down by guerrilla resistance backed by a rival superpower, ending in withdrawal rather than victory.
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Cold War conflicts in Asia
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