26/05/2026
After World War II, the US was undeniably the leading economic power and possessed a formidable military.
However, after at least eight years of war and the expenditure of enormous amounts of money and manpower, the US was defeated by North Vietnamese forces and their guerrilla allies, the Viet Cong.
On the 50th anniversary of the withdrawal of the last US combat troops on March 29, 1973, we asked two experts and a scholar how the US ultimately lost the Vietnam War. It was the height of the Cold War, pitting communist and capitalist world powers against each other.
France, bankrupted by World War II, had tried but failed to retain its colonies in Indochina. A peace treaty divided Vietnam into a communist north and a US-backed south.
