Conservative Realism and Vietnam

April 30, 2025 marked the 50^th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and America’s ultimate defeat in the Vietnam War. U.S. involvement in Vietnam stretched back to the Truman administration which provided aid to the post–World War II French government in its effort to maintain France’s imperial possessions in Southeast Asia. When France was defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, the United States stepped into the power vacuum in an effort to prevent the communists from controlling all of Vietnam.