The Vietnam War: The assassination that started it all
Ngo Dinh Dim, the president of South Vietnam at the time, was detained on November 2, 1963, as a result of a coup d'état orchestrated by General Dng Văn Minh with assistance from the CIA.
On the trip to military headquarters near Tan Son Nhut Air Base, he was murdered alongside his brother Ngô Đình Nhu by Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) officers in the back of an armoured personnel carrier.
His authoritarian and nepotistic regime, which lasted from 1955 to 1963, was overthrown. Widespread unrest and demonstrations occurred under his administration, particularly among the Buddhist majority.
His passing had a tremendous impact on South Vietnam's political and military landscape. A succession of coups and countercoups that rocked the nation made the government unstable and made it harder for it to resist the communist insurgency.
The United States and other Western nations, who feared the advent of communism in Southeast Asia, supported the South Vietnamese government under Ngô Đình Diệm. The Viet Minh established the Viet Cong, a guerrilla force that operated in South Vietnam with the intention of toppling Diệm's government and uniting Vietnam under communist authority.
The Vietnam War
The communist insurgency in Vietnam was part of a larger conflict known as the Vietnam War, which raged from 1954 to 1975. One of the bloodiest and most contentious conflicts of the Cold War era, the war was marked by millions of fatalities, extensive destruction, breaches of human rights, social unrest, environmental harm, and political instability.
According to the Britannica, Vietnam estimated in a 1995 official release that up to 2 million civilians on both sides and roughly 1.1 million Viet Cong and North Vietnamese fighters perished. According to estimates from the U.S. military, the conflict claimed the lives of between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers.
The war ended in January 1973, a final peace accord was reached between the US and North Vietnam, putting an end to ongoing hostilities between the two countries. However, the conflict between North and South Vietnam persisted until April 30, 1975, when DRV forces took Saigon and gave it the new name of Ho Chi Minh City.
The Republic of Vietnam today
Today, Vietnam is a one-party state ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), which has a strong influence over the military, the media, and civil society.
The Asian Development Bank projects that agriculture, a significant traditional part of their economy, will expand by 2.5% annually until 2025.
A record 18 million foreign visitors arrived in Vietnam in 2019, setting a new high. According to reports by the World Bank, after being negatively damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, tourism in Vietnam is expected to progressively recover after 2022.
