The Vietnam Syndrome, American exceptionalism, and the use of United States military force

This thesis contends that the Vietnam Syndrome is an ingrained feature of American political culture. Ever since the United States first went to war abroad in 1898, U.S. administrations have found that the American public will support a foreign war if just cause, compelling objectives, and progress to victory can be demonstrated. Examination of major U.S. interventions abroad from the Spanish-American War to the Vietnam War reveals that these conditions were usually followed implicitly by U.S. presidents and their fellow decision-makers. In Vietnam, however, the U.S. lost a war overseas for the first time, and in a manner that threw into question the cultural belief--termed American Exceptionalism--that the U.S. is exceptional among nations. Following this defeat, analysts, scholars, and decision-makers debated the lessons of the war and began to construct a systematic list of conditions, known as the Vietnam Syndrome, under which the use of force could be deemed acceptable and would sustain public support. Analysis of post-Vietnam U.S. interventions, including the Gulf War, reveals that the syndrome is a prevailing influence on decisions to use U.S. military force abroad.