the end of the American century
President Richard Nixon came into office seeking a decisive victory in Vietnam, the kind of victory that had eluded President Johnson. Nixon expanded the war in order to uphold a policy of containment, protect America's credibility, and defy the Left's antiwar movement at home. But by 1971, Nixon was forced to significantly de-escalate the American presence and seek a negotiated end to the war, which is now accepted as an American defeat and a failure of American foreign relations. This book provides an analysis of Nixon's Vietnam policy in a concise and accessible way.
