On July 25, 1969, the Nixon Doctrine was announced, and along with it, the expectation for America’s Asian allies to become responsible for their own military defense.
During his campaign, Nixon promised “peace with honor” in Vietnam but by the time he took office in 1969, the war continued to rage on without an end in sight. By then, the United States had already been at war for nearly four brutal years. Over 25,000 Americans had died in Vietnam, the anti-war sentiment among American protestors was a constant stream of resistance, and there was no end in sight.
The Nixon Doctrine was announced in Guam and initially called the “Guam Doctrine” before renaming it The Nixon Doctrine. Its announcement became known as a plan to “Vietnamize” Vietnam, whereby American troops would increasingly be replaced by South Vietnamese troops. And Nixon meant it — during his first term, he withdrew a significant amount of American troops from Vietnam and finally in 1973 he signed the peace treaty that formally ended the conflict for the U.S.
Nixon said that Asia “poses, in my view, over the long haul, looking down to the end of the century, the greatest threat to the peace of the world, and, for that reason, the United States should continue to play a significant role.” But he qualified the scope of that role:
“Asians will say in every country that we visit that they do not want be dictated to from outside, Asia for Asians. And that is what we want, and that is the role we should play. We should assist but we should not dictate.
“At this time the political and economic plans that they are developing are very hopeful. We will give assistance to those plans. We, of course, will keep the treaty commitments that we have.
“But as far as our role is concerned, we must avoid the kind of policy that will make countries in Asia so dependent upon us that we are dragged into conflicts such as the one we have in Vietnam.”
Two years later, North Vietnam defeated the South Vietnamese army and reunited the country under communist control. 58,220 American troops died during the Vietnam War. Tens of thousands more sustained injuries, seen and unseen.