| This dissertation presents a new interpretation of North Vietnam's strategy during the Second Indochina War by contextualizing Ha No&dotbelow;i's decision making within the interplay of its domestic politics and foreign relations. Not only did North Vietnamese leaders devise their war strategy based on the military picture in South Vietnam and the political situation in the United States, they also took into account debates within the Vietnam Workers' Party (VWP) and the Sino-Soviet split.;Based on Vietnamese, American, and European archival sources, translated Chinese, Russian documents, and interviews with former officials, this dissertation presents a detailed analysis of North Vietnam's war effort from 1955 to 1973. From 1955 to 1959, militant leaders under the command of Le Dua´n were able to drag the DRV into war as a way to deflect from domestic problems in the North. By 1963, the hawks, who were firmly placed in positions of power, exploited the Sino-Soviet split in order to advance the war in the South, despite the opposition of the moderates of the VWP. The launching of the Te´t Offensive signaled the end of domestic opposition to Le Dua´n's leadership in the North; however, the failure of his 1968 strategy to deliver a decisive military victory forced the VWP to enter into negotiations with the United States. From 1969 to 1971, the North Vietnamese war effort entered its darkest hour as Nixon intensified the war in Indochina. Moreover, US triangular diplomacy, which sought to use rapprochement with China and detente with the Soviet Union to serve for American ends in the Vietnam War, began to bear fruit. Nixon and Kissinger were successful in getting Chinese and Soviet pressure to bear upon the North Vietnamese. By late 1972, the VWP was ready to abandon its strategy of "negotiating while fighting" in order to end American involvement without sustaining any further damage to its war effort and thus be in a position to launch an offensive against South Vietnam at a later date. |
