“The American Experience in Vietnam” will revisit America’s involvement in part of the conflict in Southeast Asia that goes back hundreds of years. We will begin by tracing America’s interests in the Far East to see how America became drawn toward Vietnam at the end of World War II. We will also briefly survey the history of Vietnam and the Vietnamese peoples in an attempt to see the war from their perspective, which was frequently quite different from that of the U.S. The overall objectives of the course will be:

• To give the students an objective and balanced view of why and how the U.S. became involved in Vietnam, how the war was fought (there and here), how it ended and with what impact and long-term implications.
• To illustrate how national history, habits, perceptions, internal politics, bureaucratic momentum and inertia, and even personality traits "impact" on major military/diplomatic decisions taken by all antagonists.
• To see how Fortuna (Lady Luck) figured in the equation.
• To explain why the Vietnam War was the longest, the most traumatic and divisive one in American history, excepting only the Civil War.
• To develop and analyze insights, lessons and "non-lessons" which have been—or should be—extracted from that costly and unhappy experience.