Why did Cold War tensions rise in the years after the creation of North and South Vietnam?
1 Answer
Because it became a hot spot for confrontation between Communist USSR and Capitalistic US.
Explanation:
The division of Vietnam in two came from the liberation, after the end of WWII, of the region from the Japanese occupation.
After the liberation (operated differently in the north and in the south by different military contingents) the north was basically seized by the communist sympathizers (the Viet Minh) led by Ho Chi Minh that wanted independence from the French and a united Vietnam.
The south fell under the control of the French first (trying to re-establish their colonial rule) and then under the direct control of the US through a series of pro-US presidents (Diem for example) that weren't really very effective or reliable.
The north soon become attracted into the USSR/Chinese influence represented primarily by military aid (weapons basically) while the south became increasingly dependent (economically and military) from the US.
The two half of Vietnam soon became "pawns" used by the two superpowers to wage a kind of indirect confrontation between each other.
The two superpowers became more and more involved in the two smaller nations extending their (indirect) confrontation to neighboring Laos and Cambodia.
I think that if it weren't for the protests and opposition in the US that led the US to withdraw from the confrontation in Vietnam the situation could have probably evolved from cold to hot war involving directly the two superpowers (as happened in Korea between the US and China almost leading to the use, proposed by General D. MacArthur, of nuclear weapons)!
