The US was anxious that communism in South Vietnam might affect the other of Asia. It opted to assist the South Vietnamese government by sending money, equipment, and military advisers.
The Vietnam War, also referred to as the Second Indochina War, lasted from November 1, 1955, to April 30, 1975, and took place in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It was officially fought between North and South Vietnam and was the second of the Indochina Wars. The Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies backed North Vietnam, while the US, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Thailand, and other anti-communist friends backed South Vietnam. The battle, which some see as a Cold War-era proxy war, lasted almost two decades, with direct US participation ending in 1973, and encompassed the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, both of which concluded in 1975 with all three nations becoming communist governments.
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The dispute arose from the First Indochina War, which pitted the French colonial administration against the Viet Minh, a left-wing revolutionary force. Following the evacuation of French forces from Indochina in 1954, the United States undertook financial and military assistance for the South Vietnamese government. The Vit Cng, also called the Front national de libération du Sud-Viêt Nam or NLF, was a South Vietnamese common front that led a guerrilla operation in the south under North Vietnam's command. In support of rebels, North Vietnam invaded Laos in the mid-1950s, constructing the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply and reinforce the Viet Cng. Under President John F. Kennedy's MAAG program, US engagement grew from slightly under a thousand military advisors in 1959 to 23,000 in 1964. By 1963, the North Vietnamese had dispatched 40,000 troops to South Vietnam to fight.