Why did the French colonization of Vietnam lead to the Vietnam War?

Answer 1

The Vietnam War was a war for independence that began with the Vietnamese people wanting to throw off the yoke of French colonialism. The French, after losing the Battle of Dien Bien Phu to the North Vietnamese, realized that the cost of keeping their colony was going to be greater than their will to sacrifice continued resources. So they pulled out of Viet Nam.

The US saw Viet Nam in terms of a global Communist advance and, in keeping with the US policy of Containment, decided that we needed to fill the vacuum left by France to stop Communism from spreading. Our small number of military advisors to the South Vietnamese gradually grew as the French left and the conflict escalated. Eventually, the US would employ hundreds of 1000s of troops into a quagmire and a limited war that we were not fully committed to using every resource to win. For the North Vietnamese, this was their Revolutionary War, fought on their own soil and they were determined to conquer or die. We were not as committed to victory and eventually pulled out just as the French did.