>>1101833
>Why did the US intervene in Vietnam?
Protect the rubber industry and remove communist influence.
>To what extent did domestic pressures influence the decision to intervene and later to withdraw?
A good portion of it.

>>1101833
All I know is that they got their asses whooped and Americans will give themselves a brain hernia doing mental gymnastics to deny it.

>>1101948
>pulling out and telling the south vietnam to defend your own war

Because there'd been the Gary Powers Shootdown, the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall, the Neutralization of Laos and the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 4 years before 1964.

LBJ figured America was on the ropes.

Keep in mind this is a guy who cut his teeth working for FDR in the 30s, so he saw these events as a creeping communist expansion, the same as the German expansion during the appeasement period.

>>1101948
>Americans absolutely ravage the vietcong
>can't push too far north without fear of a total Chinese intervention
>try to train south Vietnamese to handle their own shit, but they're incredibly incompetent to the point where a coup was necessary
>waste money and soldiers, with high social pressure at home to pull out

America is really, really good at direct war. America is really, really bad at the long game.

>>1101833
>Why did the US intervene in Vietnam?
>To what extent did domestic pressures influence the decision to intervene and later to withdraw?
To stop Gobbunism ala Korea 20 years earlier

>To what extent did domestic pressures influence the decision to intervene and later to withdraw?
Extensive pressure, Nixon wanted to look good for reelection so he caved in to a lot of progressive demands, including removing the draft.