During the Cold War, the Indochina Wars (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Đông Dương) were a series of wars which were waged in Indochina from 1946 to 1991, by communist forces (mainly ones led by Vietnamese communists) against the opponents (mainly the Empire of Vietnam, Vietnamese nationalists, Trotskyists, the State of Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, the French, American, Laotian royalist, Cambodian and Chinese communist forces). The term "Indochina" referred to former French Indochina, which included the current states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In current usage, it applies largely to a geographic region, rather than to a political area. The wars included:
The First Indochina War (called the Indochina War in France and the French War in Vietnam) began after the end of World War II with the War in Vietnam (1945–1946), which acted as the precursor to the First Indochina War. The conflict officially began in 1946 and lasted until the French defeat in 1954. After a long campaign of unsuccessful resistance against the French and the Japanese, Viet Minh forces claimed a victory in the August Revolution after Japanese forces surrendered to the Allies on 15 August 1945. In the War in Vietnam (1945–1946), British forces temporarily occupied the South with the objective of disarming Japanese forces, starting from 13 September 1945, only to restore French colonial control in 1946. Meanwhile, the communist Viet Minh sought to consolidate power by terrorizing and purging rival Vietnamese nationalist groups and Trotskyist activists.[1][2][3][4][5][6] In the United Nations, and through their alliance with the United Kingdom and the United States, the French demanded return of their former Indochina colony prior to agreeing to participate in the NATO alliance (founded in 1949) opposing Soviet expansion beyond the countries of the Warsaw Pact (founded in 1955) in the Cold War. The Viet Minh coalition continued fighting the French with support from China and the Soviet Union, ultimately forcing the NATO-backed French out of North Vietnam as a result of 1954 Geneva Conference.
The Second Indochina War (called the Vietnam War in the USA and the American War in Vietnam) began as a conflict between the United States-backed South Vietnamese government and its opponents, both the North Vietnamese-based communist Viet Cong (National Liberation Front) and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), known in the West as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). The conflict began in 1955 and lasted until 1975 when the North Vietnamese conquered South Vietnam. The United States, which had supported France during the first Indochina war, backed the Republic of Vietnam government in opposition to the communist Viet Cong and PAVN. The North benefited from military and financial support from China and the Soviet Union, members of the communist bloc. Fighting also occurred during this time in Cambodia between the US-backed government, the PAVN, and the communist-backed Khmer Rouge (known as the Cambodian Civil War, 1967–1975) and in Laos between the US-backed government, the PAVN, and the communist-backed Pathet Lao (known as the Laotian Civil War or Secret War, 1959–1975).
The Third Indochina War was a period of prolonged conflict following the Second Indochina War. The conflict began in 1975 and lasted until 1991, in which several wars were fought:
The Cambodian–Vietnamese War began when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and deposed the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. The war lasted from May 1975 to December 1989.
The Sino-Vietnamese War was a four-week war fought in February–March 1979 between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Chinese launched a punitive expedition in revenge for the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, and withdrew a month later to prewar positions. Skirmishes along the border would continue until November 1991.
After the triumph of the Pathet Lao, an anti-communist insurgency in Laos lasted until most Hmong insurgents surrendered in 2007, though some resistance cells remained active for several years after. Thailand, which supported the Lao insurgents, as well as the anti-Vietnamese forces in the Third Indochina War, fought a few skirmishes with Vietnam in 1984, and a short conflict with Laos in 1987.
FULRO insurgency in Vietnam – United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races
The Communist Party of Thailand fought an insurgency from 1965 to 1989. They received backing from Laos and Vietnam from 1975 to 1979 but were expelled from their bases and lost most of their supply lines after they sided[when?] with the Cambodian-Chinese aligned forces, rather than the pro-Soviet Vietnamese and Laotian regimes.
^Guillemot, François (2004). "Au coeur de la fracture vietnamienne : l'élimination de l'opposition nationaliste et anticolonialiste dans le Nord du Vietnam (1945–1946)". In Goscha, Christopher E.; de Tréglodé, Benoît (eds.). Naissance d'un État-Parti: Le Viêt Nam depuis 1945. Paris: Les Indes savantes. pp. 175–216. ISBN 9782846540643.
^McHale, Shawn (2004). "Freedom, Violence, and the Struggle over the Public Arena in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1945–1958". In Goscha, Christopher E.; de Tréglodé, Benoît (eds.). Naissance d'un État-Parti: Le Viêt Nam depuis 1945. Paris: Les Indes savantes. pp. 81–99. ISBN 9782846540643.
^Hoang, Tuan (2009). "The Early South Vietnamese Critique of Communism". In Vu, Tuong; Wongsurawat, Wasana (eds.). Dynamics of the Cold War in Asia: Ideology, Identity, and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 17–32. ISBN 9780230101999.
^Marr, David G. (2013). Vietnam: State, War, and Revolution (1945–1946). University of California Press. pp. 383–441. ISBN 9780520954977.
^Kort, Michael G. (2017). The Vietnam War Reexamined. Cambridge University Press. pp. 62–63, 81–85. ISBN 9781107110199.
^Tran, Nu-Anh (2022). Disunion: Anticommunist Nationalism and the Making of the Republic of Vietnam. University of Hawaiʻi Press. pp. 24–30. ISBN 9780824887865.
During the Cold War, the IndochinaWars (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Đông Dương) were a series of wars which were waged in Indochina from 1946 to 1991, by...
The First IndochinaWar (generally known as the IndochinaWar in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam, and alternatively internationally...
Third IndochinaWar was a series of interconnected armed conflicts, mainly among the various communist factions over strategic influence in Indochina after...
Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975. After the fall of French Indochina with the 1954 Geneva Conference...
French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China), officially known as the Indochinese Union and after 1947 as the Indochinese Federation, was...
northern French Indochina. Fighting lasted from 22 to 26 September 1940; the same time as the Battle of South Guangxi in the Sino-Japanese War, which was the...
the French Third Republic, and the colonial administration of French Indochina (modern-day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) passed to the French State (Vichy...
like the Indian Wars, the Cold War (including the Korean War and the Vietnam War), and the War on Terror (including the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan...
war: 191,605 deaths in the First IndochinaWar, 849,018 deaths in the Second IndochinaWar (Vietnam War), and 105,627 deaths in the Third Indochina War...
French embarked on a full-scale war against the DRV, initiating what was to become known as the First IndochinaWar with a naval bombardment of Haiphong...
government officially lists 1.15 million confirmed soldier deaths in the IndochinaWars. Of these, 909,000 have had their bodies recovered. Of those with bodies...
the Kingdom of Cambodia when it was a French protectorate within French Indochina, a collection of Southeast Asian protectorates within the French colonial...
aftermath of WW2, eventually prompting the First IndochinaWar in December 1946. During this guerrilla war, the Việt Minh captured and controlled most of...
IndochinaWars, the non-communist bloc included French Indochina and its successor states: South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. However, after the wars,...
intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First IndochinaWar and involved several nations. It took place in Geneva, Switzerland...
in an overall history of NSA involvement and American SIGINT, in the IndochinaWars. A moderately sanitized version of the overall history was released...
particular, also played an important role in the Vietnam wars starting from the First IndochinaWar. China militarily supported North Vietnam by fighting...
000–310,000 people were killed as a result of the war. The conflict was part of the Second IndochinaWar (1955–1975) which also consumed the neighboring...
the war in Indochina was being fought between the Vietnamese and the French, Thailand (disliking both equally) stayed aloof, but once it became a war between...
guerrilla forces in the First IndochinaWar against France's colonial rule, and the indecisive conclusion of the Korean War. However, Stalin and Mao's offer...
of French Indochina records in 1905, in the decree that established the province of Gia Lai. The Decree of the Governor-General of Indochina dated July...