Richard Nixon's Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy created by the Richard Nixon administration during the Vietnam War to end the US' involvement in the war. The idea was to train the South Vietnam soldiers to take the place of the US troops in the war as the plan was to steadily reduse of number of US troops in Vietnam. In June 1969 Nixon announced the withdrawal of 25,000 U.S. troops from Vietnam. In September Nixon called for more troops to leave, and by March 1970 announced that 150,000 troops would be removed from Vietnam over the next year. The plan worked in the way of removing US troops for Vietnam, but it was a disaster in training South Vietnamese troops. Although they were being trained by highly skilled US troops, the South Vietnamese soldiers were never equipped to survive the North.
In January 1973, a peace treaty was signed as the Paris Peace Accord to stop the fighting. This treaty was signed by all parties, but the Viet Minh ignored it and later attacked the South, who were not ready and not equipped to win. The North Vietnamese took over the South easily and the capture of Saigon by North Vietnam in April 1975 was the official end of the war. The North and South were the reunified as one country the following year.
