Tonkin Resolution Essay

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Following World War II in the second half of the 20th century, a fear of dictatorship and communism took hold of the Western Bloc of the world, and the United States was pitted against the communist Eastern Bloc. As tensions grew during what was known as the ‘Cold War’, the U.S was committed to containing communism wherever it threatened to spread, and was greatly concerned in the mid-1950s when fighting broke out between the communist north and noncommunist south parts of the country of Vietnam. President Eisenhower’s ‘domino theory’ proposed that if one Southeast Asian country turned communist, then the rest would follow, which impelled America into sending military advisers to South Vietnam to train its army and indirectly support them during …show more content…
In the U.S Constitution, it is explicitly stated that only the legislative branch has the power to declare war. In Article 1, Section 8, it says that Congress has the power to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water. It is then stated in Article 2, Section 2 that the President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and can wage war once Congress has declared it. As President Johnson asked Congress to pass his Gulf of Tonkin Resolution bill that would take aggressive action and involve America in a foreign civil war, he was able to dispatch troops to Vietnam without a formal declaration of war from Congress. Johnson’s actions in 1964 were unconstitutional and an abuse of his executive power. Without following regulation provided by the document of which the nation was founded on, he escalated the war with his resolution due to his strong belief in the ‘domino theory’ and fervent opposition to communism. Congress should not have passed his resolution because it was not Johnson’s, but their job to decide whether or not to be involved in the
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