ABSTRACT
Americans went to war during the summer of 1965, confident that the Vietnamese revolutionary nationalists could not withstand the application of US military power. The prime cause of America’s entanglement in a stalemated war of increasing magnitude was the failure of US officials to develop effective strategies for achieving political objectives within a limited war milieu. Following the end of the Korean War, a decade would pass before America would again resort to limited war in order to contain the spread of Communism in Asia. Vietnam would be a limited war for limited ends, using limited assets. President Johnson limited the American military effort in Vietnam so as not to provoke Chinese or Soviet military intervention. One of the defining battles of the US Vietnam War occurred in a remote region of the central highlands between October 18 and November 24, 1965.
