After winning independence, both Vietnam and Cambodia

1. remained under Communist control.

2. achieved global economic success.

3. suffered under brutal regimes of control.

4. remained poverty-stricken.

The Vietnam War also called the Second Indochina War, and known in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America (ỹ in Vietnamese), was a war between 1955 and 1975 to prevent the reunification of Vietnam under a communist government. In this war the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam, capitalist) participated with the support of the United States and other allied nations of the United States against the local guerrilla of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam (Viet Cong) and the Army of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), backed by China and the Soviet Union, all of them communists. It is estimated that between 3.8 and 5.7 million people died in total. Note 2 The United States accounted for 58 159 casualties and more than 1700 disappeared, constituting the country's longest fight until the civil war in Afghanistan. It was one of the most important wars of the period called "Cold War".

The conflict arose from the First Indochina War (1946-1954), in which French colonial troops fought against the Viet Minh led by the Communists in French Indochina. Most of the financing of the French war effort was provided by the United States. After the French left Indochina after being defeated in 1954, the abandonment of the Asian colony, the separation of Vietnam into two sovereign states (North Vietnam and South Vietnam) and the holding of a referendum were decided at the Geneva Conference a year later where the Vietnamese would decide their reunification or final separation. But the leaders of the South chose to take a coup d'etat and not hold this referendum to avoid winning the reunification. For this reason North Vietnam began infiltrating soldiers in support of the Vietcong to annex South Vietnam. Then the United States, under the Truman Doctrine and Domino Theory (containing the expansion of communism), sent resources and from 1964 troops to South Vietnam to avoid conquest by the communist north, leading to this conflict.