Vietnam Syndrome is a term used in the United States, in public political rhetoric and political analysis, to describe the perceived impact of the domestic controversy over the Vietnam War on US foreign policy after the end of that war in 1975. Since the early 1980s, the combination of a public opinion apparently biased against war, a less interventionist US foreign policy, and a relative absence of American wars and military 'Vietnam paralysis'.
Read more about Vietnam Syndrome: Reagan's Speech To The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)
Famous quotes containing the words vietnam and/or syndrome:
“I told them I’m not going to let Vietnam go the way of China. I told them to go back and tell those generals in Saigon that Lyndon Johnson intends to stand by our word, but by God, I want something for my money. I want ‘em to get off their butts and get out in those jungles and whip hell out of some Communists. And then I want ‘em to leave me alone, because I’ve got some bigger things to do right here at home.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“[T]he syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech’s daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)