Joint warfare in South Vietnam, 1963–1969 the election of Richard Nixon, and the change of U.S. policy to Vietnamization, or giving the main combat role back to the South Vietnamese military. The North Vietnamese term for the large-scale introduction of U.S. ground forces, in 1965, is the "Local War", according to Gen. Trần Văn Trà, the [North Vietnamese] " Party concluded, the "United States was forced to introduce its own troops because it was losing the war. It had lost the political game in Vietnam...the situation allows us to shift our revolution to a new stage, that of decisive victory." The Party issued a resolution to
Role of the United States in the Vietnam War South Vietnamese government. Instead the initial deployment and gradual build-up was a unilateral decision by the US government. On May 5 the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade became the first U.S. Army ground unit committed to the conflict in South Vietnam. On August 18, Operation Starlite began as the first major U.S. ground operation, destroying an NLF stronghold in Quảng Ngãi Province. The North Vietnamese had already sent units of their regular army into southern Vietnam beginning in late 1964. Some officials in Hanoi had favored an immediate invasion of the South, and a plan was developed to use PAVN units