Question

Who at one point was paying 80 percent of the cost of France's war effort during the French Indochina War? 

the Soviet Unionthe People's Republic of Chinathe United States Japan

Answer 1

• By 1954, the United States was paying 80 percent of the cost of France's war effort during the French Indochina War against the Viet Minhs. This event took place between 1946 and 1954.

• To further explain this, it is important to mention that by 1947, U.S. foreign policy was shaped by the Truman Doctrine, an idea of former U.S. President Harry S. Truman, which meant that communism must be contained and that governments susceptible to communist infiltration and takeover must be assisted by means of armed forces.

• Truman was afraid that communism would spread globally, “jumping” from one nation to another, or in other words, the Domino Theory effect. As a result, in 1947, Truman sent a first amount of $160 million to assist the French war effort. By 1951 US military aid to the French increased to $450 million, by 1953 it was up to $785 million and, by 1954, when French forces surrendered to the Viet Minhs, the U.S. had invested nearly $3 billion, which is the 80 percent of the total cost of the war effort, in an attempt to protect French Indochina from communism.