President Richard Nixon's policy of "Vietnamization" in regard to the Vietnam War emphasized that the United States needed to empower South Vietnamese forces to assume more combat duties. He proposed drawing down US troop involvement in the war. By the time that President Nixon and US policy shifted to this sort of approach, it was too late to stave off the victory of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces. The US eventually withdrew its forces from Vietnam in 1973, and by 1975, Saigon (in South Vietnam) fell to the North Vietnamese communist forces.