- Keep enough military pressure on the North Vietnamese to force them to the negotiating table.
- Reduce the political costs of the Vietnam War.
Nixon’s dual strategy was to reduce the political costs of the Vietnam War while keeping enough military pressure on the North Vietnamese to force them to the negotiating table. Pursuing the policy of the Vietnamization Nixon announced in 1969 that he would be shifting the burden of ground combat to South Vietnam. By training South Vietnamese soldiers and supporting them with arms and aerial bombardment, the United States could lower its troop levels, a change Nixon figured would make the war more popular. The Nixon administration also altered the military draft, so that fewer American men would be subject to conscription, and began the move toward a volunteer army. Between 1969 and 1972, the number of US servicemen in Indochina dropped steeply from more than half a million to approximately sixty thousand.