Background The Second Indochina War or the Vietnam War known in Vietnam as the  Resistance War Against America (War Against the Americans to Save the Nation)  or simply the  American War, was a  Cold War-era  proxy war  that existed in  Vietnam,  Laos, and  Cambodia  from November 1,1955  to April 30 1975 during the Fall of Saigon. Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, & Cambodia) which is a French colony had been occupied by the Japanese during the WWII (Wikipedia, 2014). In 1941, Ho Chi Minh formed the Viet Minh, a Vietnamese nationalist movement, aimed in terminating the Japanese forces in the country. Ho Chi Minh is a communist who waged a guerilla war against the Japanese with the support of the United States. The Japanese was defeated and acknowledged Vietnamese nationalism and granted the country its independence. After the Japanese granted Vietnam its independence, the French returned to Vietnam with the goal of controlling Vietnam as part of their colony. The French is very much interested in Vietnam because of its proximity to the South China Sea. The Viet Minhs only allowed the French to enter the Vietnam only if the country would acquire independence. The conditions of the Viet Minhs contrasted the plans of the French which led to the First Indochina War fought mainly in North Vietnam. After the French has been defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, French troops withdrew from Vietnam and the nation was divided into a Communist North led by Ho Chi Minh and a Nationalist South headed by Emperor Bao Dai by the 17th parallel in the Geneva Accords of 1954. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu also marked the end of the First Indochina War. After the division of Vietnam, North Vietnam pursued to impose Communist ideas along the entire nation of Vietnam which became the main cause of the Second Indochina War or the Vietnam War. Resistance from the South sprouted and further intensified when they sought foreign aid from the United States thus increasing the complexity of the war for the North, being the greedy state, had been threatened by the alliance formed by South Vietnam and the United States. North Vietnam became insecure and also pursued alliance from other Communist countries such as Soviet Union and China and so the war was between the Communists of North Vietnam with China and Soviet Union as its allies and the Nationalists of South Vietnam with US as its principal ally. The Communists controlled much of the countryside while South Vietnam and United States facilitated most of the cities. US participation further escalated the conflict between the two Vietnams which was supposed to be just a civil war. Strategies Options Strategies used by the Viet Cong According to an online article, Battlefield: Vietnam, North Vietnam's strategy of spreading Communism and making it the governing ideology to rule Vietnam was to form the army of Viet Congs, a political organization in South Vietnam, where most of its armies will also come from South Vietnam, and leave some of them as spies in SV but will work under North Vietnam. North Vietnam also formed the National Liberation Front to conduct an insurgency indigenous to South Vietnam. The main goal of the Viet Cong was to spread Communism and defeat US. The Vietcong used a variety of strategies to defeat the forces of South Vietnam and US also changing the normal strategies of war. Some of the unusual strategies used by the Viet Congs was pretend to be a group of people walking in groups and working together to take down the enemy. The Jungle environment of Vietnam was used as their advantage. They would hide behind trees and low in hedges, then when a group of American soldiers would start walking by hand in hand, they would just shoot them randomly. The American soldiers were completely thrown off by this particular tactic at the beginning of the war, but as the war progressed, they started to expect more flanks (Summers, 1996). Another strategy was the use of Cuu Chi tunnels where most Vietnamese citizens would live, and was used as a way for the Vietcongs to move through South Vietnam easier. The tunnels were used by Viet Cong soldiers as  hiding spots during combat. Cuu Chi tunnels also served as routes for delivering messages as well as to deliver the necessary supplies needed by the North Vietnamese army in their different military bases. Some of the military weapons provided by China and Soviet Union were also hidden in these tunnels as well as the food, hospital and clothing supplies of the Viet Congs. It also served as living quarters for numerous North Vietnamese fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American forces, and helped to counter the growing American military effort. The Vietcong would plant traps in these tunnels, so whenever American troops would enter the tunnels, they would either die, or get captured. However, these tunnels used to stump American troops, after the war progresse