This book provides a gripping exploration of the full two decades of the Vietnam War—arguably the most important event, or series of events, of the American Century. The United States entered this brutal conflict certain of its Cold War doctrines and its moral mission to save the world from the advance of communism. But the war was not at all what America expected. Outnumbered and outgunned, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces resorted to guerrilla warfare based on the theories of China's Mao Zedong. This was war reduced to its most basic level—find the enemy and kill him.