The Congressional resolution in 1964 authorized the military to go to Southeast Asia. U.S. destroyers allegedly were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 by North Vietnamese gunboats. President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress for authority to go after those responsible. The resolution passed without much opposition. Johnson and the next president, Richard Nixon, regarded it as authorization to pursue the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia.

Thousands of lives were lost on both sides.