The background leading up to direct American military involvement in Vietnam can be traced to the close of World War II, when a power vacuum was created with the defeat of the Japanese, and the rise of the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh. From 1945 through the events leading up to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Vietnam would become a state divided into North Vietnam, controlled by Ho Chi Minh, and South Vietnam, allied and propped up by western powers. Through the incursion and attempt to recolonize Vietnam by France and the United Kingdom, Vietnam would be set on the path for eventual direct American incursion in a containment policy intended to curb the spread of Communism throughout southeast Asia.