Conclusion

The fate of Indochina after 1945 stands as a horrific example of the way in which developments in international politics and a tense regional setting can coincide to create a serious and protracted conflict.

In the early post-war years issues of imperial prestige were pre-eminent in determining the French resolve to restore its rule in Indochina. Without external support, however, the French Empire could hardly have been even temporarily reincarnated after the Second World War. In fact, the demands of the Cold War created a convoluted situation: the return of an imperial Power (France) was supported by a country that presented itself as the champion of national self-determination (the United States). By 1954 the colonial Power was defeated but the Cold War had been transformed and as a result the United States ended up supporting, and trying to sustain, the southern half of Vietnam as an anti-communist bastion. In the end, such efforts proved not only costly but counter-productive, for ironically the United States lost much of its international prestige in its misguided effort to preserve its credibility as an ally; the Chinese and the Soviets became more deeply involved in Indochina than they probably would have been without the American involvement; and the Vietnam War shook the American people's trust in their own government's foreign policies.

The post-1975 genocides, the continued political instability and Indochina's general economic dislocation thus owe much to the way in which its fate was determined within the context of the Cold War. While such local actors as Ho Chi Minh, Ngo Dinh Diem, Pol Pot and others were in large part responsible for the sad fates of their populations, the support that such actors received from the outside — from France, the United States, the Soviet Union and the PRC, in particular — inexorably shaped the fates of the millions who inhabited Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

Perhaps most tragically, at the end of the twentieth century the state of Indochina remains bleak. Whereas a number ofAsian countries — from Japan and China to the fast-growing ‘tigers' of the 1980s — have become part of the global economy and have seen in many cases spectacular economic growth, the former French colonies remain poor economically and unstable politically. The bitter irony here is, of course, that the relative prosperity of Indochina's neighbours, under the aegis of the Association of South-East Asian Nations

Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Organization founded in 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand to provide a forum for regional economic cooperation. From 1979, and the Third Indochina War, it took on more of a political and security role. Membership increased with the accession of Brunei in 1984, Vietnam in 1995, Burma in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999.

(ASEAN), was built on the back of the wars that ravaged that region. Whether the countries of Indochina can escape from poverty and share the fruits of ASEAN's success in the new century remains to be seen.

see Chapter 22

Finally, it is important to note that the cost of American intervention had a profound impact on US willingness to send its ground troops into far-away military conflicts — at least until the end of the Cold War. In this sense, the so-called ‘Vietnam syndrome' played a restraining role on American administrations from 1975 until 2001; no occupant of the White House was willing to suffer the political fate that befell Johnson in the late 1960s. While the nation hardly retreated into becoming a fortress America after 1975, the sending of hundreds of thousands of troops overseas became inconceivable. This changed after the end of the Cold War, starting with the 1991 Gulf War, and continuing with the 2001 global war on terror, military intervention in Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. While casualties in the first Gulf War were low, the opposite holds true for the second Gulf War.

And it is in this context that the spectre of Vietnam has once again come to haunt US politics.

Recommended reading

The Vietnam War is probably the most heavily studied military conflict of the post-1945 era. The focus of most books has, however, been almost exclusively on the American side, but three works that do address the broader context of the war are Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York, 1983), Peter Lowe (ed.), The Vietnam War (London, 1998) and Ralph B. Smith, An International History of the Vietnam War, 3 vols (New York, 1984—90).

Some of the key works on Vietnamese history include Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: The Unforgettable Tragedy (New York, 1977), William J. Duiker, Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam (New York, 1995), Thomas L. Hodgkin, Vietnam: The Revolutionary Path (New York, 1981) and Timothy J. Lomperis, From People’s War to People’s Rule: Insurgency, Intervention, and the Lessons of Vietnam (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996). For Cambodia, see Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power: A History ofCommunism in Kampuchea, 1930—1975 (London, 1985), Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975—79 (London, 1992), Stephen J. Morris, Why Vietnam Invaded Cambodia: Political Culture and the Causes of War (Stanford, CA, 1999) and David P. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War and Revolution since 1945 (New Haven, CT, 1991). On Laos, see Timothy Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: United States Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955—75 (New York, 1993) and Martin Stuart-Fox, A History ofLaos (Cambridge, 1997). For biographies of two of the most important leaders in Indochina, see William Duiker, Ho Chi Minh (New York, 2000) and David P. Chandler, Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot (Boulder, CO, 1992).

The best overviews of American involvement in Indochina include William J. Duiker, US Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina (Stanford, CA, 1994), George C.

Herring, America’s Longest War (New York, 1996), Gary R. Hess, Vietnam and the United States: Origins and Legacy of War (Boston, 1990), Alan J. Levine, The United States and the Struggle for Southeast Asia, 1945—1975 (Westport, CT, 1995), James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945—1990 (New York, 1996), Robert Schulzinger, A Time for War (New York, 1997), William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History, 1954—1975 (Boulder, CO, 1986) and Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars (New York, 1990). For a challenging revisionist account, see Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience (New York, 1985).

For studies that cover particularly important points of decision-making, see David L. Anderson (ed.), Shadow on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945-1975 (Lawrence, KS, 1993) and John P. Burke, Fred I. Greenstein et al., How Presidents Test Reality: Decisions on Vietnam, 1954 and 1965 (New York, 1989). An influential argument regarding the origins and end of American involvement can be found in Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts, The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (Washington, DC, 1979). For the cleavage between American military leaders and political decision-makers, see the award-winning Robert Buzzanco, Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era (Cambridge, 1996).

There are hundreds of more specialized studies on the various aspects and periods of the Vietnam War. On the French Indochina War, see Anthony Short, The Origins of the Vietnam War (London, 1989), Jacques Dalloz, The War in Indochina, 1945-54 (New York, 1990), Peter M. Dunn, The First Vietnam War (London, 1985), Lloyd C. Gardner, Approaching Vietnam: From the Second World War through Dienbienphu (New York, 1988), Gary R. Hess, The United States’ Emergence as a Southeast Asian Power, 1940-1950 (New York, 1987), Andrew J. Rotter, The Path to Vietnam (Ithaca, NY, 1983) and Martin Shipway, The Road to War: France and Vietnam, 1944-1947(Oxford, 1996).

On the battle of Dien Bien Phu and its significance, see Howard R. Simpson, Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot (McLean, VA, 1994).

On America's early involvement in Vietnam during the Eisenhower and Kennedy presidencies, consult David L. Anderson, Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, 1953-1961 (New York, 1991), James R. Arnold, The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military, and America’s Intervention in Vietnam (New York, 1991), Melanie Billings-Yun, Decision against War (New York, 1988), Ellen J. Hammer, A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963 (New York, 1987), John M. Newman, JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power (New York, 1992) and William J. Rust, Kennedy in Vietnam (New York, 1985). On the internal Vietnamese situation, see Carlyle Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet-Nam, 1954-60 (Cambridge, MA, 1989).

The period of the massive escalation and subsequent de-escalation of direct American engagement in Vietnam has produced a number of recent works. A few of the key studies include Larry Berman's trilogy, Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam; Lyndon Johnson’s War, and No Honor, No Peace (New York, 1982, 1989, 2001), Larry Cable, Unholy Grail: The US and the Wars in Vietnam, 1965—8 (New York, 1991), Lloyd C. Gardner, Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam (Chicago, 1995), George C. Herring, LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind ofWar (Austin, TX, 1994), Michael H. Hunt, Lyndon Johnson’s War: America’s Cold War Crusade in Vietnam, 1945—1965 (New York, 1996), Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War (Lawrence, KS, 1999), Frederick Logevall, ChoosingWar (Berkeley, CA, 1999), Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996) and Andrew Preston, The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam (Cambridge, MA, 2006). For the collapse of South Vietnam and the communist take-overs throughout Indochina, see Arnold Isaacs, Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia (Baltimore, MD, 1983), William Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia (New York, 1987), Olivier Todd, Cruel April: The Fall of Saigon (New York, 1990), Ralph S.

Watts, Saigon: The Final Days (Boise, ID, 1990) and Jussi Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York, 2004).

For China's role in Indochina, see Cheng Guan Ang, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China and the Second Indochina Conflict, 1957—1962 (Jefferson, NC, 1997), Barbara Barnouin and Yu Changgen, Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution (London, 1998), William J. Duiker, China and Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict (Berkeley, CA, 1986), Anne Gilks, The Breakdown of the Sino- Vietnamese Alliance, 1970—1979 (Berkeley, CA, 1992), Steven J. Hood, Dragons Entangled: Indochina and the China-Vietnam War (Armonk, NY, 1992) and Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000). On the Soviet role the only full-length account remains Iliya Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago, 1996), but see also R. A. Longmire, Soviet Relations with South-East Asia: An Historical Survey (London, 1989) and Ramesh Thakur and Carlyle Thayer, Soviet Relations with India and Vietnam (New York, 1992).

A few more specialized works worth mentioning are Robert Brigham, Guerrilla Diplomacy (New York, 1999), John Hellmann, American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam (New York, 1986), John C. Rowe and Rick Berg, The Vietnam War and American Culture (New York, 1991) and Neil Sheehan, After the War was Over: Hanoi and Saigon (New York, 1992).

For analyses of Indochina in the last quarter of the twentieth century the reader should turn, in addition to several works cited above, to Robert S. Ross, The Indochina Tangle (New York, 1988), Borje Ljunggren, The Challenge of Reform in Indochina (Cambridge, MA, 1993), Stephen J. Morris, Why Vietnam Invaded Cambodia (Stanford, CA, 1999), Marie A. Martin, Cambodia: A Shattered Society (Berkeley, CA, 1994), Robert Schulzinger, A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War (New York, 2006), Kenneth J. Campbell, A Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam, and the Hard Lessons ofWar (New York, 2007), and Jon Roper and Saki Dockrill, Over Thirty Years: The United States and the Legacy of the Vietnam War (London, 2007).

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Source: Best Antony. International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Routledge,2008. — 638 p.. 2008

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