Recent trends in the U.S. role in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Between the invasions of Kampuchea and Afganistan, U.S. foreign policy in Southeast Asia appears to have acquired a certain sense of direction and assertiveness, even if such direction embraces a strong reactive element to what have been perceived as the global advances of the other superpower. In this connection the Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan is seen as having particular significance in that it represents the first occasion (the history of Soviet interest and even periodic involvement in that country's domestic affairs notwithstanding) of an overt Soviet military move into a third world country. Moscow's public justification of its behaviour was construed as a double affront by an American president whose ascendancy to office was marked by an inordinate concern for morality in inter- state relationships. In the aftermath of President Carter's State of the Union address of 23 January (to which the Afghanistan crisis was a main reference point) a segment of the western press has been quick to draw heavy parallels with the containment policy of an earlier Truman era. "No More Mr. Nice Guy", proclaimed one head- line. "Back to the Cold War", promised another. The cold war and containment might be criticised for their simple assumptions about a complex international system; but it was not lacking in its sense of direction.