While checking on definitions, I came across some thoughts on the Domino Theory......
domino theory, the notion that if one country becomes Communist, other nations in the region will probably follow, like dominoes falling in a line. The analogy, first applied (1954) to Southeast Asia by President Dwight Eisenhower, was adopted in the 1960s by supporters of the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. The theory was revived in the 1980s to characterize the threat perceived from leftist unrest in Central America.
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domino theory
The domino theory was a United States political theory advanced by both liberal and conservative Americans during the Cold War, especially regarding Indochina. The principle, expanded from a metaphor used by Dwight David Eisenhower in 1954 (see below), asserted that if one country were taken over by Communists, neighboring countries would fall like a standing line of dominoes.
Background
The theory had a precedent, of sorts: the Eastern Bloc. At the end of World War II, the Stalinist Soviet Union tried to starve West Berlin into submission during the Berlin Blockade, maintained tight control over East Germany, and mentored the rapid rise to power of totalitarian Communist regimes in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. A totalitarian Communist regime also arose in Albania under Enver Hoxha, but without explicit Soviet assistance.
In Asia, Soviet forces occupied Manchuria at the end of World War II, and then expanded military aid to allow the Communists under Mao Zedong to gain control over China during the final stages of the Chinese Civil War from 1946 to 1949.
On June 25, 1950, Soviet ally Kim Il-Sung of North Korea launched an invasion of South Korea. The United Nations agreed to intervene in South Korea, and the crisis escalated into an explicit confrontation against the Chinese and Soviet military in the Korean War.
The aggressive momentum of this expansion of Communism in Europe and Asia echoed the swift and steady progress Nazi Germany had achieved just years earlier, first with its conquest of Poland, followed rapidly by conquests of Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.
Moreover, the Soviet Union had armed itself with technical knowledge about the atomic bomb using information from its espionage network that included Klaus Fuchs embedded in the Manhattan Project, Donald Maclean and the Cambridge Five, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. The detonation of a Soviet atomic bomb on August 9, 1949, and a Soviet hydrogen bomb on August 12, 1953, raised alarms that Soviet expansion and Stalinist-style domination would be unstoppable.
Birth of a theory
The roots of the theory lie in a 1947 essay by George F. Kennan published, anonymously, in Foreign Affairs as "The Sources of Soviet Conduct", which became known as the X Article. The essence of the article, which viewed the Soviet Union as expansionist and proposed the policy of strategic containment, influenced the politics behind the entire Cold War, beginning with Truman and the so-called Truman Doctrine.
The "Domino Theory" was first espoused by name by President Eisenhower in an April 7, 1954 news conference[1] (http://hs1.hst.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/domino.html), and was originally applied to Indochina, which includes Vietnam.
If Communists succeeded in Indochina, Eisenhower argued, they would then successively take over Burma, Thailand, and Indonesia. This would give them a geographically strategic advantage, from which they would be able to win in Japan, Formosa, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand.
The theory was actively embraced by his successors, especially presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Later, after the failure of the proxy war in Vietnam, and the achievement of nuclear parity, presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, and Jimmy Carter practiced a "relaxed" containment known as détente. Under President Ronald Reagan, containment was discarded and dissolution of the USSR became an explicit policy goal.
Controversy
Many opponents of intervention in Vietnam thought the theory was highly exaggerated. After the DRV took over in 1975, Laos and Cambodia also "went Communist," prompting some to conclude the domino theory had been vindicated. Others pointed out that Laos had been dominated by North Vietnam for years and that Cambodia's Khmer Rouge were enemies of the Vietnamese. Richard Nixon once said that the strongest argument for the domino theory was that the "dominos believed it," and indeed there were often fears in countries that bordered communist nations that their governments were in danger of subversion. This fear led to policies such as the NATO alliance and other forms of containment, dedicated to protecting non-communist nations from "falling."
Some leftist academics, notably Noam Chomsky, believe that the "real domino theory" is that if one country successfully developed itself into a successful socialist state independent of foreign interference, other countries would follow by example. Chomsky called this the "threat of a good example" and believes it is the main reason for American intervention in otherwise insignificant countries such as Cuba, Guatemala, East Timor, and Angola. This theory has been criticized for downplaying the influence of the Soviet Union in the Third World, although Chomsky argues that US policy largely forced the countries to get supplies from the Soviets because the US ensured no one else would sell to them, then the US used the Soviet connection as a pretense for investigation
Modern times
The domino theory has been renounced by many of its original advocates, but continues to be used as an argument for military intervention. Today it is often applied in the United States to refer to the potential spread of both Islamic theocracy and liberal democracy in the Middle East. During the Iran-Iraq War the United States and many other western nations supported Iraq, fearing the spread of Iran's radical theocracy throughout the region. In the 2003 invasion of Iraq, American neoconservatives argued that by invading Iraq a democratic government could be implemented, which would then help spread democracy across the Middle East. In 2005 supporters of this theory thus viewed democratic reforms in Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt as "proof" that this theory was valid.
See also: Domino effect, Truman Doctrine
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Mentioned In
domino theory is mentioned in the following topics:
Domino Theory of Moral Nonresponsibility domino
domino effect Domino (disambiguation)
Kirkpatrick Doctrine Weather Report
list of U.S. Presidential doctrines slippery slope
containment world civil war
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