Eisenhower and the Domino Theory

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how, to justify his support for South Vietnam, President Dwight Eisenhower and Vice-President Richard Nixon put forward the domino theory. The paper looks at how it was argued that if the first domino is knocked over then the rest topple in turn and how. by applying this theory to South-east Asia, Eisenhower argued that if South Vietnam was taken by communists, then the other countries in the region such as Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia, would follow.

From the Paper:

"Some political scientists argue that domino theory had precedence and traces elsewhere. Donald J. Macdonald, for example, points to the Truman doctrine, the Berlin blockade, and the reaction to the Soviet detonation of the atom bombs as sharing the basic traits of the theory. Others would look to the Middle East, Africa and Latin American countries that equally became battlefields as a result of the application of this theory. Even though this author does not deny the ramifications of domino theory as global, the dissertation will focus on developments specifically in Southeast Asia because this was the area in which domino theory most clearly manifested itself between approximately 1945 and 1969. Most importantly, it was Southeast Asia which witnessed the most dramatic transformation from being peripheral colonial entities to global arbiters of the balance of power during the Cold War - a phenomenon that cannot ultimately be explained without reference to the take-up of domino theory. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Ang, Cheng Guan, 'The Domino Theory Revisited: The Southeast Asian Perspective', War & Society 19/1 (May 2001).
• Bowie, Robert R. and Richard H. Immerman, Waging peace: how Eisenhower shaped an enduring cold war strategy (New York and Oxford, 1998).
• Buckley, Roger, The United States in the Asia-Pacific since 1945 (Cambridge, 2002).
• Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954 (Washington, D.C. 1954).
• Dockrill, Saki, Eisenhower's New-Look National Security Policy, 1953-61 (Basingstoke, 1996).

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