The events of the late 1940s and 1950s seemed to support this. The theory drew on the ideology of Vladimir Lenin, who called for international revolution, and the actions of the Soviet Comintern, which supported communist groups abroad. Burma would probably fall. 2. D o r n i n o o s i n Central America Will They Fall? The loss of regions traditionally within the vital regional trading area of countries like Japan would encourage the front-line countries to compromise politically with communism. Robert McNamara on Kennedy, the Domino Theory and Vietnam (1966). become more aggressive. In 1945, the Soviet Union brought most of the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Europe under its influence as part of the post-World War II new settlement, while prompting Winston Churchill to declare in a speech in 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri that: Following the Iran crisis of 1946, Harry Truman declared what became known as the Truman Doctrine in 1947, promising to contribute financial aid to Greece during the Civil War and to Turkey following World War II, in the hope that this would impede the advancement of Communism into Western Europe. The Domino Theory was also fuelled by assumptions about Chinese expansion. nuclear forces and strategy They do The fall of Laos was essentially due to repeated outright invasions by Vietnam and the inability of the army of Laos to defend the country. But as the I think we were right to pull out of Vietnam when we did, and wrong to be there in the first place, but it's too simplistic to say that the domino theory looks "completely wrong" or "crazy" in hindsight; there are an awful lot of dead people in Indochina, Latin America and Africa who would quibble with that assessment. possible to establish another defensive line and save the other dominoes, When Kennedy came to power there was concern that the communist-led Pathet Lao in Laos would provide the Viet Cong with bases, and that eventually they could take over Laos. the Joint Chiefs strongly rejected this notion. historical and theoretical questions behind them. to American "credibility." By closing this message, you are consenting to our use of cookies. Believing that current Communist leaders were taking the party, and China itself, in the wrong direction, Mao called on the read more. This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. For more info, visit our FAQ or Terms of Use. For instance, China supplied the Vietminh, the North Vietnamese army, with troops and supplies, and the Soviet Union supplied them with tanks and heavy weapons. If aggression is tolerated in small out-of-the-way places, aggressors will be emboldened to attack larger, more vital places. During the Iran-Iraq war the United States and other western nations supported Iraq, fearing the spread of Iran's radical theocracy throughout the region. URL: https://alphahistory.com/coldwar/domino-theory/ The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world. In 1964 as president, however, he did ask questions. seems dubious we'd even be offered the opportunity to attempt Their governments and militaries were weak, their societies uneducated and their borders fluid. intelligence analysts at the CIA's Board of National Estimates, Its proponents often exaggerated the strength of therefore was not worth trying to resist communism. Under President Harry Truman, the U.S. government provided covert military and financial aid to the French; the rationale was that a communist victory in Indochina would precipitate the spread of communism throughout Southeast Asia. Some of the 1960s officials most conspicuously Secretary of Go to Table International Security, Fall 1987(Vol. See also Trumans assessment: It is only necessary Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. The readiness of Western policymakers to accept the Domino Theory was probably influenced by events in Europe during the 1930s. Asia was just as susceptible to communist expansion. In Eisenhowers view, the loss of Vietnam to communist control would lead to similar communist victories in neighboring countries in Southeast Asia (including Laos, Cambodia and Thailand) and elsewhere (India, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and even Australia and New Zealand). either hold the line in Vietnam and Thailand or pull its defenses back to without any massive invasion by foreign communist armed forces. Robert McNamara, among others, had revised it. Also, the theory was Every US president from Harry Truman to Richard Nixon was an advocate of the Domino Theory. [4] Historian Max Boot wrote, "In the late 1970s, America's enemies seized power in countries from Mozambique to Iran to Nicaragua. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York W.W. Norton, 1969), p. 219. The Soviet Union was playing one of the greatest gambles in history at minimal cost.2 Several years later, the logc of the domino theory in part accounted for the Truman Administrations decision to resist the North Korean attack on South Korea, reversing an earlier policy that had excluded Korea from the U.S. defense ~erimeter.~ Then, a few years after the Korean War, the domino theory was explicitly applied to Indochina. non-communist nations of Southeast Asia could be trusted to care very much harbor strong domestic communist parties might easily be stampeded into The theory had sometimes Borrowing a metaphor he had heard, he stated that a Communist Chile and Cuba would create a "red sandwich" that could entrap Latin America between them. However, proponents ultimately believe that the efforts during the containment (i.e. believe it China is so large, looms so high just beyond the The global interpretation of the domino effect relies heavily upon the "prestige" interpretation of the theory, meaning that the success of Communist revolutions in some countries, though it did not provide material support to revolutionary forces in other countries, did contribute morale and rhetorical support. such as Thailand, as a place to make a stand. John F. Kennedy spoke of the Domino Theory and hinted at it in his inauguration speech, warning that our security may be lost piece by piece, country by country. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon also accepted the Domino Theory as fact, a position that underpinned their continuation and escalation of the Vietnam War.

call for the United States to pick South Vietnam as the place to take a The Cominterns main objective was to foster and support communist movements in other nations, in order to facilitate the spread of communism. 12, No. In an extended version, the domino theory holds that the global credibility of American commitments would be undermined should regional dominos fall, for American resolve to resist aggression would be put in doubt; as a result, allies would waver and aggressors would be harder to deter. They might submit The domino theory is now largely discredited, having failed to take into account the character of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong struggle in the Vietnam War. of South Vietnam to communism would lead other Southeast Asian nations to With the exception of Laos and Cambodia, communism failed to spread throughout Southeast Asia. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? Select a purchase In 1949, China became a Communist country (officially the People's Republic of China) after Chinese Communist rebels defeated the Nationalist Republican government in the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War (1927~1949). withdrawn in the 1950s. In the late 1940s, this paranoia hardened into the Domino Theory, on the back of Stalins expansion into eastern Europe and the rise of communism in China. however, was made for South Vietnam. This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. However, proponents of this policy argue that this was due in part to the effects of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Even those nations that did not It would transcend borders, nationalities, patriotism and language barriers. officialsSecretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense

In this vein, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara wrote an essay, the "Message to the Tricontinental", in 1967, calling for "two, three many Vietnams" across the world. Title: The Domino Theory Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. If a tiny, poor country like Grenada can succeed in bringing about a better life for its people, some other place that has more resources will ask, 'Why not us?'" The Comintern was attended by delegates from communist parties in dozens of countries, including Western nations like the United States, Great Britain and Australia. Southeast Asia would fall and about the mechanism of the fall. But they will win a real victory, just as Soviet Communism won a real victory in the early 1970s, and that victory will have real repercussions around the globe. International Security publishes lucid, well-documented essays A similar scenario had unfolded in Asia, where Japanese imperial expansion was allowed to spread unchecked through the 1930s. International Security The governments and military forces of most Asian nations were comparatively weak.

2022 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Military Wiki is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. The primary evidence against the domino theory is the failure of Communism to take hold in Thailand, Indonesia, and other large Southeast Asian countries after the end of the Vietnam War, as Eisenhower's speech warned it could. Critics of the theory charged that the Indochinese wars were largely indigenous or nationalist in nature (such as the Vietnamese driving out the French), and that no such monolithic force as "world communism" existed. The takeover by Communists of the world's most populous nation was seen in the West as a great strategic loss, prompting the popular question at the time, "Who lost China?"[1]. about preserving their independence. During the same period, Beijing was providing moral, material and logistic support to Ho Chi Minh and the emerging Viet Minh in northern Vietnam. Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

Noam Chomsky, a linguist, writes that he believes the Domino theory is roughly accurate, although he put a more positive spin on the threat, writing on the basis that economic improvements to a poor country will always bring better life for its people. Today it remains a controversial idea, its detractors generally outnumbering its supporters. An illustration of the domino theory as it had been predicted in Asia. A Soviet image of Lenin cleaning the world, a clear sign of communisms global ambitions. Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves. It can further be argued that before they finished taking Vietnam prior to the 1950s, the communist campaigns did not succeed in Southeast Asia.

This caused the French to fully withdraw from the region then known as French Indochina, a process they had begun earlier. He is the author of a number of books and articles on American foreign policy, and is currently working on a book on the domino theory in American foreign policy since World War 11.

Communism, Lenin said, was a movement based on class, rather than nationality or race. 1. level. of South Viet-Nam would make pointless any further discussion about the Korea had also partially fallen under Soviet domination at the end of World War II, and in 1950 fighting broke out between Communists and Republicans that soon involved troops from China (on the Communists' side), and the United States and 15 allied countries (on the Republicans' side). Later that year, diplomat George Kennan wrote an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that became known as the "X Article", which first articulated the policy of containment, arguing that the further spread of Communism to countries outside a "buffer zone" around the USSR, even if it happened via democratic elections, was unacceptable and a threat to U.S. national security. Produced by Johns Hopkins University Press in collaboration with The Sheridan Libraries. Indeed, Vietnam and Cambodia were at odds from the very beginning. decade, but there had been an important psychological component to the identity of the communists whose conquests they feared reflects a Some mid-level officials, notably the Shortly before his death in 1963, when Kennedy was asked about the domino You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. commitment was necessary was an important part of his motive. Western planners believed the Peoples Republic of China would become a vanguard for expanding communism in Asia, much as Soviet Russia had done in eastern Europe. It was updated on March 7th, 2022. One country after another would These events shaped the attitudes of Cold War leaders and made them more determined to act against perceived aggression and expansion. In the end, even though the American effort to block a communist takeover failed, and North Vietnamese forces marched into Saigon in 1975, communism did not spread throughout the rest of Southeast Asia. Since the late 1960s, we have experimented with generation after generation of electronic publishing tools. This made them easy prey to communist infiltration and propaganda. 3. Opponents also argued that the domino theory misrepresented the real nature of the widespread and growing civil opposition that the previous, U.S.-backed regimes in these countries had generated because of entrenched official corruption and widespread human rights abuses, notably in South Vietnam. When Assistant Secretary of State for Michael Lind has argued that though the domino theory failed regionally, there was a global wave, as communist or Marxist-Leninist regimes came to power in Benin, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Angola, Afghanistan, Grenada, and Nicaragua during the 1970s. 2715 North Charles StreetBaltimore, Maryland, USA 21218. Please improve this article by adding a reference. The U.S. and South Vietnamese forces also contributed to widening of the war when they invaded and heavily bombed Cambodia in an attempt to root out those bases, causing an upsurge of popular resentment[citation needed] Using this same logic, Truman would also give aid to Greece and Turkey during the late 1940s to help contain communism in Europe and the Middle East. McGeorge Bundy argues that the prospects for a domino effect, though high in the 1950s and early 1960s, were weakened in 1965 when the Indonesian communist party was destroyed. nations of Southeast Asia would submit to unspecified Chinese pressures. endorsed it was higher than it had been in 1953 and 1954 under Eisenhower. The domino theorists also did not feel that the leaders of the Purchase this issue for $44.00 USD. After Eisenhowers speech, the phrase domino theory began to be used as a shorthand expression of the strategic importance of South Vietnam to the United States, as well as the need to contain the spread of communism throughout the world.