The Domino Theory Essay Research Paper In — страница 2

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that in the past their greatest gains came from not supporting revolutionaries, but by supporting one Asian power against another in local disputes. Such cases included Indonesia, Cambodia and Pakistan; however, China could not turn any of these countries into permanent allies. To summarize, China had too much happening at home to try and help a small country gain its independence and turn Communist. The Soviet Union, like China, was not engulfed in what the outcome in Vietnam would be. In the period of pluralistic Communism, the Soviet Union believed that each party was free to follow a strategy tailored to its own local needs and conditions. The Soviet Union believed that each country needed to fight its own battles and use their own methods to help them gain independence.

Situations are different in every country and each country knows what is best for them. The Soviet Union does not know what is best for other countries. Even if it is assumed that Communism pursues the same subtle and destructive course in every country, the obvious differences in its achievements throughout the world indicate that the obstacles it meets vary, region by region and country by country. Several Asian Communist parties, like the Thai and Burmese, pursued guerrilla tactics without great success. However, in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese used guerrilla tactics and were successful in defeating their enemy. Also, it seems likely that in each of the cases stated above past experience in that country determined their strategy more than how the Vietnamese won their war.

Finally, conditions in Vietnam were not duplicated anywhere else in the world. Only in Vietnam were the Communists able to take charge of a national independence movement at the end of World War Two. The Viet Cong had an upper hand because they controlled much of the area in South Vietnam that the Viet Minh controlled as early as 1944 during the struggle against the Japanese. In addition to the Communist superpowers looking inward and concentrating more heavily on internal affairs, there had never been a monolithic, expansionist world Communist system dominated by Moscow and/or Beijing, although every US president since Harry Truman claimed to be fighting it. If there was, then why were China and the Soviet Union fighting each other instead of working together to spread

Communism? The relationship between the Communist superpowers and their relationship with Vietnam was not as evident as the Pentagon thought. First, each of the major powers, including China and the Soviet Union, had its own agenda. A Chinese-Soviet partnership was not on the Communist agenda and a united sovereign Vietnam was also not on anyone’s list. Second, the Chinese were being exhausted by the strain of civil war from 1946 to 1949 and then the Korean War soon after. When these “problems” were eradicated China felt it would be in their best interest to turn their full energy towards internal development, not in concentrating on their affairs with the Soviet Union or Vietnam. Third, in October of 1973, Hanoi’s head of government Pham Van Dong traveled to Moscow and

Beijing to ask for aid, but his appeal was rejected. China and the Soviet Union said it was a new world where relations with the United States was important and they were not in a place to offer aid to the North Vietnamese. Finally, it was evident that China and the Soviet Union were not commandeering an expansionist Communist system, because they were not looking to control Vietnam during the Geneva Accords in 1954. Both were more accommodating to the West then to the Viet Minh. The Soviet Union once again had a similar outlook on Vietnam as China did. When US advisors asked how Communist Ho Chi Minh was the answer came back that he was definitely a Communist, but that he put nationalism first and had no direct ties to the Soviet Union. He was not a tool of Communism, in fact,

Ho was relentless in his pursuit of direct ties to the United States. Also, the Soviet Union was more anxious to pursue d?tente and had no special concern for Southeast Asia. The Soviet Union would not even recognize the freedom and independence of Vietnam. They only recognized the state of Vietnam after the Chinese recognized them when the People’s Republic of China gained its independence in 1949. Finally, the Soviet Union and China both made it clear that in the face of an American threat to intervene, the Vietnamese would have to compromise. This meant the political reality of Viet Minh power in Vietnam would have to yield to the larger political reality of its powerlessness in the world at large. All in all, both Communist superpowers were not ready to compromise their